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Im thinking of giving up the gites.


dave21478
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Mine are nice too.  BUT they are HERE.  I start the season off as quite a nice person myself but by this time of year I become a maoning old cow who just wants them to be gone.  I long to lounge around in my pyjamas eating things out of a tin or packet.  I'm so tired of being NICE.  Answering the same questions week after week, admirng the same souvenirs, eating more and more meals and just wanting my life back.  After a couple of months off I forget how it is and begin to look forward to the new ones in the Spring.

I need all these people here so that I can eat and go on holiday myself, but I've got to say I don't understand people who have got plenty of money and still want to do holiday accommodation for fun.  They must be mad!

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[quote user="Cerise"]

Mine are nice too.  BUT they are HERE.  I start the season off as quite a nice person myself but by this time of year I become a maoning old cow who just wants them to be gone.  I long to lounge around in my pyjamas eating things out of a tin or packet.  I'm so tired of being NICE.  Answering the same questions week after week, admirng the same souvenirs, eating more and more meals and just wanting my life back.  After a couple of months off I forget how it is and begin to look forward to the new ones in the Spring.

I need all these people here so that I can eat and go on holiday myself, but I've got to say I don't understand people who have got plenty of money and still want to do holiday accommodation for fun.  They must be mad!

[/quote]

You sound like nearly every hospitality employee in Bedoin (where I live - but then you knew that :-)  ) that I know.  They all start out cheery and happy at Easter.  By September, they look like someone ran over them with a truck - or perhaps they wish someone would....

I can't say I blame them.  I don't work in the hospitality field, but by September, I'm about ready to scream at every biker on the road and every caravan, and everyone going 30 in a 90 zone.....  and I have no excuse.

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I admit, enthusiasm is less than it was at Easter, I had a phone call from someone who stayed last week who left his jacket by a lake 30kms away - I am happy to make some phone calls to see if it has been handed in, but I'm not going to make a trip up there to look for it, maybe I would have in March. And B&B must be far more difficult than gites, I don't have people in my house and anyway at this time of year I tend to see less of them as the weather is cooler, so they aren't in the garden and pool as often, they go out during the day and sometimes don't get back until it gets dark. I can't usually put  up with visiting friends and relatives for more than a few days in my own house,  I don't think I could do B&B.

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  • 4 weeks later...

A couple who were here a few weeks ago liked it so much, they are coming back for another week, arriving wednesday.

The phone wont stop ringing with enquiries for xmas and new year (only for the big gite though, seems no-one wants the little one for these periods)

The plumbing has gone tragically wrong. Whenever someone runs a bath or shower in the big gite, the waste water gurgles up into my bath, then drains away slowly. Its stinks. The imbecile that fitted the plumbing when the place was refurbished before I moved in has hidden it all inside the walls and has left no access points at all.

 

*hides under the table, rocking back and forth.*

 

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[quote user="dave21478"]The plumbing has gone tragically wrong. Whenever someone runs a bath or shower in the big gite, the waste water gurgles up into my bath, then drains away slowly. Its stinks. The imbecile that fitted the plumbing when the place was refurbished before I moved in has hidden it all inside the walls and has left no access points at all.[/quote]

This might be of interest: http://www.completefrance.com/cs/forums/1463624/ShowPost.aspx

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reading this (very funny at times thread) I am thinking of giving up gites - that means renting them as a guest - 'caus you really make me think us customers are NOT very welcome, just there to part with our hard earned money! Actually I have always left accom. cleaner than we we arrived, and the garden has always been weeded by my good self!

Now for le crunch : I have to say I have never understood this dream people have of owning a gite, or a restaurant or a pub. Pourquoi mais pourquoi donc? Definitely not for moi, merci.

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  • 3 weeks later...
  • 2 weeks later...

[:@]

Once again, I find myself towing some ignorant assholes car out of the lawn.,

New guests arrived today for the xmas week - They are staying in the end gite. "Il just move my car down there to unload..." he said.

I told him not to, he would be certain to get stuck due to the heavy rain and melted snow we have just had. Rubbish, he said, it wasnt that muddy and he was capable of getting the car back up the hill. I said NO and that was that. They started unloading their car, making exagerated huffing and puffing noises as they walked up and down. I felt like saying they would be puffing a lot harder pushing the car out the mud, but my manners got the better of me and I kept quiet.

I popped into the village for a few supplies, and when I came back....quelle surprise! a mercedes stuck in the muddy grass, back wheels bogged right in, and a sheepish looking guy standing next to it.

