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Covid-19 update

Dear friends old and new,

As the confinement is extended by 15 days in France, I’m writing to let you all know what’s happening here at La Bourdonnerie. As with everyone else, Covid-19 is having à big impact on us as à family. The schools have closed and we’re doing our best to help the boys with their studies and keep them entertained, rain or shine. We’re all playing our part, and staying home, which I believe it’s the same in most European countries right now. We’re lucky to have space, and we count our blessings for that every day. We’re all healthy, and cases of coronavirus in Normandy remain low compared to other regions of France for the time being.

Business-wise, I am sad to say we are cancelling all bookings for April already. We don’t yet know what the situation will be in May, June & July. We’re crossing our fingers that at some point soon, things will return to normal and we can once again welcome you back on the farm. Our first guests of 2020 were meant to be arriving yesterday and it was quite dispiriting: as our regulars will know, we spend à lot of time and money each winter improving different elements of La Bourdonnerie, and it is heartbreaking to see the cottages sat empty.

Like almost everyone else, Covid-19 is having a big financial impact on us, but we hope, with careful management we will pull through. The holiday cottages are our main source of income, but fortunately I do some other digital work as well and that revenue stream is thankfully unaffected.

For guests who cannot make it here due to the travel restrictions, we’re trying to manage things in à way in which everyone has à reasonable outcome. À good proportion of guests followed our advice at time of booking and took out travel cancellation insurance, which means nobody is out of pocket. If you need any documentation for your insurance company, please let me know and I can provide it promptly.

For others, we’re offering to postpone their holidays either to later in the year or to 2021. I’m currently working on putting in place à voucher system on the website which will àllow guests to rebook and apply their voucher for the amount they have already paid. Please bear in mind that by delaying your holiday in this way, we’re still making à 100% loss on your booking which would have otherwise happened this year.

Finally, I would like to thank those guests who we’ve been dealing with so far. Some of the emails we’ve received, and gestures you have made, have touched us deeply, and confirmed our faith in humanity. We’re all in this together, and we’re trying hard to ‘pass it on’ in our own dealings with 3rd party suppliers during these difficult times.

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