I arrived to a chaotic couple of days of crash course training on boutique guest-house management; French country cuisine, French cheeses (there are so many!), local wines (and where to locate them in the vast wine racks in Peter's secret hideaway) guest relations, reservations, pool maintenance (yes, this includes scooping the frogs out each morning), setting, serving, and clearing six courses each night for up to 14 guests (never have I appreciated fine dining more now that I know what the front of house does to make it so nice!), welcome drinks and which of the five house biscuits to serve with each drink, aperitifs, French language 101, housekeeping oversight for Monique & Josie (neither of whom speak any English), picking and arranging flowers for the house, reconciling sales and expenses from 2008 for the tax guy (Mike, I know I am channeling you in some way all the way from Buffalo! and...deciphering French receipts when I don't speak the language and quickly learning the VAT nuisances the first couple of days was so time consuming!!!), how to make coffee (yes mom, I actually make great coffee now even though I still don't drink it!), front of house responsibilities, crisis management & basic maintenance (for example when Josie came to me with the shower faucet handle from Mauricette in her hand, or the Bonne guests told me there was an inch of water on their bathroom floor, or when we ran out of decaffeniated coffee) and oh by the way, be sure you don't pick the poisonous plants growing right next to the mint for the after dinner tea...all in preparation for Peter & Orlando to leave Le Manoir for a few days to Laura and I while they attended the Jesmond Dene Food Festival in Newcastle, where Orlando was invited to cook dinner for 80 guests and do a food demonstration. Laura, a professionally trained chef from Leiths in England and pool scrubber extraordinaire, is here for six months to learn Orlando's top secrets and master his recipes, although she still finds time each day to take a swim before dinner. Between her cuisine and my guest relations, we sailed through Orlando & Peter's Newcastle trip-although as Laura says, at the end of the couple of days, we were both pretty knackered!! Orlando and Peter returned home to find relaxed and happy guests, so we deemed it a success and figured we made quite the team! Hooray for us!
