G's Blog

26th July

Apologies galore, dear reader, for not updating this blog. All my time seems to be revolving around looking after our holiday guests, hospital nursing and extending my tlc ( tender loving care) to our newbuild up the hill which is in its final stages and needing me to spend a huge amount of hours up there getting everything just right. But I will be back sometime soon, I hope, to fill in the gaps and resume with recording life at Crosswoodhill.

14th December 2009

Is it an age thing? Am I slowing up? Got other things on my mind? Well, yes, the new house on the hill is being very greedy time-wise with deadlines for decisions on this, that and the other. So here we are approaching mid-December and I am toiling, way behind. The BBC news bulletin tonight announced the Royal Mail will have its busiest day tomorrow with vast volumes of Xmas cards wending their way across the world. Hmm, well my little contribution to this peak is notably absent. I still hope to design and get my cards out to regulars and all you lovely guests who have stayed with us this past year. That's the plan, but if one fails to arrive for you from Crosswoodhill please be charitable and consider it lost in the post! And know that we are thanking you in spirit for staying with us and wishing you a wonderful festive season.

As usual the cottages are full this week. In one is an undertaker. I casually mentioned to him that we have had a birth and a marriage in the cottages but never a death. Something we owners all dread happening. I see enough tragedy in the hospital ward where I work.

Hew has promised me Xmas trees from our fast dwindling plantation for this Saturday in time for the Xmas guests. Cut now, we don't have much of a needle problem and they last well until Twelfth Night. Ours will probably only go up on Xmas Eve in time for the arrival home of our Xmas Day daughter. Luckily this year I am off over Xmas but nursing over Hogmanay.

14th October 09

Our first 999 call from a cottage. Early in the morning and I glimpsed an ambulance in the driveway. Our guests are so considerate. They didn't want to bother me and dealt with the situation themselves. Bob, who had had a stroke, had had a gentle descent to the floor in the bathroom trying to get out of the bath, but getting him up again ( he was not lightweight ) was a challenge the paramedics proved up to. By the time I got there Bob was placidly sitting back in his wheelchair waiting on breakfast. A week later I was equally impressed with paramedics when I was carted off in an ambulance after badly gashing my leg whilst literally running late for an eye appointment in Edinburgh and hitting the uneven cobbles at speed. Even more bizarrely, a week later instead of being in charge of the ward where I nurse, I was testing out the hospital bed for comfort whilst I spent 36 hours being treated with intravenous antibiotics for an infected wound by my colleagues. Aah, the luxury of it, meals brought to me, time to read, visited by patients I had looked after two days earlier, and altogether a fun time as seen from the other side!

1st October 2009

D-day today, when this shrinking violet was reluctantly thrust into the limelight at the Scottish Tourism Forum Open Day held at Discovery Point, Dundee. 15 minutes on the customer experience at Crosswoodhill to a full house of delegates. Muggins would have been wiser to have stood a bit closer to the microphone from the start but then was what I was saying really worth people hearing? Time will tell when the Survey Monkey feedback results are fed back to me.. Appropriate name that! But I did remember three things… to hold my stomach in, stand tall and smile. Oh… and to keep to my allotted 15 minutes and not digress. … unlike some of the other afternoon speakers who overran.

Some excellent presentations, particularly in the morning, with both Philip Riddle, Chief Executive of VisitScotland and Bus man Brian Souter, CE of Stagecoach in top form and making us all laugh, despite the serious messages. A good day. Lots of time to reflect on the bus back from Dundee to Ferry Toll Park & Ride and to enjoy the Fife countryside. Brian had made a throw-away comment about how well-filled buses had become thanks to the free bus pass the Scottish Executive issue to OAPS. And here was I proving his point. Mean, green and grateful!

Polar Explorers Wanted - thermal underwear not required! A visit to award-winning attraction Discovery Point transports you to Antarctica,telling the tale of the most heroic voyage of exploration ever undertaken!

