I am still very new at this, but I need to vent a little. Although my gite/holiday cottage is not quite ready for letting, it is very comfortable inside and now all that remains is for a patio and barbeque to be finished. But this weekend a friend of mine is getting married and her new husband is Dutch and many relatives are coming from Holland. She had to find places for them to stay, and asked me if I could help. So I have 8 adults and a 9 year old staying in the cottage - more really than it should take, but the circumstances are special. We agreed a really cheap price, and I was told to expect my visitors on Thursday evening.
I went to the market on Thursday morning and found the first car load in the driveway on my return, a bit miffed that I wasn't there. I apologised and said they were earlier than expected, but took them in and said I would bring round the tea and coffee etc that I had bought. While I was unpacking, the wife came banging on my door demanding the coffee as her husband was impatient. She then proceeded to tell me that my ponies were very unfriendly and that the 'tiny one' had kicked her daughter! Excuse me? What were they doing in the pony field, with strange horses and a small child? How did they get close enough to Tiffin to even touch him, let alone frighten him enough to do something like that? None of the ponies has ever tried to kick or bite me. They had to climb over the electric fence to get in and then must have backed him into a corner against the fence or something equally bad.
Since then they have broken the coffee machine, fused the electricity and complained that they can't keep their coffee hot (I gave them a percolator and a cafetiere instead of the broken filter machine). They also said that the price I was charging was too high - it is really nominal and only covers breakfast and laundry, as I said that I was not really in the commercial world yet with it.
I hope this is not a taste of things to come!
I went to the market on Thursday morning and found the first car load in the driveway on my return, a bit miffed that I wasn't there. I apologised and said they were earlier than expected, but took them in and said I would bring round the tea and coffee etc that I had bought. While I was unpacking, the wife came banging on my door demanding the coffee as her husband was impatient. She then proceeded to tell me that my ponies were very unfriendly and that the 'tiny one' had kicked her daughter! Excuse me? What were they doing in the pony field, with strange horses and a small child? How did they get close enough to Tiffin to even touch him, let alone frighten him enough to do something like that? None of the ponies has ever tried to kick or bite me. They had to climb over the electric fence to get in and then must have backed him into a corner against the fence or something equally bad.
Since then they have broken the coffee machine, fused the electricity and complained that they can't keep their coffee hot (I gave them a percolator and a cafetiere instead of the broken filter machine). They also said that the price I was charging was too high - it is really nominal and only covers breakfast and laundry, as I said that I was not really in the commercial world yet with it.
I hope this is not a taste of things to come!