The Fennimore Arms, Where The Room Rate Includes Company We Had Not Requested
A country inn of great character, some of which was airborne, and one item of which held firm views about the corridor.
Three Bins out of Five
Three Bins, awarded generously, on the understanding that most of the guests were not paying either.
A note on this one. The Fennimore Arms does not exist. Neither does Quillet-under-Mere. This entry belongs to our series of completely fictional hotels we regret to imagine, and any resemblance to a real establishment is a coincidence and, frankly, a tragedy for that establishment.
We were assured the goose has never entered a bedroom. The goose has entered a bedroom
The Fennimore Arms is a genuinely old building in a genuinely pretty village, and we want that on the record before we come to the moths. The beams are original. The fireplace draws properly. The staircase leans in a manner that is charming for the first two days and educational thereafter. It is a lovely inn, and it is not, in the strictest sense, exclusively ours.
The wardrobe in Room 3 contains moths. Not a moth. The plural is essential to the experience. Opening the door produces a soft grey event which resolves, after several seconds, into a wardrobe again. We reported this and were told, with a candour we appreciated enormously, that the moths are known, that they are in the fabric of the building, and that they were here considerably before we were.
There is also a cat. The cat appears on the website, which is fair warning, and the cat sleeps on whichever bed in the house is warmest, which is not. It entered Room 3 twice by a route we were never able to establish, and on both occasions regarded us as the anomaly in the arrangement. By the second visit we had come round to its position.
On the second evening we met the goose. The goose lives in the yard and is described in the guest information folder as part of the family. At half past six the goose was standing squarely in the middle of the passage leading to the residents' lounge, and that passage is the only way to the residents' lounge. We did not visit the residents' lounge.
We raised the goose at the desk. We were assured that the goose has never entered a bedroom and has no interest in doing so. Later that same evening the goose entered a bedroom. It was not ours. We heard the account at breakfast from a couple from further inland, who told it twice, and who will be telling it for the rest of their lives.
Three Bins, and we mean that kindly. Nothing at the Fennimore Arms is neglected, exactly. It is simply an establishment that has decided the wildlife is a feature, and has not put that decision anywhere a guest can find it before arrival. Put it on the booking page. Put the goose on the booking page. The goose has earned a paragraph, and so, we would argue, have we.
This is an original work of satire about a fictional establishment. Bin Ratings are opinions. Report this story.
Also regrettable