House Guest

Today

We've just waved goodbye to Paul's recently rediscovered old  friend Graham who stayed with us for a few days. He has a huge voice and personality and his six foot five inch frame was continually encountering hazards in our little house. He quoted Petronius to us, basically along the lines of four days being the maximum length of stay before you're knifing each other!

I don't know about that, and I much enjoyed his visit. The house does seem larger and quieter without him, though.

In My Day

The house at Rowan Avenue was a very modest sized three bedroomed semi. The third bedroom barely accommodated a bed, let alone any storage furniture. We used to say that our house had elastic walls.

In 1977 my half-sister Carol arrived from Canada, more or less unannounced. She brought with her her husband and three youngest children. I think originally the plan had been to stay with her mother who was at that time living in Hove. But the unspeakably dirty way in which she lived made that impossible.

She talked it over with Daddy. "I don't know what we're to do," she said "The children are adamant that they won't stay another night at their Grandmother's place and I can't blame them. But we can't really afford a hotel..."  "Oh!" I said "Come and stay with us!" Paul didn't so much as blink and backed up my invitation.

Firstly, we had to work out how to get us all back from Dorking. We were driving a Vauxhall Ventura, which was just an ordinary saloon car. Carol and family had no transport, having been relying on public transport and taxis. Somehow we all piled in. Paul drove, I, heavily pregnant with Becky, sat in the front with Lizzie wedged in the passenger footwell between my knees. Carol, Nick and three teenage children somehow stuffed themselves into the back seat and off we set. Even the policeman who spoke to us at the scene of an accident turned a blind eye to this feat of packing and we got to Eastbourne safely.

Now, how to make our elastic house hold these guests? Four year-old Lizzie was moved to a zed-bed in our bedroom. Jan & Suzee were accommodated in the second bedroom and Peter had the tiny room (he was the only member of that family even approaching tiny). Carol & Nick valiantly slept on the airbed which we put onto the living room floor. And the cats were firmly locked into the kitchen. The house was open-plan so Carol & Nick had no kind of privacy but they clearly thought that their digs with us were preferable to the more spacious but smelly accommodation in Hove.

They stayed for over a week, during which time we took them out and about in Sussex and up to Penkridge to see Keir and family (they did hire a car for that). I think they really only left to stay with Chris in London because of the imminence of the birth of Becky which happened a few days later.

And the knives weren't drawn, not even once.

Actually, the only thing I don't like about guests is the need for me to don a dressing gown when visiting the bathroom.