" you were right" he said. "its softer than it looks"

Of course I was right, I only bloody well live here.[:@]

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

""The plumbing has gone tragically wrong. Whenever someone runs a bath or shower in the big gite, the waste water gurgles up into my bath, then drains away slowly. Its stinks. The imbecile that fitted the plumbing when the place was refurbished before I moved in has hidden it all inside the walls and has left no access points at all.""

I think this means that your drains are blocked somewhere along the pipework,maybe outside....is there a manhole cover that can be lifted??

We had the same thing happen to us in a rented house once

It eventually makes the toilet bubble and then it blocks up .With us the bath water bubbled up in the plughole when the toilet was flushed , This was in England but I am sure it is the same in France.Turned out the blockage was 25 yds away.The plumber can tell how many rods he needs before the blockage is cleared

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  • 2 weeks later...

Hi Dave,

Well you could think yourself lucky.  We have been running our Bed and Breakfast in the Auvergne for the last 4 years and only last year finished renovating a small gite.  The summer was quieter than previous year, but the Gite was brilliant compared to the B & B.  At least with the Gite we only had to do the "change over" on a weekly basis.  Due to the financial climate most people only wanted one night stays in the B & B, to you can just imagine the work involved in "daily change overs"! 

It is only a short season in the Auvergne, but it seemed a lot longer last year and I was longing just to sit in front of the t.v and watch Eastenders for half an hour!  I enjoy meeting new people and it is the only way to improve the French language, but winters are too long so I am now watching the t.v and have time to go on long walks in the forest, but I am bored out of my brain and can't wait for the season to start again.

Everything would be OK, if I had a gym in the vicinity,but my gym is 40 minutes drive through many villages, usually in snow in the winter, so I do not get out much!!

Well let's hope the season is not too bad for 2009 and I am hoping for B & B visitors to stay a bit longer than one night!

Wendy - Le Boucharel

 

 

 

 

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  • 4 weeks later...

Its been a while since I have updated this thread with my moaning [;-)]

 

The plumbing....some compressed air cleared the blockage, (and produced an impressive geyser of ick from the dishwasher outlet) and the addition of some non-return valves in the waste pipes should prevent a re-occurance. 30€ each H.T. they cost, and I needed three of them! That was an unpleasant surprise, especialy considering I had to buy them at one of those specialist plumbing shops - you know - where customers and staff are all on first name terms, and when a newcomer like me wants something, the staff assume I can use my psychic powers to divine the prices....It wasnt until he was ringing my card through the till that I found out how much they were!

 

Speaking of unpleasant surprises, the gites have been almost as busy through this winter as they were last summer. Although this pleases my wallet, this very much dis-pleases the grumpy hermit in me who wants his peace and quiet. A quick glance at the planning calender shows that there is not more than 7 consecutive days free for the rest of the coming year till about september, and if last year is anything to go by, that will fill up too. Thats any holiday plans scuppered before they could even be planned.[:@] What do these people do here? its really very dull here off-season, and I am genuinely at a loss to think why people want to come at this time... Nothing touristy is open, the scenery is a bit grim, its muddy and cold and wet...yes, a few days of calm and tranquility in the country might be just the thing for suburban types, but two weeks? Its so grim here that even the villages single bar/resto has closed. Permanantly. Hopefully someone will be foolish enough to take it over before summer starts, or this will have quite a bad knock-on effect to the whole area.

The weather here is TERRIBLE. The "big" storms werent too bad here, power went off for a while, phones went down - Having said that, a cow farting strongly in the next field is enough to knock the phones out of action for a day or two - and a couple of trees blew over. Thats not whats bothering me though, its the snow. I HATE snow. I moved from Aberdeen to southern France to minimise my exposure to it, but this winter has deposited frankly disgusting amounts of it. It doesnt last though....a few days at most till it melts, then it snows again, then melts, then snows again, then melts....with this cycle often occuring two and sometimes three times in one day. The ground is now completely soaking and the place is turning into a mud-bog. I pity the next fool to park on the lawn against my advice. Their car will be staying there till summertime.

 

 

Anyone else like music? I like music. Im not too fussed what type, I will listen to almost anything, but if its something I really like, it has to be LOUD. If you refer back to the very first post, you will remember that this is one of my pet hates of living on-site - I cant have loud music on for fear of disturbing the guests. Well, today I snatched a rare oppertunity. The last guests left a day early, so I was doing a leisurely changover for tomorrows new arrivals (this will be their third visit since the summer, I must be doing something right here!) so I slipped a CD into the stereo and turned it up to 11. Scrubbing the yellow stuff off around the hinges for the bog seat is a bit more bearable when the mighty Pink Floyd is making the windows rattle. With the chunty sparkling again I moved onto the hoovering, The Floyd completely drowning out all other sounds. Bliss.

