Thursday was a pleasant day at our peak district cottages so I allocated the morning to outside jobs, mainly watering, feeding and dead heading the hanging baskets and chatting to guests in the process.  One cottage out with one back in and one cleaner up.  Cottage arrived about 4pm, they have been before.  Spent some time in the afternoon on accounts.  In the evening we went for a meal out opting for the Bulls Head in Ashford in the Water.  We thought it was quiet for the time of year and chatting to the landlady she said the Thursday before a Bank Holiday is usually quiet but if we had tuned up on Wednesday evening then we would have been turned away.  She described this year as ‘inconsistent’ which is a good word to describe bookings in 2012.  We have never had to discount in August before to the extent we have, admittedly we are not the only ones, and with two of the three cancellations for the first week in September, which is normally fully booked months in advance and now looks quite empty.  My only consolation is that I have bookings for every month from January to August in 2013, I took two bookings for August 2013 on Thursday.  Initially the forecast for Friday had been wet but by Friday morning the forecast had changed and we had a cloudy but dry day with the first rain not arriving until later in the afternoon.  One cottage in and cleaner up to keep up with cleaning of cottages and public areas.  Again allocated the morning to outside jobs and gardening.  Some finishing off in cottages and preparations for the weekend during the afternoon.  Cottage arrived about 3pm, they have been before.  Spoke to friend in Yorkshire who had just experienced a very heavy downpour  (watched a wheelie bin float down the lane) but no damage to her home. Hopefully they’re coming down to stay with us in a few weeks time.  Looking forward to that.  Perhaps we’ll have a few days off?