Back again!

Phew!  

Apologies to all my wonderful blogger friends. I'm still here but been busy with almost all of the five projects which I run to keep the pot on the boil.

 Last week., we had a tad of snow on the peaks and behind

The valley is looking beautiful with the trees sporting warm bronzy hues

At month end,  it's always wrapping up sales at the lovely little art and gift shop which I manage for Steve (the artist) and his wife, Estelle.  After a good month in April which included two long weekends and the school holidays, I was warned that May would be a "wet squib" regarding sales.  

But...

I had a bumper month, Praise God!

Around the same time, I also distribute cosmetic orders and collect money from customers who'd ordered from me during the month. 

Meanwhile, to promote the accommodation which I manage for a businessman here in the Valley, I've  joined two more websites. I already feature my accommodation on Airbnb 

(do click on the link to see my beautiful vacation stay here in the mountain). However, friends in hospitality have suggested I also join Booking.com.

 I've also linked up to Lekkeslaap which caters for the local Afrikaans-speaking   guests. The latter was reasonably easy to join, although it involved two weeks of e-mail communications between me and the new-institution consultant; supplying information which ensued in a bit of a paper chase! Eventually yesterday at 8.04 am I received a text message on my phone from Ilana saying my accommodation is now LIVE!    By 8.34 am I had my first inquiry for a three-day mid-week stay in July! Hallelujah!

Booking.com was slightly more complicated. To access my Booking.com dashboard, their European office had mailed the verification code to my physical address. When I phoned the number I had in Cape Town (South Africa) to explain this item would never reach me at the given address,  they suggested that the office in Rome make a video call to me while I was at my accommodation.  We scheduled Monday at 8.30am. On Sunday night I checked up on Google that the time in Italy is the same in South Africa. It was. 

Being punctual by nature, I was at The Bunker (a 20km trip from my home into the Valley) shortly after 8am.

I waited. 

8.30 came and still I waited. 

At 8.45, I turned off the beside lamps (which I'd lit for good effect on the video), drew the curtains,  closed the door and left.

At 9.15 my phone rang. It was the Rome office. Full of apologies. I said: sorry, I was on time and you are 45 minutes late. I told them I was at my retail business and couldn't possibly return to the accommodation . We then re-scheduled for Wednesday morning. Same time. And on Wednesday exactly at 8.30 a video call came through and I "met" the attractive Italian girl who told me how to hold my phone so she could take screen shots. Within ten minutes our business was concluded and the consultant told me my accommodation would be live within 24 hours. Yesterday (Thursday) morning I went live and I now feature on three vacation stay websites.

I also have my details at a local booking office here in the Valley which has phoned through one firm booking for August and one inquiry for the end of June.

So, I think you, reading this post, may forgive me being absent from Blogger for a few days. 

Oh, and I have started a blog about The Bunker here . If you have the desire and the time, do click on this link and let me know what you think! I'll be posting quite regularly there ; the buzzword in hospitality is to BLOG your business. I've heard other hospitality owners groan when they heard this, but we "old" bloggers have the advantage here. I may even offer my services to people who want to promote their accommodation with a blog. 

Mmm. 

I need to find some more hours in the day! 

I hope you've all read to this point and got my point on why I was away from Blogger for almost a week. 

Have a great day.