Changeover day (the day where one set of guests go and another arrive) is undoubtedly the day from hell. Check out is 11am, check in is any time after 3pm. It sounds simple. But then … trying to wake people up after a heavy night on the town to get them out of the bedroom, breakfasted and packed so you can get in, clean the room and change the bed ready for the next guest, who excitedly calls to say they managed to catch an earlier train and would it be OK if they arrived at 12? Just to leave their luggage maybe and collect the keys, oh and to have a quick coffee and ask about restaurant recommendations? … is not for the faint-hearted.

It resulted once, and I’m pleased to say only once, in the guests checking out blearily drinking coffee, slumped on a sofa in the living room with obvious hangovers, to the appalled stares of the new guests just arriving. I say appalled because the hungover couple, who were very sweet and had been here celebrating a friend’s birthday, had goth black hair and were covered in tattoos and piercings, and the new couple were a tightly-buttoned middle-aged couple from Cheltenham here for a craft course, learning how to quilt, and were obviously unused to such creatures.

I had to leave them to it as I feverishly hoovered, whipped a duster around and wrestled with duvet covers. When I came back into the living room, it was to an awkward silence, which the hungover couple were immune to, but the quilting couple were squirming with social embarrassment.

I’m now very firm about waking people up and resort to a cheery knock on the bedroom door at 10.30, alerting them to the fact that they have half an hour to get going and would they like a quick coffee? But that took months of steeling myself to do so, especially if I could hear signs of, well, let’s call it “activity” behind the closed bedroom door.

Cleaning a room (properly) is not only tiring, but also time-consuming – and throws up moral questions all the time. Is it really mandatory to vacuum under the bed? And to dust the bedside lights every time? I read somewhere that posh hotels allow 20 minutes for a bedroom to be returned to a pristine state. It takes me an hour. I can only suppose that professional hotel cleaners are superhuman and on speed.

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