| Clwydian Range Tourism Group |
Member Experience
Jenny runs Faraway Follies in Llandegla. We thought sharing her experience of reopening her beautiful self catering accommodation would be helpful and reassuring to other members:
"With great delight we embraced the opportunity to reopen post lockdown. At the beginning of lockdown we had worked out that we had enough cash to get by until August without having to dip into savings, having fallen outside all of the possible support packages. So it was great news that we could open from 13th July, a whole two weeks before the cash would run out. Finally we could stop having to tell people that their booking wasn’t going ahead.
What did we have to do to reopen? Firstly, a risk assessment, which doesn’t have to written down if you employ less than five people, however printing off one of the many templates that are available, helped to focus the mind on the sort of things we needed to think about.
What PPE should we get? We armed ourselves with overalls to wear while we do the changeovers, along with Breathe Happy silicone masks as these don’t mist up your glasses and are much nicer to wear. An investment at £20 but surely your health is worth it?
Next problem was how to handle the laundry. Pre lockdown we were asking people to bring their own bedding and towels, but I was really unhappy to be taking the business away from the team at A Touch of Class in Ruthin. So post lockdown I was determined to find a way that works. We bought some large calico laundry bags and we ask the guests to strip the bed into one bag, towels into another and bathrobes into a third, and if anything is stained to put a peg on the bag so we know to treat it before washing. These bags go straight in the machine and the whole load gets done in one which seems to be working quite well. We enrolled for a cleaning course run Landlords’ Little Helper’s Cleaning School (I especially like that they know how to use an apostrophe!). The course was fairly basic, but gave me a feeling of confidence that I knew what I was doing. Through this course I also discovered Envirosafe for virus and bacteria control (alltec.co.uk), who recommended misting bottles for spraying a very fine mist, which I bought from Amazon.
We set up hand sanitiser stations at the entrances to the lodges using amber glass bottles and plungers attaching them with simple metal brackets to the wall and blue ‘please use hand sanitiser’ stickers. Again, all from Amazon. I felt this was more in keeping with the image of our lodges than the commercial looking white plastic boxes. There are no TV’s in our accommodation, so the board games and jigsaws are all part of a stay with us. We made the decision to invest in a second set of games and we rotate these at each change over along with the leaflets giving people a little local information. This wasn’t particularly expensive, just a cheap set of dominoes, a couple of packs of playing cards, a dice game and a set of travel scrabble. About £25 for each site but gave us the peace of mind that we were not stripping the character out of what we offer here.
We remind guests that if they are uncertain about anything, to sanitise before and after use. Guests have as much responsibility to keep themselves safe as you do to keep them safe. We also bought some small hand sanitiser bottles from the Clwydian Range Distillery to add to our gift hamper. It all takes a little longer to do a changeover, especially putting all the cutlery, crockery, utensils, mugs and glasses through the dishwasher up at the main house. So we have asked guests to check out by 10 am and open all the windows before they go, which allows us a chance to give the space a rest and let it ventilate before we head in to strut our stuff! It’s all about keeping us safe as well as keeping our guests safe. We are fully booked until 16th September, with the treehouse booked out until November. We have a few orphan nights as we have made the decision not to accept single night stays with all the extra cleaning and sanitising. Yes we have had to invest to reopen and it is costing us a little more to run the show, but at least we are open and its lovely to have the guests back and see the delight on their faces as they marvel at the peace and beauty of where they are. I think throughout the whole of lockdown that is the thing I missed most.
Good luck everyone and stay safe."
