Opening Lines

IT’S an unassuming little abbreviation: B&B. For some of you, it might be the first ampersand (&) you saw written down.

What does the word ‘B&B’ evoke? A mighty sleep after a day out walking the hills? Stumbling in after a wedding, fluthered, trying not to knock over a giant vase on the hall stand as you struggling to remember whether it is right or left at the top of the stairs? Woken up by the smell of someone cooking sausages? There was a time when the B&B was the only accommodation in some areas. Then we started building hotels, rather than pay tax, and soon people found you could have low-priced grandeur next to a roundabout. There were Jacuzzis everywhere and hydrotherapy and wellness spaces and every purple-painted room with a fern and a rolled-up towel was a spa. Even the word ‘B&B’ seemed outmoded.

Then, the internet intervened. The word ‘airbnb’ may be filtering through into your consciousness. You thought you had misheard a Cork or Kerry person saying “Yerra a B&B”. Then, someone arrived back from holidays telling all and sundry how they stayed in “a huge apartment, PRACTICALLY IN THE SAGRADA FAMILIA, BERNIE,” and your interest was piqued.