by Elizabeth Bromage

Synopsis

Three couples arrive at their destination: a hotel that is off the Welsh mainland, only to discover that the ‘hotel’ is an old ancestral pile that is not only being rapidly reclaimed by the sea but is run by two argumentative old sisters. One is the housekeeper, the other is the cook, maid, domestic help and everything else. She’s also a happy drunk, who takes on the accent of whatever she’s drinking, so the Bailey’s Irish Cream gets a pasting, likewise the accent, and so does the table when she decides to dance an Irish Jig on it.

The three couples find that the room they are shown on arrival bears no relation to the description given when they booked, and, coupled with their own relationship issues and the difficulties they had travelling to the island, cause them to show their discontent to the staff and to each other.

The housekeeper is revealed to be a titled lady and the owner of the house. She booked the guests in a rush in one of the ‘new -fangled internet cafes’ on the mainland, when she was over there on a day trip. She was so eager to get guests in to her home and earn some cash before more of the rooms followed the garden into the sea. Now she has to extract their cash under rather trying conditions!

A weather front cuts the guests off from returning to the mainland, and they become stuck overnight in this fast-disappearing house with its odd staff. They try and make the best of it, but are all soon embroiled in a family mystery, a treasure hunt, and a long-ago drowning.

The themed weekend is forgotten as they argue and fight over the rooms, and the fact that something in the bathroom has just toppled into the remaining part of the garden due to subsidence. This though, is before a drunken séance that manages to conjure up a ghost or two!

Characters