“We’re full next weekend,” Dan, of the Forest Inn, reports cheerfully.

“Sorry – can’t fit you in for dinner,” Charles, from the upmarket Prince Hall Country House Hotel, a ten minute drive away, tells me.

Humph.  Business for me fell off a cliff as of November 1st.  Just like last year. I’ve got two couples booked in between now, and the whole of the rest of my life.  Agh!

“It’s because you’re twice the price of the Forest Inn, and don’t provide the feeling of being socially superior like Prince Hall,” explains my cool son Will (19), who, immaculately trained by yours truly, enjoys working there as a chambermaid during university holidays, commuting on an E-bike.

I reassure myself that my guests have a special niche of their own.  For them to have tracked down ‘probably the most remote (and expensive) B&B south of the Watford Gap’, they are able, individual, discerning, well educated, successful, fit types, whose company I enjoy so much that I’d have them to stay for nothing (don’t tell them that), and I’m missing them already.

The upside is that I now use my best B&B room myself – complete with ironed Egyptian cotton bedlinen, thick fluffy white towels, separate shower and bidet, 4000 pocket-sprung mattress, and 4″ topper.