Hi Lizzie, Your holiday sounds nice. I would prefer watch Flamenco over ever trying to learn it ;-
we had a very hot June, followed by a rainy cold weekend to start June shivering, as I had an art show. In Paris, many arrondissements/areas organise Open Doors for the artist's ateliers and street art events. This year, our town hall was occupied with the four rounds of elections and the event was late and not as well organised as other years. My airbnb is an artist's atelier / workshop and we participate for 14 years now. With the rain and so late in the season, we had a third of visitors, compared to a very good year. That was better than I feared 😉
but still the same amount of work to prepare everything: say good byeto the guest, sheets into the washer, bed dismantled and huge folders of paintings and photos extracted. Guest computer prepared for outdoor video sessions - the rain made that obsolete. Paintings framed, framed photosfetched from another show, canvasses from the garage box. A redecoration marathon and some posters and maps hung outside. Funny to ralise, I can blow up 14 balloons at once without gasping for air - I'll have to remeber that for my doctor inSète, who always asks if I have breathing problems. That must be on his checklist for people over 45. 😉
Best question of the weekend: "You already have a lot of paintings and not much space left to hang them. Will you have to stop painting soon, when you can't hang them anymore?"
after that, I took the Monday off and started renovation work today. As I finally found a light weight material, that is not too ugly and - most important - has a high fire resistance, I'll finally be able to cover the insulation on the ceiling. Over the kitchen, it's very high, but over the loft, where the guests stay, it's low and I always worried that a guest ignoring house rules and common sense, would light a cigarette in bed or put a candle up and fall asleep. I found already cigarette butts under the mattress!!! and molten wax beside the bed, there is no limit to stupidity, but one day the luck may run out. Therefore it was important to get something that would not flash over if someone left ghted a candle to close.