The Mini-Break

When Mollie was nearly a year old, we decided to treat ourselves to a well earned break. I found a reasonably priced dog friendly B&B and one Saturday we arrived at a beautifully restored granite Victorian house just off the sea front and about ten minutes walk from Penzance town centre.

Later we had a leisurely walk along the sea front to a dog friendly pub, found a window seat and tucked into vast platefuls of whitebait that didn’t seem to go down no matter how much we ate. After a few glasses of wine we had an amble back to our bed and breakfast and decided to settle down for an early night.

Mollie, who’d been very good up until then, decided she didn’t like people banging doors and making noise down the corridor and barked, loudly, to tell them so. Every time she did so, I flinched, and this continued for the next hour until everyone was in bed. By this time Mollie was so unnerved by her surroundings that she wouldn’t settle unless I dangled one arm out of bed to stroke her at regular intervals.

At around five in the morning, when we’d probably accumulated two hours sleep between us, I stumbled off to the bathroom and my feet hit a wet spot. I dimly remembered Mollie scratching at the bedroom door earlier and now realised the significance of this. Tiptoeing round the room, I found a roll of kitchen paper and proceeded to blot up as much as I could, while wondering what the to do. Make a run for it? Own up?

When the sun came up and I could see properly, I attacked the stain feeling like the victim of some fairy tale, destined to spend my life scrubbing at an ever growing mark on a previously spotless carpet. Then I espied a hairdryer slotted into a rack by the basin. A gift from the gods! So I set about blow drying the carpet.

By the time Himself returned from walking a much happier dog, the carpet was cooked to perfection. I was hot and flustered and jumped in the shower wondering whether to Come Clean to the owners. On the other hand, they might present us with a bill for carpet cleaners. Even worse, a new carpet.

We put Mollie in the car and waited with baited breath for our breakfast. At any time I was expecting a hand on the shoulder. An “excuse me, but what happened to your carpet?”

Being good at bluffing, Himself soon got chatting to the new owners who revealed that they’d recently bought the place and evidently spent a considerable amount of time and money refurbishing it. I could feel the blood draining from my face as I sipped my tea. The appetite that I’d built up over the sleepless night disappeared along with my blood, and I tried not to look at the scrambled egg sitting before me. The imaginary bill for our stay grew and I fixed a smile on my face, wondering when we could leave the room.

Husband’s appetite wasn’t affected, and after a Full English we hurried upstairs to clean teeth and inspect the carpet. The sun was streaming in the room and from a certain angle it was impossible to see what had occurred in the small hours. Even so, we took no chances.

“I’ve got the bags,” Himself hissed. “Come on, let’s go.”

And we ran.

That was the last time we ever had a mini-break. Shame. I could do with one now, and it was such a lovely place.