Well this is all change. Lou met me this morning at Sloane Square. I picked her up in Bergman and we drove three hours west.
She’s mystery shopping for a hotel. We get to spend two nights here and participate in … activities.
Right now she’s writing up her first day report. It is of course exhaustive and will take her a while so I thought I would lie here in this four poster and synchronise work.
You have to have some sort of customer interaction. Lou can’t sleep with noise and there’s a boiler next to our first room. They’ve moved us to a suite. The noise is much the same but it’s vast so I think we’ll get over it. “They might have identified us as mystery shoppers,” Lou intuits. We are twenty years younger than everyone else, we are doing all the activities and taking loads of photos, eating varied meals, asking for toothpicks and cotton buds and chamomile tea. We’ve told them we are from London and Brighton which is miles away from their catchment. I reckon they’re onto us but that’s ok. They still horlixed a drinks order twice, but I don’t think she’s gonna be tough on them as they are evidently working hard and seem to be a genuinely friendly team of local young men and women, probably funding degrees and whatnot. We had a great meal, we have an even better room, we’re on our holidays.
I shoot left handed. Always have. Don’t know why. Turns out I do archery left handed too. They had a Southpaw bow though so I used that. They’ve thought it through. We aren’t the first mystery shoppers. I reckon with a bit of practice I could sort my aim out on the old bending yew. I’ve always been an excellent shot so long as they don’t make me hold the gun the wrong way round. I tried the bow right handed and it’s just the same with a rifle, it somehow just doesn’t actually make sense at all that way round. Right arm forward but right eye for aim.
What incredible luxury that we get to be here together and behave like we are happy pensioners. The two people we met in the steam room were friends from a local church, seemingly on a date. They do bible study. Separate rooms. Seventies plus. He sings all the time, under his breath. I picked out some words. “attendant devotion” rhymed with “deep as the ocean”. That combination of buzzwords and mawkish sincerity. I used to love all those jolly charismatic Christian songs. Nice young men and women with guitars, maybe a tambourine. Absolutely no nuance. Tunes that would have made Bach throw you out of bed. But they catch in the head. He’s probably not aware he’s doing it. “Dum dim de love de lamb doo shining ping de perfect sacrifice la de ping immaculate bong de drives away badoobie forever.” And then you die and instead of like heaven and hell and all that it’s, I dunno, a crab with socks on playing the accordion. You’re only gonna be disappointed, but all the organised games of “guess what’s out there,” they pass the time.
We’ve eaten so many eighties things. Fish pie, prawn cocktail, ham and cheese toasty, Eton Mess, bad coffee…
The bathroom here is astonishing. Low light and it just feels luxurious. How the hell am in a suite the size of my flat for two nights? I’ll get over it. It’s the new swindle. Make them think you’re mystery shoppers by coming in the low season when you’re not the target demographic and then being awkward fuckers. Win. But for the fact we actually ARE this time and have to do some work too.
AlBarclay 