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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I always love visiting new restaurants that spring up near my home. As an ex-chef, I am always interested in new dishes and emerging talent. As always I get talking to the owner about their food and business in general, offering my thoughts and insight. It was during one of these chats that I received an invite to an official "Opening Night" to taste the next season's menu.
The team that had renovated the restaurant happened to be there so I chatted with them for a while about the refurbishing process, (it's one of my passions). They asked me what I did. I told them I ran a boutique B&B and they took this as their cue to start telling me stories about good and bad landladies they'd encountered (I myself prefer the word HOST). They had me in stitches regaling their tales! These are the ones that I thought were the funniest.
The team was working on a building site near Romford a few years before. They had driven up from Hove (near Brighton) and had been given a number by one of the other contractors at the site to find a bed for the night.
They rang and reserved a twin room and a single room. Upon arriving at the B&B and being shown the rooms they went to use the shower. When they opened the shower door, they realised they were cleaner than the shower, so they checked out, went to Homebase, bought a couple of sunbed mattresses and slept in the van.
On another occasion, the same team were working close to Southend and had sourced some accommodation via the Thompson directory. It was basic but not a basic price – they checked in, went to the local pub for supper and washed it down with a few pints.
On returning that night they were met with the owner sleeping on a sofa in the reception, but thought nothing of it. When they came down the next morning at 7.30am to pay for the room, they had to wake the owner up as he was fast asleep on the sofa and they asked when breakfast was.
The owner replied, "When do you want it?"
"Now, please"
"No" he retorted, "breakfast is not until 8am"
At this point a lady walking down the stairs caught the tail end of the conversation and said "that suits me, I'll have breakfast at 8am."
The owner looked rather annoyed. The lady continued to enquire about the breakfast.
"What is there for breakfast?"
"Cornflakes"
"Anything else?" the lady asked
"Milk!" was his reply
So regardless of the time any of the guests wanted breakfast, the owner simply wasn't going to provide it!
The final story the lads told me was their personal experience of their main boss. They were on a job that overran so they had to check into a B&B for the night. They had all gone to the pub after work, grabbed a meal and naturally sank a few pints.
The next morning when the guys all came down to make their way to the site, the boss looked a bit worse for wear. Apparently he kept falling out of bed all through the night but he couldn't for the life of him figure out why. It wasn't as if he was that drunk!
He'd been so fed up he decided to investigate the bed and found that he had been sleeping on a single bed base with a double mattress on top!
