Posted on by maryhadow

Famous

“We’ll do 1500 words on you.  Our last interviewees were Michael Morpurgo and David Owen,” says the journalist.

Hah! I’m going to be famous at last! Cover story of a highly influential and illustrious fortnightly newspaper called “The Moorlander”, bought by at least 550 people living across Dartmoor.

The publisher and editor, who’s also the photographer, turns out to be an old online date of mine – we met at The Two Bridges a few years ago and share numerous past acquaintances from our London days.

I am interviewed by a delightful young man called Ross, who was at school when I was living through the tragedy of Foot & Mouth. Ross told me that when they were informed about the outbreak, all his schoolmates put their feet into their mouths – ha ha; I’d never heard that one before.

Well he doesn’t really need to ask me anything, as I embark on two hours of talking about myself without pause for breath.

I’m finding that these days I’m washing my hair rather more often than usual, as I don’t like Him seeing me with hat-hair post horse-riding, and now I’ve really had to do it yet again for the photographs. I hope they’re good.  I have been looking my best ever, since I have become thin, tanned and happy, despite my great age.

“Could you wear anything but black?” requests Stephen, the photographer.

“No – I’ve been through that before with the Telegraph, so I wore grey and didn’t like it.  I gather that if you were the Daily Mail I would have to wear hideous bright primary colours.  But my signature colour is black,” I reply.

He hands me a current copy of the newspaper, which he established a couple of years ago because he was bored after retiring from Fleet Street.   It actually turns a healthy profit and has now reached a print-run of 9,000.

“Where do all your customers live?” I query. “Do sheep buy The Moorlander?

“Actually, thinking about it,  I need a plumber,” I continue. “Is there an ad for one in there? Now I understand its popularity,” as I reach for his copy, and discover, blow me down, that they’re planning three  pages on Moi, featuring a full page head shot.  Yikes!

It turns out that a couple of months ago they featured Faye’s godfather, who lives in Chagford and is one of my very best friends.  He was co-producer of Tubular Bells and is now one of the leading digital remastering engineers in the world, operating from his own studio based in central nowhere, working for some of the biggest names in the music business. Wow! Me and my ilk are beginning to come out of the woodwork now we’re retirement age!

I have to be fairly careful about what I say, as this thing is going to be read by an awful lot of people I know. I am probably going to annoy, as an over-privileged mad rich posh bird. Well I’m in the paper’s hands now, and there’s not a lot left I can do.

“Err – would you like me to write a column for you?” I suddenly burst out.  “Obviously you wouldn’t have to pay me!”

The publisher gently shows me the column they already run. It contains the same sort of stuff I’ve written here about vegans, only the paper’s writer is ruder. Bollocks.  I’m not sure I can compete with her.

But anyway.  The whole thing has given me a kick up the bum, and, after a month of severe romantic distraction, here I am, back writing again.

 

 

 

 

Posted on by maryhadow

I’m An Accountant!

My accountant said it would shave £250 off his bill if I sorted out my income/expenditure myself, instead of making him do it.

Well – if you think about it, that’s the equivalent of renting out one of my rooms for two nights.  So I decided to gird my loins, not be so lazy, and get on with it.

My pile of receipts is four inches high, each one stuffed into a plastic wallet every time I spend anything.

First I had to separate them out into what I could put against the B&B, and what is private expenditure.

Then I had to sort the first pile of receipts into spending that could be entirely set against tax, eg food bought for my guests; and the ones that I could set 55% against tax, eg room refurbishment and repairs.

It took me the entire day to go through them all – right down to itemising every bunch of grapes I’d bought over the year.  There would have been over fifty Tesco receipts, each one averaging around forty different B&B items mixed in with private purchases.

After hours and hours, I reached the grand total: £22,000. And then I looked at the dates again. April 2016-2017. The previous tax year.  Already completed.

Posted on by maryhadow

First Dates

I’m going to be on it! Well probably anyway – they’re going to call at 11am today and I’ve got to Skype myself in my best gear going about my business in my home, so that they can get a handle on my personality and interests.

