I’ve been hiring cottages since Christmas 1988 when I went with my then boyfriend to a cottage overlooking a lake in Snowdonia somewhere.
Over the years your needs change and as I now find myself retired and holidaying on the whole with just my husband, we continuously strive to find that unique but elusive place to stay that we want to return to again and again. Unfortunately it still currently alludes us.
I think it is important to establish exactly what you are looking for. Once upon a time I was a marketeers dream being seduced by pictures of “chocolate box” cottages covered in pink roses with low ceilings and that olde worlde charm throughout.
Now we have both hit midlife there are far more practical considerations to take into account and I find myself often trawling through copious amounts of adverts on sites only to be disappointed at the end.
Firstly where do you look? I’ve narrowed it down to VRBO, Booking.com (who are now branching out into this type of accommodation) and Holiday Cottages.co.uk ( who have always been my provider of choice in these circumstances). I also sometimes look at cottage websites local to where I wish to stay. The free cancellation and book now, pay later options with Booking. com are really tempting plus I can also earn Avios (the new name for airmiles).
Previously I would have always looked on Air BnB as well but after our six months away travelling last year I’ve started to veer away from them. We stayed in many different Air BnB’s throughout Western Europe and America and to be honest overall we weren’t that impressed. We scored our accommodations from 1-10, the lowest scored a 1 and the highest reached a 7. There was nothing outstanding that we would return to again.
I think the problem is you are relying upon the owners’ honesty. Honesty in terms of their description and photos and often more concerning we found were their omissions.
The internal photos and description might be accurate but they fail to tell you, for example, that there are seven apartments above the shop and not just your one. Seven apartments with wooden staircases and six of those are above you so you hear everyone coming in and out at all hours of the day. I won’t dwell on this because I wrote about our European accommodation in detail on my post entitled “Lessons Learnt On Our European Adventure”.
What are we looking for?
On this occasion we are looking for a cottage in a village in Cornwall. We are not “open plan type folk”. Don’t get me wrong there may be the odd occasion in the future where this type of set up will suffice but on the whole we like to find somewhere with it’s own living room, kitchen and preferably dining room although this isn’t a prerequisite as long as there is adequate room for a table.
Ideally we need two sofas. Why? Because hubby is 6 ft 3 and likes to stretch out and despite being only 5ft 2, I don’t want to spend my holiday scrunched up in a corner.
It would be nice to have a bath and a shower. We both shower every morning but when I’m away relaxing I also like to chill out sometimes and relax in a bubble bath or in hot bath-bomb scented water with a good book or a magazine. After all what are holidays for?
The bathroom needs to be upstairs. None of that getting out of a hot shower and having to run barefoot up the stairs, usually across a tiled floor or trying to find the loo in the middle of only a star lit night sky!
Being tall hubby also needs a bed with no upright base at the bottom otherwise he has to sleep in the fetal position throughout our stay and won’t be able to stretch out. A double bed is fine, anything bigger is a bonus. I must admit you do get spoilt in America where everything comes kingsize or even super king!
Goodness knows what they think when they come over here on holiday? We had to smile recently when watching a programme on Paramount+ where US couples were house hunting for holiday homes and found it strange that the places they were looking at in the Caribbean didn’t have double sinks in the bathroom! They don’t in the UK either and we often don’t have mixer taps either!
Finally there has to be somewhere to park Conan.
Conan is my bright red Barbarian L200, bought seven years ago. I had wanted a Barbarian ever since I had sat in one at Badminton Horse Trials on the Mitsubishi stand many years ago and so finally after my career ended and I left my company cars behind, I found him.
He is my best mate and doesn’t like small tight parking spaces . He has his own character like all those in the film “Cars” and we look after each other. I make sure he gets a good clean inside and out if we are going away, that the oil, water and tyres are fine and that he has plenty of food and he makes sure we get everywhere ok. Together we are a partnership and he will be with me until the end. We celebrated going on an eight week UK tour in 2021 together with me buying him a tattoo. It’s on the drivers door!
So armed with all this information I finally found what I hope is a nice cottage in Cornwall for a period of relaxation and recuperation. On arrival we find that the “parking outside” is actually across a kerb. Conan can just about fit but if you had a car with a low chassis you would not be impressed. We did try parking across the other side of the road but a lady came out and asked us to move. Apparently in this particular Cornish village she decides who parks on that side of the highway! A great way to start our holiday.
The description states the cottage is in a village and it is but the road that goes through the centre of it, directly outside our temporary home, is busy with cars, lorries n buses, so not the quiet country idyll we thought it would be.
Worse is inside! We discover our bedroom overlooks the road so I guess we won’t be sleeping with the window open. The photos on the listing have also been adapted, shall we say, to make everything look bigger and brighter. Hubby is into photography and takes great pleasure explaining to me how the photos have been staged to make it look like the summer sunshine is sparkling through the windows. The reality is that we will be spending our whole time with the living room light on whenever we are chilling on the sofas.
There is also no mention of height restricting doorways, the famous omission I was talking about earlier. The laugh is these are not olde, worlde door frames, they have been put in purely for aesthetics as above each one is plaster board wall! Hubby is not happy, banging his head several times on the first night and threatening to go home before our holiday even begins! He does adapt, however, walking around the cottage like a hobbit in a permanent crouch. I guess I shouldn’t laugh!
So finally settled into our temporary home our holiday begins………………………………
NB: This is part of a series of four posts I have written about Cornwall. Why not read the others? Please like and/or comment at will
A Midlife Adventure 