It's been a while ...

Yes I know, it's been a while since I last contributed to our Brittany Gite weblog diary. Work and other things have got in the way (again).

So what's new?

Well we continued receiving a few holiday bookings for our Brittany Gite through Autumn, and those that stayed in the Gite in September, October and November seem to have had a good tranquil break and enjoyed the Brittany countryside. I'm always surprised that we don't get more bookings in September and early October when frankly the weather can be just as good as in the peak summer, but of course it's a bit quieter without families taking school holiday breaks.

2013 bookings have started arriving as well and to date we have 3 holiday weeks booked in the cottage Gite for 2013. I was a bit late with uploading the holiday calendar for next year (it wasn't completed until November), by which time we'd already had a few people asking if we were open next year - of course we will be !!

Bookings usually start trickling in from September onwards and then jump up at the start of the new year. Fingers crossed for a good year next year, 2012 looks to have been better than 2011 was.

I was planning to go over to the Gite in December for 2 weeks as my company was offering a winter sabbatical and my application to take a month off was initially accepted, only then later to be rescinded as they decided they needed me too much. Grr. I still plan to go over in March and will use up the remainder of my annual leave when I do so.

Definitely will need to go over to the Gite at some stage as the pile of things to take over in the garage is slowly growing. Every time I come back from the Gite I write out for myself a list of "things I need to do when next over in France" and a second list of "things to take over to France", but then I usually loose the piece of paper, sometimes only finding it again just before I next go out to France, or in extreme situations only finding it some time after I have next returned!

This time though I have got myself more organised. I have found a free task/to-do list planning service, astrid.com, which has both a website and an iPhone/Android app that automatically syncs your reminder lists. You can share lists and tasks with other people (even those that don't use the Astrid app) so I've used it to create reminders of all the things I need to buy and take to France.

Mega-pleased with myself about my new levels of organisation.