The first problem, as you can imagine, was getting the Skype app onto my stone-age devices. The programme-makers can also use Facetime (which I don’t think I’ve got either), but they can’t Whatsapp, which is the only one I can manage.

My mobile downloaded the app OK, but it got stuck after that. I yelled upstairs for Will to sort it out, while I departed for a slap-up dinner at Prince Hall, courtesy my great mate, Richard.

I had found myself with verbal diarrhea, speaking on the phone to the programme’s assistant producer, Jane.

“What sort of person would you like to meet?” she asked.

“I don’t know – someone who’s stronger than me, and good company?” I said.

“Would it matter how tall they were? Would 70 be OK?” she said.

Aghh – they’ve got some dwarf old grandpa in mind for me.

“Well they need to weigh more than I do, which is easier now I’ve lost nearly two stone,” I replied, “but they’d have to be really really charming and nice if they were that old.  Seventy-year-olds have wrinkly saggy boobs.”

I am most excited – the timing is fantastic.  This is coinciding with my ‘Meet the Author’ evening and will give me the chance to bang on about the most expensive B&B on Dartmoor and, even more importantly, my non-burgeoning career as an aspiring author.

Well, now I’ve nearly finished breakfast, I’d better put on a face and find some cleanish glad rags!  How terrifying! This could result in me getting publicly rejected in front of millions! Eeek!

“

Posted on by maryhadow

Watchdog?

Is NOT a hotel – also haunted
Located on a country road with no signage. Impossibly creepy, like a horror film, and there is a man in the house roaming room to room.

One of the weirdest albeit most fun experiences I’ve had. However, the room is FILTHY; bugs everywhere, damp sheets, once we closed the curtains all hell broke loose as a thousand bugs appeared/emerged and crawled all over the place.

Truly scary weird place but at the same time an experience I will never forget. But this is not a hotel.

It’s a nightmare.

Awful
I would never recommend this place to anyone. Wasn’t signposted very well ended up going past it. When we pulled up we had to ring a number to be given a code for the for that door key. Got in and couldn’t find our room. There was 6 unattended children following and hanging around us making us feel very uncomfortable. One of the youngest children was spitting at my son so disgusting. Then the children were blocking my children from walking down the stairs as we were leaving as we were not staying in a place we didn’t feel comfortable In and that there was no one to ask about how to get to our room. Please anyone do not even book here. I never saw any adults around either.

Don’t go there
A warning to anyone looking at staying there, got given a code to get in it didn’t work once we did get in you couldn’t get though the next door we tried the main door that didn’t open eventually someone opened the door for us.
Once we got into the room it was disgusting the bathroom was dirty wallpaper hanging off the wall cobwebs hanging from the ceiling stains on the carpet and toilet brush was disgusting. The sheet didn’t fit the bed the quilt hanging out the duvet cover. They charged £75.00 a night we would never go there again

Don’t book.
Turned up and code we had been given was wrong to gain access to house keys. Then they didn’t work as was a key in the lock on the inside. Though turned out entry could be gained by any one of three unlocked back doors. Room then turned out to not be made up. Seems one of other guests had friends over and none of rooms are locked if not in use. 

took one look at the establishment and walked out
Drove into an untidy car park and the outside of the building gave me cause for concern. Walked into the bar area which was dirty with ripped carpets, asked to see the room and was shown up a badly decorated staircase to a tiny room. The twin beds were barely a foot apart and the beds looked like they had already been slept in.
The whole place made me creep and I decided to cancel my stay

Smellydelly
Dirty, Mouldy, Smelly, no hot water
The room was horrendous, it was dirty, mouldy, grubby, hair in the bed, no hot water, no shower only a filthy bath, just bleeuugghh. Booked 4 nights through but only stayed for 1 it was that bad then couldn’t get money back. Had to fork out again and book the rest of the stay at a different hotel down the road.

