I’ve been anxious since I could think. If you’ve stayed with us, you almost certainly didn’t notice as I glide through breakfast like Margot Fonteyn in Converse. Yet I was an anxious child, an anxious teen, an anxious, diagnosed but untreated ADHD 20 something etc etc etc. So maybe, (you might think) hospitality is not the best choice for me at the butt-end of my 50s.

But oh how I love how the young people are accepting and understanding of their slayDHD, how people are talking about their worries, depression, neurodivergences… and it’s helped me understand how being me makes me ‘good at hospitality’ in some ways. I asked some of my anxious friends what they thought. Here’s part of our dialogue:

Martin:  You tend to have thought of everything way before time if you are a worry type of person. This means you also usually have a plan B (and maybe even C and D) up your sleeve in case of either emergencies or changes of plan, because you have usually thought it to the nth degree. 

 

Jennie: Guests generally get a great experience because you have thought of every detail so much xxx

Me: so long as you don’t actually walk into the door while carrying a pile of plates because your brain is thinking of 7 possibilities and ain’t got no time for coordinating. Hypothetically of course

 

Catherine: It’s conducive for great list making which as a typical Virgo I do of course wholeheartedly embrace. 

I can confirm this. I have many many notebooks. Some even used halfway through…

 

Laura: The most positive example I can offer is that reality is invariably never ever as bad as the 4276 horrific scenarios you’ve played out in your head…….Most of all, please know that all of your feelings are valid and completely normal. Lots of love from your fellow worrywart.

I can also confirm this. When Covid came I went into automatic coping strategy, us anxious people had been ready for this all our lives.

Anxiety and over thinking can lead to clumsiness; always known (sometimes affectionately) as ‘One Plate Kate’ I never take risks carrying breakfast dishes recklessly. This leads to me clocking up my 10,000 steps over breakfast. It does also lead to mishaps. Here’s a picture of me at the Fairy Pools approximately 10 seconds before Johnny said ‘watch where you’re putting your feet’, I forgot what feet are supposed to do, let alone where I was supposed to be putting mine, and promptly fell over. It happens quite a bit, I’m used to it but it does alarm other people.

In my conversations with myself in the early hours I make decisions in answer to questions like ‘but what if this little guest is in the middle of toilet training while on holiday and loses a week of progress?’. Thank goodness one can order from Amazon at 3am.

Or ‘ I don’t like how many additives there are in brown sauce, I wonder if I can make my own’. Turns out you can. Next stop Nutella…

It means that after a couple of guests commented that the shower/loo pump in one of the rooms had begun to make a disturbance I ‘persuaded’ Johnny and Gary to completely reorganise the drainage so it didn’t do that any more (and I could sleep through the night without keeping one ear open for late night flushes). And it needed to be done straight away when we closed. Weather? What weather?

So actually me being me means I enjoy what I do so very much. And our reviews tell you that our guests love staying with us too. Also very much. Check us out on Google.

I’m currently researching books about MacDonalds and MacLeods to put in our rooms, looking at recipes for breakfast shots (like turmeric & ginger, not like vodka or tequila my friends) and getting VERY picky about 3d wallpaper which may or may not send my hugely tolerant and understanding husband over the edge.

Kermit doesn’t find it that easy being green, but green he is, and being green is one of the things that makes him Kermit. I feel the same about being anxious, now I just need to write a song for my anxious buddies and the people who live with us. You’re not alone.