As you might have read I'm a HUGE fan of Nottingham Playhouse. I love sponsoring the arts and supporting the theatre, and we often have actors staying in our apartments (here's one of our most popular blog posts ever – an interview with actor Amy Trigg).

Every year the Nook & Cranny crew go to the panto (oh yes we do!) and this year was no different. So, two weeks ago a group of us went along to Cast for a delicious dinner followed by a hilarious night watching Aladdin. Nothing gets you into the Chrismtas mood more than a panto and singing along with hundreds of other people to X factor tunes!

I recently wrote about my relationships with local busiensses, how we all work together and help each other, and part of the reason we go to the panto is so that I can say thanks to them. I loved hosting a group of the dedicated people who support Nook & Cranny behind the scenes all year to a fun evening out, including my accountant, my property manager and my Google expert!

I'd like to say a massive THANK YOU to everyone who has helped us have the best 12 months we've ever had. These are exciting times for Nook & Cranny, we're going from strength to strength (I'll show you our gorgeous new apartments in the new year!) and exceeded all our expectations this year. Whether you're a guest, someone we work with, a friend, or you just read our blog once in a while, a really big thank you for your support.

Merry Christmas and a very Happy New Year to you and your families from all of us at Nook & Cranny!

And that difference is the extra effort we put in.

I live in West Bridgford and I personally  make sure that every property is perfect and ready before our guests arrive. Last year, I talked about my aim of providing a service that's the complete opposite of the dehumaising experience many people experience when they relocate or travel for business. We want our visitors to feel part of the community they're staying in the moment they arrive, so we make sure they do by finding out exactly what they need during their stay (whether that's a gym, a cot, information about local schools or any other help with relocating). ​

We've had a fantastic year and we hope you have too. We intend to keep growing on our success and carry on providing the best short-term accommodation around! If you'd like to check out our luxury apartments and experience our customer service for yourself please get in touch. And don't forget to come back soon and read about our Christmas Party!

On Friday 30th September, we took part in the World's Biggest Coffee Morning and held our own event here in West Bridgford to raise money for Macmillan cancer support.

We wanted to do it a little bit differently so we decided to give it a health slant. At our coffee morning we had someone offering hand massages, someone selling oils and salts, someone giving pilates lessons... and of course there was lots of coffee and cake!

Thanks to the generosity of everyone who came along we raised a fantastic £354 (which we're going to double to make a total of £708). Not bad for a morning's cake-eating. I've just popped over to the Macmillan website and at the time of writing, all of the coffee mornings nationwide have raised £8,641,243.02. Now that's a lot of cake!

We were really lucky with the weather – here we are enjoying the beautiful day in late September.

We had a great turnout, about 30 people called in, and we thought it might be a good idea to re-open our doors at 5pm for anyone who couldn't make it during the day, so we picked up lots of people after work too.

This is Angeliki with a gorgeous collection of her extra virgin olive oil and sea salts, which went down very well. Angeliki runs Elia http://eliafoods.co.uk and specialises in bringing Greek food to the UK, feel free to contact her if you'd like to know more.

Above is Corinne, who's the local Executive Manager at The Body Shop at Home. She raised lots of money by offering luxurious hand massages to everyone for £2 a pop. And here's Nikki – owner of Studio Bùa in The Park, Nottingham – teaching some of the ladies about pilates and helping them burn off their coffee morning treats! 

Not only did we have all that going on but we managed to fit in a raffle with some brilliant prizes from lots of local businesses too, so a BIG thank you to Côte, Mud Crab and La Storia – which contributed to the total we raised.

And finally a MASSIVE thank you to everyone who came along, brought cake, bought cake, ate cake or donated in any way to make the morning such a huge success. Our guests say thanks too, they were extremely happy to be greeted  with the delicious leftovers when they arrived in their apartments!


​So, shall we do it all again next year? Same time, same place?

Feel free to get in touch to talk to us about cake, coffee mornings or our luxury apartments! 

It's really important to us that our guests have a relaxing stay in our apartments, sometimes they've relocated around the world, they're away from their families or they find themselves somewhere completely new. We have Katalin Pfortner and her team – "The Pink Army" - to thank for making sure that our properties are always spotless and for doing our guests' ironing, so I decided to track her down and find out more.

Two and a half years ago, when I first met Katalin, she was a cleaner and housekeeper for Bright & Beautiful. Now she's the franchisee and Operational Manager in Nottingham, with a team of 22 cleaners.

Here's our chat from earlier in the week...

What is the best bit about what you do?
There are so many things I love about my job. As you can imagine I like places to be clean and tidy but there's a lot more to it than that. I really enjoy providing a personal service and the face-to-face contact I have with clients. There's lots of problem-solving when you're managing over 100 customers and I find it really satisfying.

What do you do for Nook & Cranny?
We do two different types of clean – interim (during a guest's stay) and exit cleans, which are more thorough. We also change the bed linen and towels, and do the ironing if guests ask us to. Last year we updated ALL of the bed linen and towels in every single flat, that took some organising! Now you've got over 20 apartments, with people arriving and leaving at different times, we have a special system to manage exit cleans and we provide a 7 day a week service just for you to fit in with your guests.

What makes Bright & Beautiful different?
Well, firstly the products we use are all eco-friendly, we don't use bleach or anything else that's harmful to people or the environment. We use soft cloths and feather dusters, nothing harsh or abrasive. The other thing is the way we're set up. We're not an agency, we believe in looking after our staff so all of our cleaners are employed and they're paid for their travel time too, which is unusual in the industry. As the boss, I treat everyone the way I'd like to be treated myself and I wouldn't ask someone to do something I wouldn't be prepared to do myself!

Have you got any funny stories (please keep it clean!)?
There are a few stories I can't share... all I'll say is that some of the exit cleans after actors' parties are interesting! Nook & Cranny has a lot of different guests so we meet all sorts of people - actors, tourists, professionals, sportspeople. The team tends to fight over who gets to clean your apartments when you have professional footballers and cricketers staying in the hope that they might meet them!

​Have you got any tips for those of us who might not be quite so keen on cleaning?
Yes, a few... my first one is that if you're not sweating you're not doing it right! Cleaning is great exercise, none of us need gym memberships any more. I'd also recommend doing two hours of cleaning if you feel stressed, it's surprisingly relaxing.


Thank you so so much to Katalin, there's always a lot more to a job than meets the eye, I might even start viewing my cleaning as relaxing...

A lot goes into providing an excellent service to everyone who stays at our properties, we'll be giving you a behind the scenes look at some of the other people who make it happen soon.

If you've got any comments or questions fire away and, as always, feel free to contact us if you're looking for short-term luxury accommodation in West Bridgford, Nottingham.

​Now, where's my feather duster...

Katalin's Story
​Within a month of joining Bright & Beautiful's army of cleaners, Katalin was made Team Leader, she quickly became Senior Team Leader and then the full-time Operational Manager. She now owns and runs the local franchise of Bright & Beautiful, which covers all of Nottingham city and beyond (postcodes NG1 to NG14). Her local team provides a professional cleaning and ironing service, offering regular weekly and fortnightly cleans. Kat has already grown the business and has a team of 22 cleaners, and she's aiming to double that within the next 2 years. Having seen what she's capable of we're sure she'll achieve it!