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How to survive life when the visitors arrive


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[quote user="Russethouse"] Japanese proverb, my foot ! Its Benjamin Franklin, 1776 [:)][/quote]

Whether Japanese proverb or Benjamin Franklin or Oscar Wilde it all comes to the same that these people speak of experience.... Maybe they shut down the water supply to their home that their guests couldn't wash therefore started to stink after a couple of days...

All of you DIYers... ain't that a good idea?.... I can see the situation : Oh Dear! we forgot [8-)][;-)] to pay for the connection to 'le service des eaux et égoûts!!all these letters arriving in a foreign language which we don't understand!... They've cut us off!!...[Www].....

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I just had an e-mail this morning to say that my mother and step-father are coming for five days at the end of March.  I am jumping for joy!!!!  I have been here for 18 years and they've NEVER visited (work commitments). 

I'm really excited[:D]

 

Missy!

Do you mind using an outside loo and shower[;-)]  Only joking Cariad - can't wait to see you!

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Never been able to persuade the in-laws to visit either; a pity because I know MIL would enjoy it, if she could face the journey, and it's not that far to the SW corner of Normandy where we are...

In some ways relations can be the worst sort of visitors, they do expect more in terms of attention.

Too many vistors think that because they are on holiday then you are as well, they don't seem to realise that we actually have to work during the week in order to provide them with a place to stay.

Our best visitors turn up bearing gifts of food etc, work hard in the garden during their stay, always take us out for a really nice meal at a decent place, and leave well before they have outstayed their welcome. Nothing too unusual in that, you might say - except that they are both senior tax officials in England [;-)]

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A good saying from Iraq." If we are sorry to see you leave, we will be pleased to welcome you back" Unfortunately the chap who said it to me isn't around any more.

On an even more depressing note, there are are a few guests I would have like to have invited.My mother and my wifes mother, both no longer with us but how we would have loved to have them here.

Regards.

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In some ways relations can be the worst sort of visitors, they do expect more in terms of attention.

I agree with that Will.

Father and sister both seemed to make themselves too much at home! They were dipping into the fridge cupboards and brewing up cuppas as and when the mood took them as if it was their family home.

I am glad my dad has been able to visit a couple of times and see the house and where we are. I guess that last time I think he missed his own home and familiar comforts too much.

Gastines, I know how you feel about some family members having missed out on the opportunity to visit. I would have liked my mother to stay with us but by the time we had the house she was too frail and now she is no longer with us.

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[quote user="Blanche Neige"] They were dipping into the fridge cupboards and brewing up cuppas as and when the mood took them as if it was their family home.[/quote]

I prefer people to do that, especially if they are staying a long time.

If I've invited someone for a week or two, then I want them to feel at home, and I don't want to feel I have to keep asking if they need anything.

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I'm with you on that Tresco.  Although it has it's downside if you've an entire family staying with you and they are eating you out of house and home, and snacking on that very special pud you'd bought for after dinnner - or worse still, devouring your very special stash of expensive chocolate that you keep for REALLY bad moments!

However, to all our guests we do the first drink, show them where everything is and expect them to get up and help themselves thereafter.  It may be their holiday, but I don't want to be waiting on people hand and foot all the time.

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I like it when people make their own drinks. I forget to drink, so it is in their interests to be autonomous.

My MIL used to come and stay for a month and should would always ask if she could 'spend a penny'............. for a whole month she would do that. I started saying no. And yet she still asked. This happened year after year after year.

That was about the only bad thing about her visits though, but it did get to me.

My Dad won't come. He travels the world in his 80's. Bus from home to the railway station or bus station and off to an airport and away he goes. IF I say I am bored out in the sticks, well he won't come because there is nothing for him to do either and he is fond of going out, he isn't a drinker but he likes going to dances and the nearest are a 40 minute drive away as far as I can tell.

It is funny who will and won't come. I expected some friends to come out often and they didn't. Some people we hardly know have called in. And family, well pretty rare too, apart from my MIL. We always were a pretty expensive destination though in the past, and I suppose that people just prefered to spend their money going elsewhere.

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[quote user="naps"]... it has it's downside if you've an entire family staying with you and they are eating you out of house and home, and snacking on that very special pud you'd bought for after dinnner...[/quote]

Naps, this brings us back round to whether the holiday we are hosting, and sometimes have offered is an 'all expenses paid' one.[;-)]

 

 

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They were dipping into the fridge cupboards and brewing up cuppas as and when the mood took them as if it was their family home.

" I prefer people to do that, especially if they are staying a long time. "

Tresco, I probably didn't explain it very well but at the time both OH and I really got a bit fed up with their "help yourself to everything" approach.