It was only during the brief silent pause between songs that I realised that sometime during the last 11 minute long track, I had knocked the button on the hoover and had spent the whole time pushing a switched-off hoover around the gite.

I nearly cried.

 

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[quote user="ErnieY"]

Coz his reputation for being a self confessed grumpy hermit has got around and they do it just to wind him up [:D][:D][:D]

 

[/quote]

I am told that there are now Fawlty Towers weekends where you could stay in a hotel and be insulted by a Basil Fawlty lookalike.

Maybe, Dave should advertise his gites using a similar marketing ploy?

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  • 1 month later...

Well, that was exciting.

There is a large Spanish group staying in the big gite for the long weekend - 11pm and I was considering going to bed when there was a frantic knocking at my door...."agua, agua... AGUA....AGUA"   he cried.

Fuck me, they have set the place on fire....

I ran round and into the gite. Rather than a fire, there was Niagra Falls in the kitchen.  Aye, there was some agua on the go alright. Seemingly they had all been round the table, having finished their meal when one of them got wet feet and noticed the flood seeping across the dining room  floor. A quick look in the kitchen revealed it to be 5cm deep in hot water.

Initially the dishwasher was suspected, so I hoiked it out and turned off the tap in the water supply, but to no effect. Looing under the kitchen sink, the water was flooding from the pipework going to the tap. I couldnt see much as sticking my head in the cupboard made my glasses steam up instantly, and I cant see a thing without them. I ran back to my house where the main stop-cocks are and turned off the gite supply.

They all pitched in to help with buckets, bowls, towels and sheets to mop up.

As far as I can tell, the leak is after the copper pipe at the sink, so its either the flexible braided hose to the tap, or the tap itself. A rummage in the "plumbing bits" box turned up a wee tap of the right size fittings, so I unscrewed the flexi hose and fitted the tap in the cupboard to close off the copper pipe. This means I could turn the water back on and they have water for the toilet, bathroom etc etc, and cold water at the kitchen sink. Its a mixer tap, so they are under instruction to leave it set to cold only or it will flood again.

Ze Germans in the other gite are leaving tomorrow and I have a changeover to do as ther is another family coming in the afternoon, and I will also have to find time to find where the problem is and get to the DIY shop for a new part. Nearest DIY shop is 20km away and is a wee place with limited choice and very expensive, or its 45km to the nearest city for its selection of Mr BricoMarcheDepotRamaLage.

So much for the quiet weekend.

On the plus-side at least it didnt pop this morning when everyone was out all day.

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Thanks!

I dont know if I am boring most people with this or if people are interested?!

 

The flood turned out to be a burst flexi-hose connecting to the tap - 6€ in the closest diy shop and we were back in business. The old one had been badly twisted when fitted and it had split along on of the kinks. The initial renovation here was done by the previous owners. The husband did everything himself, but plumbing really, really wasnt his strong point. The next plumbing remedial job I think will have to be easilly accessible stop-cocks inside each gite so the guests can turn it off if required and I am not present.

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Dave,

Your gite updates are definitely not boring, as it is easy to picture these things happening! and they help to give me a break from other things around the house.  Today I am trying to lasure some of the outside windows in the B & B before the predicted hailstones arrive!

Had a visit from the local Gendarmes this morning, wanted to know if I had any bookings for the summer yet.  When I said not very many, they said this was the same answer that they were getting from other gite owners in the area, not surprising really as in the Auvergne we need the sun to be shining to make the bookings arrive, then there is no stopping them.

Wendy

 

 

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Dave, your stories make me hoot.  I may give up before I even start though!  No bookings at all for this summer, yet (hopefully).  I think it's the same for many in this area though. We had a few weeks in the winter  - good snow this year I think, but zilch for the summer so far.  I keep everything crossed (makes walking difficult sometimes[:D]).

Fi

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More guests have just arrived - another family with an over-pampered fluffy cat on a lead. This must be a French thing? In Scotland it is generally only mad people who keep cats on leads! I wonder if it will look quite as well-kept after a week in the countryside with the lashing rain that is forecast?

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I don't take animals any more - due partly to:

1) A fluffy cat. Lovely fluffy cat. Lovely fluffy bedcovers. Lovely fluffy sofa and armchairs. Lovely fluffy carpets & rugs...

2) A female dog on heat. Stank the place out [+o(]. My male dog thought it was his birthday, but couldn't work out why he wasn't allowed his present and howled all week.

3) A poodle who wanted chicken for dinner. Our chickens.

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