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“Do you ever miss the Netherlands?” I’m walking our guests to their room, while they ask me this question. I don’t have to think for long. “No, I feel completely at home here.” I think the way I say it is quite decisive, because the guests start laughing. “You sound just like Iris.” “From B&B Vol Liefde (a Dutch television show)?” I ask. They nod and I smile. I love Spain.

Ten months ago we received our first guests. The English Mike and Angie, who did not want to drive home after a party, and our aunts Alexa and Annette, who traveled from Tournai (Belgium), via the ‘Camino El Cid’ (Burgos-Valencia), to their nieces in Spain on bicycle. Although we had a few very quiet winter months shortly after opening, the number of…

When I finally fall into my chair in the office after a long day of work and open the laptop again, I see that the computer would like to be updated. I can’t suppress a deep sigh. “I will do that first thing in September,” I think to myself. While I enter the details of the guests, who arrived an hour ago, into the system, I quickly stuff the three remaining pieces of cinnamon…

Temperatures fluctuate between thirty and forty degrees during the day and twenty and twenty-five degrees during the night. The sparrows, so to speak, are falling from the roof. And the pigeons – which refused to respect my sister’s no-fly zone all spring – are nowhere to be seen. While the guests seek refuge in the air-conditioned rooms or the cool pool water…

Guests often mention the silence. The peace. The enchanting song of the birds, who often sing to us for most of the night. Unfortunately, that same calm is also regularly (and brutally) being disturbed. Because it’s an old house. With many charms. Such as the cart track, which still runs through the middle of the large hall. The millstones that, because of their weight…