The first note

This is the first note from the hotel, and it is mostly a note to ourselves: a place to keep track of what is happening while the building goes up.

Garmsar in autumn is the best of it. The heat has gone out of the walls by the middle of the evening, the pomegranates in the orchards behind the town are heavy enough to pull the branches down, and the light on the mountains at the end of the day is the reason people stop their cars on the road out of town.

We are laying the courtyard first. A tree, a small pool, shade on three sides. Everything else in the hotel is arranged around it, because that is where we want people to end up.

If you are travelling this way, write to us. We will tell you honestly what is finished and what is not.