Drove 15 hrs from UK to France for a family break in big old house with “ incredible kitchen” and huge fireplaces, perfect for Christmas! Upon arrival it quickly became clear that much cleaning was required, beginning with the removal of vast amounts of cobwebs. The headboard comprises 2 wide slats of wood, I removed one of the pillows to replace with my own (brought mine for neck & back relief) and was horrified to see thick brown cobwebs behind headboard right down to the floor and under the bed! This was by far the best of the 3 other bedrooms, I vacuumed every inch of the bedrooms before unpacking. I pulled out a dining room chair and it was attached to the table with thick cobwebs. One of our dogs toys went under a small side table in the kitchen and they didn’t even retrieve it due to the webs! The entire house, lounge, lamps, inside cupboards all needed cleaning. The owners had just spent a week here, I’m assuming they opened up the house which must have been closed since end of summer, god only knows what it was like! I spent the next day cleaning but was adamant not to let this ruin our holiday as my partner was also not happy that we are having to spend holiday time cleaning. I contacted the owner to ask for an additional heater (didn’t mention about having to clean) as upstairs toilet was not heated and felt damp and cold, the owner went in to meltdown as whilst English they misinterpreted my request to mean the heating upstairs had failed, eventually the local ‘handy man’ Bob arrived and provided a heater swiftly solving that issue.
Christmas Eve & Preparation of Christmas dinner! The main oven wouldn’t turn on, still had the smaller of the two ovens but the large roasting trays for meats etc wouldn’t fit. I called Bob who turned up with an electric portable oven! Not his fault but he didn’t even clean it, needless to say that it took the whole day and hours on Christmas Day using microwave & small oven to get dinner ready!
We settled down in front of the fire with full bellies with a few drinks played a few boards games only to have our evening ruined when a huge chunk of masonry (size of 2 footballs) crashed down the chimney, smashing the hearth and sending sparks and chunks of plaster everywhere, absolutely frightened the hell out of us, the dogs legged it terrified! Thankfully no injuries but had to message Bob to ask whether we needed to do anything. And here I am Boxing Day morning, waiting for Bob to come round to inspect what we believe to be an unsafe fireplace & potentially unusable lounge!
I just want to go home! If it was simple I would however, son’s flight back to UK not until 28th, dogs need vet checks before returning to UK, everywhere is closed due to Christmas hols. We have hotel booked pre Shuttle return due to dogs worming r’qrd 24 hrs before entering UK! I am at a loss what to do!