Saturday, August 28th, 2021
Here are place settings for two couples at opposite ends of the table. Normally guests are seated near to the window end of the room and they generally enjoy making one another’s acquaintance over breakfast. On this occasion, it was clear that one couple preferred as much separation as possible, so I quickly re-arranged the place settings so that they sat at the far end near the door. This photo shows the table laid for the second morning, with the jams in No-man’s land in the middle of the table.
This was a few weeks ago. Since then the number of covid-19 cases in the area has gone up fairly steadily until it is now back to a level at which I no longer feel comfortable accepting new bookings other than from patients at Benenden Hospital. Added to this, my cleaners have covid in the family and are self-isolating, so I have had to do all the cleaning as well the hundred and one other chores that are involved in running a B&B. Time, therefore, to scale back my operations — at least for a while until it becomes clear which way the wind is blowing.
I run this B&B more or less single-handedly, certainly as far as cooking breakfast is concerned. If a guest were to transmit the virus to me and I become symptomatic, I should be forced to self-isolate and would not be able to look after my guests or give them breakfast. Turning away guests at such short notice would be hugely disruptive and inconvenient, especially as I hear that hotel or B&B accommodation is in very short supply around here. I suspect that other B&Bs have either closed or not re-opened since restrictions were lifted.
I have quite a few guests arriving in the coming two months. I will of course honour these bookings but have disabled all future online bookings for the time being and will re-open rooms and dates as and when this unpredictable situation changes for the better.