A Little to be Desired
The next piece of general rubbish…
The hotel… for, approximately, £100 per night, we were treated to a seaside hotel. There was nothing wrong with the location, as long as a stony beach, some grass, and a pier, don’t particularly take your fancy, and the room was spacious enough with a nice large bath (something only tall people can really appreciate; another thing only tall people will understand it low showerheads – I shall leave the vertically challenged to muse).
Those were the pros… yup, that’s the lot of them (what was that… two?). Now, for those of you who stay in hotels relatively often, especially if you have to travel to other countries, will understand when I cry, in utter consternation “Where is the fridge?”. Do you think it’s some ploy to make you eat in the hotel restaurant? We prefer, and our budget is certainly more limited that most, but not without a little depth – assuredly enough to eat out for a few meals – to buy some tasty things from the local supermarket, pop them into the fridge, and while we explore the locality, eat when we’re hungry. Unfortunately, the lack of a fridge, and the extremely (for England), hot weather, did put a limit on our cold meats and dairy products.
The next complaint I would mention is… perhaps, for a summer hotel by the sea, in hot weather, in a room facing the sun for almost the whole day, and huge floor to ceiling windows… they might actually open. That’s not entirely true, the exceedingly small pane, in the bottom right of the massive bay window, did actually open about ten inches. I don’t think they were overly worried about thieves as we were comfortably ensconced on the second floor (third for those without a ‘ground’), and in an extremely visible location, so why would they seal and paint over the windows…
The third point I’d like to combine with the second here (and the first, just a little) – there was no air-conditioner. I can’t remember ever being in a real hotel (excluding little things like bed and breakfasts in a small village), which doesn’t have air-conditioning (especially given the lack of a fridge, the sealed windows, and the vast bay facing the summer sun all day). I’m pretty used to the hot – where I’ve lived for the last fourteen years, give or take, reaches up to forty degrees with 100% humidity, but everywhere there has air-conditioning. You would expect a nice hotel in England to be at least able to match what can still [arguably] be considered (at least partially), a third-world country!
There were a couple of other points, hardly worth mentioning… the broken lift (normally I’m inclined to English, English, rather than American English, but I do quite like the word ‘elevator’), the extremely early (before nine), knock on the door by the maid to make up the room, lack of dressing gowns, toothbrush, razor, hairdryer (I shan’t continue that list – buy they did supply a shower cap…!), etc…
Last but not least… in the middle of the night (well, about 11:40pm), the rather uninteresting print hung in a heavy frame, just above the head of the bed, fell off and landed on my nose and head (I was, fortunately, still awake and sitting up, so managed to catch the thing before it did any serious damage – and yes, if it had happened to anyone else I too would have thought it pretty funny). I was then faced with a decision – torn in two directions, so to speak: should I report the fallen picture, and the slight damage to my rather prominent nose, in the morning (it was obviously too late then, even if we were to immediately report the incident there would have been no one to receive the information but the snoozing night-watchman), when I would have been faced by people who didn’t want to be sued (I could go into the rise in unnecessary court actions in recent years, but still there are more pressing things I want to discuss today), who would be put in a difficult position as to whether to offer us a refund/compensation, and if so how much, or them turning the tables and because they didn’t want to admit culpability, actually accusing us of damaging the room and taking money, in the form of damages, from my deposit. In the long run, they wouldn’t have had a leg to stand on (we had been model residents), but as I’m not local to the area (and they would likely have calculated this – perhaps I’m painting them as a) too intelligent, and b) too demonic, a picture, but I’ve been in situations before…), the trouble and expense of actually taking them to court for a return on my deposit, some compensation for the physical damage and trouble, and something resembling an apology, just wouldn’t have been worth the fuss… or would it (yes, yes, I know, I’ve been told… I think too much)?
So, I did a little repair job (free of charge), and with a little screwing, bending of metal, and careful hanging, put the thing back upon the wall (although I was a little worried every time the door closed; I do hope it doesn’t fall again until different people are staying there, and I wouldn’t be overly surprised if I wasn’t contacted in the near future with a bill for damaging the room – another good example of the Universe, having her little giggle).
More on the same date – check Nowhere, for something on robots and loneliness…