30th September 2009

The Emergency services are summoned once more to Crosswoodhill! This time not for us, but the Orlege guests are in a spot of bother. Picture the scene. A slip (unintentional pun, sorry) of a daughter and her partner, he with an acute back problem which delayed their arrival. Accompanying them, her father, a lovely elderly gentleman, wheelchair bound after a dense stroke. Rotund and portly, I think he wouldn’t mind my saying. Bath-time. There he was one minute perched on his bath seat and the next minute occupying rather larger an area of our floor than he would have liked . Despite the warm-to-the-tootsies …. or should I say toasty to the buttocks… floor it’s not really the ideal vantage point from which to enjoy a Scottish holiday. How to get him up? Call 999, state “this is not an emergency” and explain. Within 10 minutes two delightful ambulance paramedics arrive with an inflatable rising cushion. Not a bruise to show for his early morning adventure, but in jig time, there was Bob, back into his wheelchair, beaming and waiting on his breakfast.

19th September 2009

Rarely a dull moment at Crosswoodhill. My beloved has lain too much of late in the horizontal position for his liking… and mine He can be a bit grumpy when he’s unwell. What we thought was swine flu seemed to be getting worse. Day 6 dawned. Still nauseous and very breathless, rigors, hot then cold. Could this be a side effect of the tamiflu tablets prescribed? Or was it something else? Could the nurse in the household have mis-diagnosed the illness?… . Time to reel in a GP with a stethoscope. Ouch! A diagnosis of pneumonia. Antibiotics, more antibiotics. Hew’s listlessness persists, an Xray still needed, but he’s getting about again. But now just when he could do with it ( this is a busy time with sheep sales ) we are one landrover down. How come? Read on…

Trusty landrover…RIP

Our holiday cottage guest from Holland timed his arrival to perfection and missed all the drama. Drama we could all have done fine without. Five minutes earlier and his welcome would have been… “ very sorry, but do you mind waiting a while? Your way into Steading Cottage is blocked by police cars… and yes, that’s our landrover, it’s back broken. And there it was, forlornly straddling the adjacent collapsed stone dyke, propelled there by the other colliding vehicles. (Old trusty has since been officially written off, hardly a surprise.) Huddled up close in the lane was a badly damaged new car awaiting uplift onto a breakdown vehicle. And, closeby, the apparent culprit, a blue van, amazingly unscathed. Both had been following our landrover and trailer for over a mile; both had seen a clear road ahead of them and judged it a good idea to try and overtake at much the same time. Call that synchronisation or sheer bad judgement? But the main thing was that no-one was hurt. Just shaken. And, despite the earlier carnage, my Dutch guest with his perfect timing had an easy passage to his front door and has settled in happily. His family joined him later in the week. Had the kids enjoyed their brief visit? The best thing, it seems is not the myriad of attractions Scotland offers but the cows and the newborn calf in the neighbouring sheds. And the muddy treks across the fields and up the hill. Hills are a novelty for the Dutch . Yes, it was a bit wet last week. But then who comes to Scotland for the weather?

19th August 2009

Our quality assurance gradings came in through the post yesterday. As before, 3, 4 and 5 Star. I'm a keen supporter of the VisitScotland Quality Assurance system as I think it gives that important impartial reassurance to guests that we are what it says on the tin and are not hiding anything guests should know about. It really is a thorough in-depth annual inspection covering all aspects of the property, inside and out. But I can't help thinking that some of their grading criteria is a bit cock-eyed! We actually lost a mark for the exterior of the Wing, I guess because instead of following the same assessor's advice from the previous year to replace a slightly rustic garden gate, I had chosen to retain the character and patch it up instead. The fact that instead we had spent thousands of pounds on tarmacking the drive and parking area which had given a whole new lift to the place and now allows the Wing guests to step out of their cars without soaking their footwear in rain-puddles seemingly counts for "nil points" ! Aagh! the vagaries of grading systems!

