I stayed in a hotel this week; not the normal Monday night routine, but a complete break from the norm for me. I joined my husband
here for the night and we lived like people without kids and a mortgage and a flooded front lawn and a million chores to do at home. To be honest they are my chores rather than his; we have the 1950's model of family life; he works and brings home the bacon, I do everything else. Staying away like that, midweek, in decadent fashion made me feel abit like this...
I have decided that staying in a good hotels is just the most lovely treat, so long as you don't have to do it all the time. I am sure there are travelling salesmen (a la Arthur Miller) who hate the sight of the inside of a hotel room. For me, there is something so elemental and minimal about staying somewhere that is a fully formed version of itself. It doesn't need cleaning, every design detail has been thought out, it feels fresh and clear. You sleep in sheets you didn't have to launder. They bring breakfast on trays with linen tablecloths. Incidentally, room service deliverers (porters?) have the strangest job don't they? Turning up in a stranger's bedroom before they are dressed (after all isn't the whole point to have
breakfast in bed? No fun if you have to get dressed first). It's the most intimate of places. Still I overlooked my blushes for hot porridge and poached eggs and freshly toasted bread with marmalade.
Some thing about those sheets, those nurses corners on the bed. That freshly plumped pillow that is just calling your name. That deeply filled, steaming bubble bath. A slice of heaven for a housewife like me.
Of course it helped that the hotel looked like this...
And as for husbands - or my husband to be precise - I quite like him, he was the perfect person to share a hotel room with...
