Clive Aslets comments in The Times- 28 July 2007- The room and service

Now that I have filled in appreciating his positive comments about my food, here is a quick look behind the scenes at his comment on rooms and service.

Mr Aslet "went to bed happy. I woke up thirsty. Where was a bottle of water? Not to be found". Of course not. He didn't buy one, did he? Hey, for £42 pppn (the room he was in) do you honestly expect free bottled water as well ? Just go down to some of the hotels charging as much as we do and you won't even find the "excellent coffee" that you had here. An eg: Our owners who ran this as a 3 star Hotel in 2003 had signs in the kitchen that said "For Breakfast staff" "Turn on the coffee machine. Reheat coffee from previous evening". That would be have been great eh ?

Moreover, if you pop by into the many small hotels near us, you will find teeny sausages, one sliver of bacon, a few bits of mushroom - all from a wholesale supplier. Do you think you would even find a breakfast like ours using local farm produce with mushrooms griddled to perfection around here. If you do, please let me know.

Mr Aslet says - "bedrooms that don’t betray the considerable investment that the owners have made in the hotel since buying it four years ago".
Of course not. Have you read my blog? and about the conditionof the hotel? Do you know that the ceiling dropped in our Coach House and had to be rebuilt quickly so we could live "literally" with a roof above our heads? This comment is particularly surprising coming from you as you understand the economies of old buildings. Surely, you would know that even spending a couple of hundred thousand pounds can disappear into the black hole with nothing to show for it in a building like ours. (As it happened to us). Now we are at a stage when we can spruce the hotel up. But we are rung dry - spent.

You know, what is particularly humiliating, is to watch and listen to criticism about rooms with my hands tied back unable to do anything. I know that some of the rooms are not as I want them to be, but I am powerless and penniless to change it. My vision is grand, with furniture made by the craftsmen of Channapatna in Mysore, with silks and cotton bedding in every room and elegant bathrooms with a touch of Southern India, soaps and oils made from sandalwood. Helpless, powerless, penniless, sad - that is my response everytime we get hauled up for the rooms.

On the funnier side - Mr Aslet said "For example, I had to get out of bed to switch on the light". I sent this article to my wonderful creative Parisien artist friend - Nicolas Taffin (http://www.polylogue.com) Here is his response-

"Beautiful (about the Michelin bit) !

But what? he had to get out of bed to switch on the light ???
Poor man.

Anyway, I'm a bit anxious about something.
Will we have to get out of bed to switch the light ? :-)

I hope Mark will give us a password to switch the light from the bed
using a terminal command across Wi-fi."

A bit of perspective in life is invigorating. Don't you think?

My other friend on IOW said " Good God! Did the man wet himself at night? He had to "get out of bed" to use the toilet. Poor man!! "

Then Mr Aslet writes - "Despite a confirmed reservation, I wasn’t expected when I arrived".
Naughty, naughty. You were expected. We had all your emails. The registration book was not handy and my memory gave way. Usually, I remember every one due to arrive. But then, lets jog your memory about your part of the action-

Your booking - you sent an email with confusing information about your arrival to my husband!! - not to the hotel website! How did you manage to do that? Then you were unsure of the room - requested a single then changed to a double room and then to a single occupancy of a double room - all for one night. You requested a standard double room and not a premier or sea view room for “one night only.” If you had you would have seen a room with a view rather than ones that face the cliffs.

Hey, this is not a problem, we are all human and make mistakes, just as you wrote Bonchurch and not Bonchurch Manor in your article!!

As my comments on "The Times" site says, if I had the money, this would look a million times better. Therein lies the challenge.