EAT Day 7

(Actually day 6 continued)

We landed at the three swallows pub around 4:30 yesterday (day 6), we were ready for showers, clean linen, some good food and a good sleep.

On arrival at the bar our welcome was luke warm and we were seen to our room by a young boy with limited social skills.

I immediately noticed the rather unkept bed, and hastily plonked towels on top of it. This lead me to look at the floor to find a carpet which was now more crumb than carpet, the room hadn’t had a hoover today, yesterday or probably for quite some time.

I’m not too fussy though and can overlook this on account of being pretty exhausted and covered in solid mix of sun cream and sweat. You know what I can’t overlook though? A policy that toilets are to be cleaned every 6th or 7th visitor because a little bit of wee on the rim is ok right? I’m not a massive fan of toothpaste grime around a sink either. How about you ?

I went to the bar and politely asked for this to be seen to. I wasn’t issued an apology, but I was told it would be.

They sent the 19 Year old boy to fix the problems. Now I don’t like to generalise , but looking at him I would have put a lot of money on him having never hoovered a floor or cleaned a toilet in his short life. He was probably the cleaner and also the reason our room looked as it did.

We went to the bar and ordered a drink while we waited. I suggested they be free of charge- this suggestion was met with nervous agreement.

After about 25 minutes we wondered how the pubescent lad was getting on with working out which bit of the spray bottle was the spray bit and went to look. He wasn’t there so apparently had finished his mission and not told us. The room looked almost exactly as it did before.

I went to the bar again to ask for this to be rectified. No apology was offered but I was assured it would be.

Before too long a woman appeared at the door with a 3 year old boy by her side and a baby in her arms. She told me she’d come to see the room. No apology as yet had been offered .

All three of them came in. It transpired she was the landlords partner. I showed her the problems and her initial response was that this was “one of the dog rooms” when I asked what she could possibly mean by that comment, she agreed that yes, even the dog rooms should probably be cleaned between guests. She told me she would clean the room herself now.

After this Snakes showered using hand soap as of course the shower gel hadn’t been refilled in weeks. I waited for about half an hour for it to be refilled by the boy cleaner who had absolutely no idea where th refill tub was kept.

My favourite parents had arrived by this point can came baring fresh clothes, a food resupply and Eric’s favourite dinner.

We ate a meal in the pub, and tried to laugh it off. I listened as the table opposite had to flag a waiter down to order food, then to order water, then to ask for glasses to drink the water from.

I drew the line at asking the waiter to please fill up the empty salt shaker as I felt I’d done enough to ruin his day.

We slept soundly.

Day 7 – zero day

When we woke we discovered a dirty cafetière and no milk on the tea tray. Tea in bed is LITERALLY ALL I CAME FOR.

I don’t mind boiling river water, using powdered milk, sleeping in a ditch, wild poos, being filthy for days, eating plastic food- but if I’m paying £160 for a room- I do expect it to not have a pooy toilet and for the provided tea bags (of which there were 3?) to be accompanied by milk.

I went to reception to the bar to get milk and met four other people staying in two of the other rooms – they weren’t clean either, and they found ants in their kettle. Nice.

We came for breakfast to find one poor chap serving everyone and cooking everything. We were advised we couldn’t have a pot of tea as there was only one tea pot and the other table had it- we couldn’t have a cafetière because the other table had the only four available.

Breakfast was nice though.

I asked the kitchen chap if I could speak to the manager – he was asleep- I asked him to let him know I wanted to speak to him when he woke up.

Shortly after this I saw a man in a shirt scurry past the window and get into a car and leave – that was Dan the manager, late for a meeting apparently – it was 10am.

His partner (who ended up cleaning our room) was behind the bar now with her two kids- she’s told me she doesn’t actually work here and is just visiting Dan, Dan took over the place in November. Dan doesn’t have a cleaner.

Nice one Dan.

My parents arrived , from their little rental cottage down the road and we walked to Cley for a mooch around the three shops there.

We went for a walk on the beach, trying to control Eric’s energy levels around her brothers, Bertie and Huckleberry, but were largely unsuccessful. In trying to make a loop of it, we became stranded on the marshes due to a big tidal mud pit. Snakes and I turned back to walk the way we came, Mum and Dad spent double the time going on a little marsh adventure trying to cut back to the beach.

When they eventually appeared back at the beach I thought there may be some frustration at the big detour they took. I thought Mum might be annoyed at her white trainers now being brown and her jeans being covered in gank mud- but she was just really pleased with herself that she managed to go for a wild wee in the gorse on route.

We went back to Cley and fund a tea room to recover in. Mum and Dad went to the deli to reinforce their suggestion of dinner at their cottage up the road with more cheese and preserve supplies while snakes and I managed the hounds.

We retired to their cottage up the road and had baths and much in the way of cheese for dinner. We left our nice fresh clothes in bags for my parents to return home for us, and after a pleasant evening we were returned back to our room at the Swallows for a night cap and bed.

Zero forward miles on the day !