We have recently returned from a lovely trip to New
Zealand – journal to be posted shortly as soon as I catch up on my backlog of
mail etc. Our last two nights were spent in a Bed and Breakfast establishment
where the service wasn’t quite what we expected. I wrote this for a friend of ours who runs a beautiful Bed and Breakfast in The Constantia Stables, South Africa
and has very high standards. She found it amusing and suggested that a wider
audience might also. Incidentally, she and Rab met fifty years ago tomorrow when they were both young ladies sailing to England from South Africa.
We booked into the BnB near Cambridge on North
Island, New Zealand,
using the Internet. We chose it to be near to our niece Nola who we were
visiting. It is situated in country New Zealand and has some lovely
views.
The email confirming our booking - and requesting payment in full in
advance for the two nights we were to stay there - had indicated check in time
was 2.00 pm. That suited us so after having coffee with Nola, we pitched
up with her and the family at 2.00 pm.
There was no sign of life at the homestead,
built in 1909, so it is claimed. After ringing the bell and knocking on the
door one of the party went around the back of the building and shortly after
that a woman, who turned out to be the proprietor, came striding up the hill in
gumboots, denims and a flannel shirt, her long blond hair giving every
appearance of having been undone for many a day. She said she had been looking
after one of her landlord's sick cows. "The poor beast couldn't stand so I
gave her grass and water, until they came to take her to the vet.", she
explained, "So I haven't made up your room yet."
She disappeared around the back of the
building saying she would let us in the - locked - front door. And in due
course she did that, disclosing a pleasant entrance and passage with an antique
chair and some nice rugs on the pale carpeting. As we stepped across the
threshold, she said, "Hope you haven't got any dirt on your shoes! I had
the carpet shampooed last week. Perhaps you'd like to take your shoes
off?" 
"No, we wouldn't," thought Rab and I, “Our shoes are
clean.”, although Nola and her children, being younger and more biddable did as
requested. 
The dining room and lounge looked very
nicely furnished in a somewhat old and tired look and had lovely views over the
countryside. We were a little discon-certed to find there was only one bathroom with
the toilet in it for the maximum of six guests. Not quite what we had expected,
although on checking, this is stated on the website. 
Fortunately we were the
only ones in residence so that did not present a problem. And, of course, Rab
obeyed the instructions regarding the removal of her make- up while we were
there.
As we thought we might be back late from
our excursion to Hamilton
Gardens with Nola and
family we asked if our landlady would be there when we got back. She hemmed and
hawed and wasn't sure as she had some shopping to do........Rab suggested she
give us a key and she agreed to pass over the key to the screen door. We gained
the impression it might be the only one - and said she'd leave the main door on
the snib - whatever that meant.
When we got back, the bed had been made up.
The room was very nice, the bed turned out to be very comfortable and the linen
was crisp and clean. Our landlady appeared from her lair at the bottom of the
passage to hand over the Rules Of The House and to enlarge on them by insisting
that all plugs must be turned off at the walls to prevent the house catching
fire. She said she would hate to see the building burn down because it was so
old. A number of other thoughts crossed our minds. She also told us about the
arrangements for breakfast. Essentially it was 'serve yourself'. And that was the
last time we set eyes on her, although we did hear her later that night in a
loud, long and animated conversation, possibly on Skype.
We tried to turn on the bedside lights
before we went out as we knew we'd be back after dark and finally found, after
moving the bed, that the wall plug had been turned off. Since we had no
intention of shifting the bed when we got back after dinner, we broke all the
rules and left the wall plug on. Our feeling was that as long as we weren't
there when the house burned, we weren't too fussed.
Returning after dark we were surprised to
see three or four calves in our headlights as we came up the drive. They seemed
equally surprised and bounced off into the night. We slept well and there was a
lovely misty morning when I woke up and went through to the dining room to make
coffee for Rab.
There were a couple of surprises for me.
One was the fact that three cows and a goat were inspecting our car in the
driveway before moving on to browse on the roses. Apparently goats are very partial
to roses. 
The second surprise was to see how nicely
the breakfast table had been laid when we were out. A sort of minimalist
approach. I filled the kettle from the trickling tap in the bathroom basin and,
after inspecting the coffee available for the plunger, which seemed that it might
have been ground some time ago, and the instant coffee, which was a bit crusty,
I decided to use our last two instant Cappuccino packs. Good decision I think.
The hot water in the bathroom did take the
promised two or three minutes to come through and was very hot. The shower was
something of a trickle but was OK. The Rules Of The House said we could use the
soap and shampoo in the shower. We were glad we had our own soap though, as
there was none in the bathroom - and that we didn't need the Dry Hair Shampoo
which was empty. Presumably some previous guest suffered this affliction. And
so to breakfast, always an important meal for us, providing the foundation for
the day's activities. Less important for our hostess it seemed.
There were three jars of cereal on the nice
oak sideboard. Not too sure how long they had been there, as the last entry in
the guestbook was two months old. But they were not too soggy or stale. There
was also a spoonful of sugar left in the bottom of the very fine china sugar
bowl. The milk was in the fridge in the corner of the room, delicately served
in its original 2 litre container. Although there was not much left in the
bottle, there was enough for our cereal. The cereal didn't taste any different
with the silver spoons, but maybe just a bit more sugar? 
Toast would be nice we thought - and we found there were
three or four slices of bread of two different sorts in the freezer. The old
toaster, possibly purchased from Noah after he'd done with it, did warm the
frozen bread through and a second push
down browned it lightly. There was a tub containing some off cuts of old butter
which we used but some of the jams in the fridge looked a little old (none had
use by dates) and the mould on the lemon
curd was off putting. Fortunately there was Vegemite where you can't see the
mould. And so we had a reasonable breakfast, leaving the crockery and utensils
we had used in the washing up box next to the toaster.
We went off to meet up with Nola, still
without seeing our hostess. Rab called out at the door of her quarters to say
we were taking the key and she responded, saying that she was still in her
dressing gown, doing some work.
We came back at about four in the afternoon
after a lovely day out and let ourselves into the locked house only to find that our bed was precisely as we had
left it in the morning - nothing had been made up. A disembodied voice from the
living quarters enquired if we had a nice day and if we wanted any coffee. We
declined and made up our bed ourselves.
We left the house again later that
afternoon to join Nola and family for an evening meal, again taking the key and
when we got back at about nine that night the light was out in the landlady's
quarters. She had been adamant that we
should write in her new visitor's book - we would be the first guests to do so
and Rab was very tempted to write exactly what she thought. I opposed that on
the grounds that it wouldn't do any good.
We were awake the next morning early and
decided against eating breakfast - there was now not enough milk for the two of
us to have cereal in any event - and decided to get a bite to eat on the road
to Auckland.
Farewell Pedfield Country House BnB, we'll not be returning.
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