To put it diffidently, today I am over the hump when it comes to my aspiration of spending a year in England. Presently, I am spending my days doing everything I can
to make myself indispensable around here.
Loraine gone all day.
Freshened room of worker boys during the day, took in their money tonight (as
it appeared I was the only one around) after they decided to leave a day early as
it was going to rain all day tomorrow, or so they believed, preventing them
from doing their work. (Turned out it didn’t end up raining at all – a lost day?)
Of the three other rooms we had rented out Saturday
night, stripped the beds, refreshed and cleaned the cups and glasses and
restocked the supplies that go with those things, brought the sheets, duvet
covers and towels down to the laundry, put them in the washers and then dryers,
spruced up the rooms, leaving Stacey to change over the linens and hoover the
floors.
Learned one thing ‘by sad experience’ – it had been
Jodi’s partner who had come looking for a room. I had been the one to answer
the front bell, where he had come across as very respectful and decent.
Regrettably, didn’t turn out to be what it appeared – several times there was very
loud talking and guffawing (they were across from my room), and at one point,
when I brought it up to them, one of Loraine’s sons had gone to ask them to
please keep it down. (Next to them the Ayles were trying to sleep – I felt bad
about that, and kind of cringed every time the volume spiked.) At some point a
second guy joined the group of three – Jodi, her partner and their toddler. This
morning we discovered that the room had been left a major mess – I’d almost say
trashed, but don’t want to paint too severe of a picture. More than anything I
felt for that little guy, Jodi’s boy, what with loud talking and drinking going
on till late, and wondered what his home life must be like back where he comes
from.
Took in another random guest around 9:30 tonight –
a bloke from Australia. (I understand a lot of the adjoining hotels are either
closed for renovations or else the owners have taken advantage of the slow
month and taken themselves off on holiday – good for our business!) Many of the
older people have had some difficulty trying to figure out how to operate their
television sets (not so very unusual as the set-up is a TV plus some sort of
other gadget – and not every room has the same combination of makes or models either).
I was kidding Ben, as his name turned out to be, that I was sure he’d be able to figure it out, being ‘a
guy’ and all – and he replied that he sure hoped so, on account of he was a
mechanical engineer! Never did hear from him, so I guess he got it – or else he
was too embarrassed to admit otherwise!
ah, Steve - miss ya buddy . . .
what I got me from Aldi today
