I must say I'm worried to death about all the flu there is around at the moment.  Apart from the danger of my catching it, I can see myself soon facing staff problems of crisis proportions.  This year especially we really do seem to have been unlucky.  According to the local newspapers, school-rooms are half empty, buses are restricted to emergency timetables, shops haven't been able to open and so on.

 

Sad to say it's the old folk, of course, who are being hit the hardest.  Whereas I could probably see the whole thing through in a week, an elderly person might take two or three times that long.  And so often they have nobody to look in on them.  How I wish that just a few more people would take the trouble to keep an eye on their not so young neighbours.  Talking about that, Hugh read to me from one of his magazines a wonderfully simple idea for improving the usual alarm bell.  As well as there being a button to push for help when it is needed, the alarm will also go off automatically every twenty-four hours UNLESS some routine function is carried out, for instance opening the bathroom door, or maybe turning on the television set.  Apparently the extra gadgetry needed is relatively cheap and I'd say worth every penny if it saves just one life.

 

Well, I don't know ... after all the snow of the last week or two, suddenly it looks like spring.  Mind you, I wouldn't like to bet on us having seen the last of this winter although I hope by now its done it's worst.  Anyway, after taking just one look at the first crocus gamely popping its head out of the frosty soil I just had to go and find Carney to talk over new ideas for the garden.

 

Funnily enough he'd been thinking about it himself and he came up with a proposal that went straight to my heart.  In all the gardens I've come across (and in my time, I must have seen a few) I don't think there's been anything to touch a well planned herbaceous border.  Well, Carney suggested we try one.  Apparently, May is a good month to start the planting and with careful choice of flowers, Carney assures me that the Motel gardens should be virtually ablaze with colour right through to October.  I'm sorry to say that the technicalities of the thing quite escape me, but I do remember from my days back in Scotland such perennials as the coppery-red 'Fireglow' and the yellow and black 'Goldsturm' (or Black-eyed Susan, as we used to call it) adding more than a touch to the Summer magic of my childhood.

 

A rather unpleasant night, I'm afraid.  As someone once said, no hotel is complete without one and lo and behold, there was ours ... the noisy drunk!  Mind you, I have to say that you'd never have known it when he booked in, five or six hours earlier.  Mr Sherry seemed to be a perfectly respectable man and no one had any reason to doubt his good manners and behaviour.  Nonetheless, shortly after eleven-thirty, all hell let loose.  Even I could hear the singing and shouting from across the other side of the building and before long the complaints started to come in.  It's not often we have this problem but I must admit that when we do I tend to get a little bit panicky.  Drunks can be notoriously difficult to handle and are seldom very reasonable.  Fortunately, however, several cups of thick, black coffee seemed to do the trick, plus a good talking to.  Come the morning, when Mr Sherry appeared for breakfast, the amazing thing was that he honestly didn't seem to remember a thing about it.  Anyway, apologies were duly offered and accepted and that was that although, as Hugh said, apologies are one thing...angry customers who resent having lost a night's sleep are another!