TRUE STORIES FROM A BED & BREAKFAST HOST. I grew up in a B&B since the age of 4, after 20 plus years of having a constant stream of strangers come through the front door. You pick up a story or two....
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It always amazes me when I take a booking and it turns out that the guests are connected through friends or relatives or that I have in fact met them before. There have been a few occasions that this has happened...
Recently a Yorkshire couple came to stay for the weekend and when talking to the wife at breakfast she told me she came from Wakefield.
I mentioned to her that 40 years ago I met two Yorkshire lads from the same town and had a crazy two-week ski holiday in Kirchberg, Austria, one of whom became my flatmate for 15 plus years. I mentioned their names and she let out a squeal of surprise, "that's a friend of my Dad!"
Another time I was expecting two separate bookings, two French families. They were booked in to stay with me in August. After arriving at different times, they crossed paths in the hallway – one family had just arrived and the other was on their way out for the evening. Both sets of parents did a double take, as each recognised the other from the local supermarket back home in France. Needless to say, their stay went with a bang and they had a super time.
My most cherished example of this is when one particular guest came to stay on and off over the course of a year and was attending a nutrition and massage therapy course, run by a man called Patrick Holford. It was on this course that someone had recommended me for accommodation.
Marge became a regular guest, so I asked her to dinner and during one occasion we got talking about what we did in our younger years. I mentioned I had been a chalet girl in Val d' Isere in 1977 and co-incidentally so had she been... not only did it transpire that she had worked closely with my ex-flat mate, but we had actually met before at a social occasion when we had been working there.
It all came flooding back to me! I remembered clearly that she was the girl with the broken ankle and the blue bobble hat.
It was a friendship that was meant to be, as we now had a second chance meeting after 20 years! We have been great mates ever since and for the past 14 years I visit her in Wales where she lives and we spend a whole week catching up.
She has been a very loyal friend and someone I trust and has given me good advice when times weren't so good. Sometimes I think about the fact that our friendship would never be if it wasn't for my B&B!
