A Good Year for the Roses: A Novel by Gil McNeil

Author:Gil McNeil
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction / Contemporary Women, Fiction / Family Life
Publisher: HYPERION - ACQUIRED ASSETS
Published: 2014-06-30T16:00:00+00:00

I’m awake at half past five due to a combination of worrying about Mr. and Mrs. Denton arriving and the sodding birds kicking off their dawn chorus. If I didn’t know better, I’d swear they were all massed outside my bedroom window on purpose, chirruping and chattering and making as much racket as possible. There’s no way I’ll get back to sleep, so I make a pot of tea and wander round checking everything. I rearrange the towels in the guest bathrooms one more time, along with the handmade soaps I bought at the farmers’ market; I got the lavender, and rose, and the lemon balm for guests who’d rather not be too floral. Ivy isn’t convinced about putting nice things in the bathrooms; someone helped themselves to the plug from the bath a couple of years ago and she’s still not over it. In an ideal world she’d like one of those scanners they have at airports where you can see everyone in their underwear, and check what they’ve got in their bags. But even though I know from my days working at the hotel just how readily some members of the Great British Public abandon all decorum the minute they’re paying for their room, and help themselves to anything which isn’t nailed down, I’m hoping most of our guests will appreciate the nice soaps and old bottles in pretty blue glass on the newly painted windowsills. Either that, or we can look into getting Ivy that scanner.

It rained last night, but the weather is definitely getting warmer; I’d forgotten how much earlier everything arrives down here. The Lenten roses have been out for ages, in pretty combinations of purples and pinks and creams. Celia says they’re called hellebores, which is a rubbish name for something so lovely. And we’ve had masses of snowdrops and crocuses too, alongside early narcissus and daffodils dotted about in chirpy clumps. The winter honeysuckle has been blooming since the start of the year, and the magnolia branches I’ve put in a big jug in the hall look great with their delicate white stars and gorgeous scent. The rhododendrons and azaleas in the lane are pretty stunning too—the yellow ones smell particularly lovely. And there are buds on the incense rose by the back door now, and Dennis says it blooms early, so hopefully we’ll have roses round the door soon. That’s one of the things I’ve noticed most about living here—all the wonderful smells: log fires and beeswax, dried lavender and salt in the air from the sea. If you could bottle it, you’d make a fortune.

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