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[quote user="Will"] ..... Too many vistors think that because they are on holiday then you are as well, they don't seem to realise that we actually have to work during the week in order to provide them with a place to stay..... [/quote]

I remember when Southern Rhodesia was about to become Zimbabwe, an endless stream of OH's friends came to visit us to suss out life in UK and/or Wales.... (My OH spent all of his childhood there)

Nice to them, to see them nice! BUT.... back home they had servants to do the laundry, cook meals, washing-up etc... Here I was on my own to do the lot and run my little B&B and self-catering business. OH would take them out during the day to visit estate agents etc.. and the area which sometime meant travelling from Mid-Wales to the far end of  South Wales and back in a day, same in the other direction or venture to the Midlands or wherever took their fancy. To them a journey of 200miles one way to see something was just like dropping on the next door neighbour!..

This would go on for at least 2 weeks at a time per group of friends that came over.... After one long summer of this, I really went very grumpy and sulky that I decamped to my parents in France for a month. OH was not amused in the least to have to cope with it all.....

My grump was that not one of them ever once offered to pay for the petrol used, to take us out for a meal one evening, even fish&chips! or even offer a bottle of wine for supper! I know a few of them have settled in UK since and I am waiting for an invitation for the weekend from some of them[:)].... which never comes in the annual Xmas card with their 'how well we are doing now that we are here!' round-robin letter!! [:@]

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Going slightly off-topic, that reminds me of when we did B&B for house-hunters, and we had one couple booked in for two weeks. They had a main home in one of those ex-colonial countries but had come over from their second home in England - by motorbike.

On about the second day of their stay Mrs W had to go back to England in a rush for sad family reasons, so yours truly was left to attend to their every wish round the clock - despite having my own work to do and having friends from England in their nearby holiday home that I really would have liked to socialise with. Because they came by bike they didn't have much luggage, so there was daily laundry to do. Plus if it rained (not unkown in Normandy) they needed to be ferried by car to their next appointment, even to and from lunch on spare days. Nice enough people, and we charged them a good rate - but it is a different outlook on life

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ah yes they will ask if you want anything brought over, for sure............. and then conveniently forget the list of things you really wanted and bring the smallest jar of marmite they can find.    why is it always marmite !!!!!!!!!!!!   or even more strangely with last lot, the largest wedge of sick coloured cheddar cheese wrapped in plastic .... even had the nerve to bring it with equivalent of 'top budget' on label.    i love cheddar but i wouldn't have eaten that in the uk, so why would i eat a lump of sick coloured plasticine in france !!

oh, i must be fair, they are not all the same - ditto the meal thing though; i dont want people to take me out for a meal, i want them to offer to contribute toward electricity and food (or anything else practical).      And for us i am only talking guests in our home, as we dont have a business at moment.

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[quote user="Cassis"]This seems to be one of those rare occasions when running a B&B is an advantage! 
[/quote]

 

I can't see the advantage.... These 'friends' come to 'see you' ...You end up not seeing much of them as you are so busy otherwise with the business... They know that you run a B&B therefore know that you will have plenty of rooms to accommodate them and your other guests.... and furthermore in my experience they expect you to give them that room free of charge for the duration.... What is the fun of losing valuable income for 'friends'...... You could have paid a little bit more off your mortgage if these rooms had been made available for kosher paying guests....

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or even more strangely with last lot, the largest wedge of sick coloured cheddar cheese wrapped in plastic .... even had the nerve to bring it with equivalent of 'top budget' on label.  

 

These days one asks for Seriously Strong Cheddar. It is a make and it is just what it says and we think it is rather nice. And tell them the quantity too. IE a kilo or what ever, after all it does freeze.

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Well maybe the worst guests are those that bring you what you want, and then eat it themselves.

Or what about the ones that compare everything to England when they come.   "Oh it will be so much better when you get your fitted kitchen".  (grrr) Or "Do you know when I spoke to that shop assistant he just looked at me blank, it was so rude". But that's because you just spoke in English!!![:@]

Georgina

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I was feeling pretty guilty about this thread as although I offer to pay actually I (its usually just me) I usually do end up going the 'meal out' route, however I do take 'good' food parcels. : Waitrose Davidstowe cheddar,(usually 2 big packets) Twinings Breakfast tea x 2 oatcakes x 2 shortbread, Green & Blacks chocolate (several bars) and Green & Blacks Chocolate powder, Various magazines (current) anything else I see that they might like and sometimes a bottle of reasonable whisky, Christmas crackers etc.

My friend likes our oven gloves (the long ones with a pocket for each hand) so I look out for nice ones Sometimes if mutual frends are going in that direction I send stuff anyhow - its not all one way - I get French stuff brought back, biscuits, Eddu, kitchen soap etc -

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[quote user="Russethouse"]

.........................................however I do take 'good' food parcels. : Waitrose Davidstowe cheddar,(usually 2 big packets) Twinings Breakfast tea x 2 oatcakes x 2 shortbread, Green & Blacks chocolate (several bars) and Green & Blacks Chocolate powder, Various magazines (current) anything else I see that they might like and sometimes a bottle of reasonable whisky, Christmas crackers etc.

[/quote]

RH, If you can add mince pies to that list you are welcome to stay here for a couple of days..........................[:D][:D]

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