I had a day from hell yesterday and actually the day before - my car stopped about ten times on the trip from London to Cornwall to do the changeover, then my drier broke down, the new guests needed a freezer, there was a lot of cleaning to do from previous guests (8 youngsters), the dishwasher needed repairing and the xbox, the best way to get TV in my area, stopped working. I spent the day rushing around, mowing, dusting, cleaning, calling repairs, ordering parts, moving appliances around ( tried another drier that didn't work either), and all the other jobs - anyway my guests (family of 6) said they would arrive at around 6.30pm although 4pm is the official time and I had said come any time after then. I was still doing the last bits when they arrived at 5.30pm with a few things left to do. I showed them round the 3 rooms of 4 that I had prepared for them, having shut the door on the 4th with ensuite. Their eldest son quite understandably wanted to have the ensuite double which wasn't made up and the bathroom not cleaned, so I agreed to clean the bathroom while his mum told him to make up the bed. I was still waiting for three of the towels to dry and promised to get them to them when they were ready and fix the Xbox problem but had a dinner appointment with a friend and appliances engineer who had spent about 2 hours during the day helping me sort out the issues with appliances. The trip to Cornwall was unscheduled and I was supposed to be doing treaty things with my 10 year old son with whom I spend only a quarter of the time (the courts awarded the lion's share of the time to her even though she destroyed the marriage in spectacular style, in a provable and criminal way but inadmissible evidence - she is narcissistic and very clever and I was an idiot!) My son then spent the day helping me hoover and one or two other things and only when at my friend's house did he remind me that I had promised to take him to the cinema and had been putting him off for the last few days - we haven't been to a film together for about a year, so I couldn't turn him down again, especially as the film, Yesterday, was not showing the next day. My friends said they would drop the towels in for me and very kindly did so - we often help each other out. Unfortunately, the Xbox for my guests would not perform, a password issue had decided to rear its ugly head - formerly the password went through automatically. During the film, I received about 10 messages, the first of which came through at full volume causing great embarrassment - I then put the phone in silent mode. My pocket then vibrated on and off for the rest of the movie (likes to tell me twice about receiving a new message) before I put it on the floor realising what the problem was - I decided we would go straight to my guests after the movie but didn't read the messages. We got back and they were playing a game on the floor when I knocked and the Mum came out. I explained the whole story, I usually don't make excuses but there was no other way this time and promised to put it all straight which I did over the next 30 minutes - got a new subscription to Netflix, cleared out offending bathroom bin, gave out recycling sacks and advice, replaced broken kitchen bin and gave a 3rd saucepan from my collection. She asked me to think about how much compensation they should get as they had saved up for this holiday, and to think about it overnight. So, here I am asking what would be reasonable under the circumstances - they have paid just over £650 for 4 nights. Thanks for listening! What do you think?
