My angry Fairy Liquid battle
‘Please do NOT wash up!’ reads the makeshift sign I have fixed above the kitchen sink. It instructs our B&B…
Deluded Americans are descending on Ireland
The American girl was listing her reasons for moving to Ireland in protest at Donald Trump. ‘I cannot stay in…
Our B&B is the opposite of organic
‘You need a Wwoofer,’ said the guest as he luxuriated in the big armchair by the roaring fire in our…
Lefties on a Plane: my real-life horror movie
Trapped in the middle seat next to a Dublin businessman in the window seat, I was subjected to a monologue…
How to spot a troublesome Airbnb review
The guest who thought our farm was in the town centre was very cross indeed. She got out of her…
Our B&B has found its niche
A rattling noise woke me in the dead of night and I fumbled my way into the dark corridor. It…
I’ve become a slave to my Airbnb star rating
‘Right, we’re going to book into Pauline’s B&B and give her a four-star rating and that will drop her down…
Has my father’s BBC addiction peaked?
‘I want the stairlift to go faster!’ said my mother, as the machine she was sitting on whirred furiously while…
Why must B&B guests give us advice?
‘You could mow all this lawn here and it would look a treat,’ said the arborist, returning from a stroll…
The guest who robbed me of my five-star rating
Bolting down the back hallway, I realised I was running away from the guests. I shut the door marked private…
Hell is a speed awareness course
The builder boyfriend sat nervously in front of my laptop as I logged him in to do his speed awareness…
Must my fish and chips come with a side of geopolitics?
‘Our boys went to Lebanon and trained Hezbollah!’ shouted the drunk Irish lad in the fish and chip shop as…
Speed traps are designed to make you fail
The builder boyfriend returned from a trip to London to inform me he was being done for speeding at 32mph,…
The £486 driving licence con
By changing the address on my driving licence, I was somehow signed up to something that began charging my credit…
My foolproof plan to avoid speeding fines
The online speed awareness course cost £101, or a few pounds less if you didn’t want to book ‘flexible’ so…
The Airbnb guest from hell
‘Is there a secret passageway behind that door?’ said the weirdly difficult Kiwi as she eyed a door marked ‘private’…
Help! I’m turning into Basil Fawlty
Basil Fawlty ended up beating his car with a tree branch after doing B&B for years, and I am very…
Aren’t women wonderful?
The mole specialist was wearing a pink Chanel-looking suit and pink diamanté shoes. By mole specialist, I don’t mean someone…
I’m more convinced than ever that Ian Bailey was innocent
Over coffee in a seafood restaurant in the harbour, I talked with the most notorious accused man in Ireland and,…
Am I making a mountain out of my mole?
Hypochondriacs are never happy because we know that eventually all of us are vindicated. As Spike Milligan said on his…
My hunt for a doctor took a horror movie turn
My American guest went down with a cough he could not shift and, after a week of protesting that he…
There are no Ubers in the wilds of West Cork
My American guest kept telling me he was going to call an Uber and I could not persuade him that…
Why would anyone drive at 30mph on a dual carriageway?
After running all the errands I could to help my parents, a letter from West Midlands Police arrived. They were…
I’m the one who needs a carer now
My father was discharged from hospital with a plastic bag containing 13 boxes of pills and a vague promise that…
Has someone been smuggling drugs in my hay bales?
The hay dealer showed me his latest stock and told me the bright green hay would cost me a staggering…