Room Tip: just don’t book for any reason

Totally ripped off….This place should be condemned…where are the hotel inspectors? Safety inspectors?

Absolutely disgusting hotel..The local people feel it shames the town…..I agree.
Filthy room,,,,,dust and litter under the bed and between furniture I found a magazine under the bed among the dust which was a month old..Don’t expect to hear the sound of a vacuum cleaner here…
Daily excuses as to why there was no hot water.,,,this apparently is par for the course at this horrible nasty hotel.
I bought a bucket and used the kettle to wash myself with a flannel.daily.
Please wipe your feet when leaving the building..

Room Tip: You will not find a clean room here..I’m speechless

Avoid discusting!
This hotel needs closing down! Mould, dirty, no hot water.made my skin crawl! Stayed one night, because couldn’t get anywhere else to stay at such short notice. Slept in my clothes as didn’t want to touch anything.discusting!

Terrible
Please do not enter – you will regret – as simple as that. I am surprised that it is still open. Only popped in for a drink, no beers (just lager) – it smelt and was simply gross. 

This is just a tiny handful of recent TripAdvisor reviews of some of the properties owned by the organisation that has taken over my erstwhile favourite pub.

According to Facebook there are various lawsuits pending, and in June they were  fined £thousands for refusing to comply with fire regulations. Across all the properties owned by this organisation, the average TripAdvisor blob-rating is just over two out of five.

Why on earth do they continue to add to their portfolio, and why do the agents continue to represent them, when it would appear that they don’t have a clue how to run their properties, causing such misery, frustration and disappointment to so many guests? It seems totally bonkers to me, and I would have thought that in due course a Watchdog TV programme will start an investigation.

After a flying start – exquisite food; cosy, characterful, welcoming, warm ambiance; friendly efficient service; all at a fair price (what more could anybody want?) – the chef and at least nine other staff (most of whom are my mates) have walked out over a period of less than two months.  Meanwhile another friend of mine, waiting for a reimbursement having booked a non-existent dinner for ten friends attending a funeral, got yelled at in the street, in front of the entire village!

The whole thing is tragic.  Everyday something new happens resulting in my jaw dropping closer and closer to the ground. I am increasingly astonished, and dismayed.

Posted on by maryhadow

Doing a Katie Hopkins

Isn’t it surprising how many vegetarians are fat?  It’s probably all those flapjacks and carob-brownies masquerading as health foods in Holland & Barrett.

Over the past four years increasing numbers of my B&B guests let me know beforehand that they’re veggie, or even vegan, prompting me to buy Linda McCartney’s revolting cardboard cylindrical Cumberland quorn sausages, and one of the myriad choices of dairy-free milk substitutes – almond, soya, oat? How can you tell which one they’ll prefer? I also offer Bertolli spread, oat creme fraiche and dairy-free fruit yogurt, and actually all of this is almost no trouble at all. But, at the end of the day – let them eat eggs (oops, not the vegans – can’t even put butter on their toast!)

I always expect non-meat-eaters to be weak, white and wan.  I also worry about them clocking the hunting pictures which surround them in my dining room – their place-mats, coasters, and Lionel Edwards prints on the wall. Well I am now having to eat humble pie (a dish originally made from the innards of deer).

Last week a French mother-and-daughter couple proved our fittest couple yet.  The Mum was celebrating her 65th birthday, walking in some borrowed Dunlop wellies; and the daughter is the most beautiful creature I have ever seen. Six foot tall, willowy gazelle-like slender, like the Russian girls gathered in the loos at Annabel’s – a different breed of human.  Only this one is no dolly-bird – she’s developing a new kind of un-launderable money for the city.  She’s the best advertisement for veganism that you could possibly dream up.  Being French, highly intelligent and successful she doesn’t really do smiling, and knows exactly what she wants and likes, so she’s bloody scary, but over her stay, she thawed.

Anyhow – she has an app on her phone which proved that, crossing Dartmoor hills, bogs, rocks and gorse, this remarkable pair averaged 23km a day over four days. Phew.