Not long off the phone to John Lewis plc booking myself in for a free session with the Fashion Adviser. What a great service this is. Kirsty grilled me ( gently ) on my vital statistics ( ballooned over recent years) , colour of eyes ( blue grey enhanced by tinted contact lenses ) , height ( shrunk over the years not helped by poor deportment ) colour of hair ( tinges of middle-aged grey, say I, not strictly truthfully ). Her challenge is to find me something nice to wear for the next open meeting of the Scottish Tourism Forum where I have been asked to spout for 15 minutes. A little bit daunting as most of the other speakers are high-fliers in the Scottish Tourism scene. And for those of you wondering what the Scottish Forum is, it's an independent trade body made up of trade associations, businesses, marketing and local area tourism groups who earn their living from tourism or have an active interest in tourism. The STF really is making its mark in getting tourism recognised as Scotland's foremost sustainable industry. It's currently engaged in a lot of effective and independent communication and lobbying. Here's the website for those interested in learning more. www.stforum.co.uk

14th August 2009

Foreign tongues. Luckily in the main tourists from Europe who book holiday cottages direct with an owner have a good command of English. Just as well as my French is exceedingly rusty, and in almost any other language people could call me everything under the sun and I wouldn't have a clue. We've welcomed a lot of Germans this year, some French, some Spanish and Italians arrive soon. We've grabbed as a gift opportunities to go that extra mile with our customer care. Unfortunates that arrive with no luggage, lost by the airlines. Or last week doing our best for a lovely Spanish family that arrived by taxi from Glasgow Airport. Strange because I knew they had hired a car. A look of utter dismay on our guest's face as he peeled off 70 quid's worth of notes to pay the driver before, acutely embarrassed, he explained what had happened. So here's a word of advice to all you travellers out there: don't scan your driving licence just before you leave home and leave the original in your scanner. It was 4 days before the original could be hot-footed from Spain by special courier and our guests could climb into a hired car. Delight was tempered with the frustration of a hefty add-on hire cost for a booster seat for their light-weight 6 year old which promptly squashed down to nothing! A chance for us to shine again and go the extra mile. If JC is to be believed half of Barcelona will be stampeding to book with us in future years. We do get a lot of repeat visitors luckily. And here's the snapshot Juan Carlos sent me on their return to Spain, taken in the kitchen of Crosswoodhill Wing, with me in the middle.

1st August 2009

Affordable self-catering Edinburgh, family accommodation Edinburgh, luxury cottage Edinburgh, romantic honeymoon stay Edinburgh, Edinburgh on a budget. Just a few of the phrases people type into a Google search when they are wanting to holiday in Edinburgh. But why stay in Edinburgh when luxury for less can be had just 30 minutes from the heart of Edinburgh? Crosswoodhill offers so much more. A peaceful location, space, relaxation. It's a good recipe and one that guests are kind enough to pass on via some lovely recent postings on Trip Advisor. Sorry about banging the drum here, this does sound a bit like a sales pitch which is not what a blog should be about, but.....

Phew! never-ending competition these days keeps me on my toes. Holiday cottages and flats in West Lothian and Edinburgh mushroom by the month, which makes marketing our properties effectively just so crucial to our survival and prosperity. It's that time of year again when a lot of the listing sites I pay to be on are clamouring to get their hands on top-up fees regardless of performance. In reality our best performer comes free. Google. Get your key words and phrases right and what a great feeling it is when I see our cottages come up on page one of Google under a popular search term. All for virtually nothing, unless you count a bit of search engine optimisation. That's done for me by Desiree, one of those wonderful long distance relationships. We've never met, we e-mail, we talk on the phone with her parrot occasionally butting in, and she looks after all the technical aspects of our web just brilliantly.

But to get back to my love affair with Google. Google can be fickle so I always feel compelled to shell out a bit here and there ( and these bits add up to a significant sum ) just for the reassurance of featuring on cottage-listing sites that offer links to our own website. Every year I ditch a few underperforming listing sites and try out a few new ones. Yesterday I signed up to www.britishholidaysdirect.co.uk, seemingly a new kid on the block in Scotland, anyway. Full of promises, as always, of good leads. I'll just have to see how it goes.

Older posts