Since we moved into our house in the Cyclades a few years ago, I’ve come to accept that if you own a home on the beach in Greece with plenty of spare rooms, people will come to stay.
But what is it about house guests abroad? Do they need fresh towels at home every time they wash their hands? Do they have to have three cooked meals a day? Do they have chauffeurs in normal life, or do they become allergic to driving only when they are on holiday? ‘We didn’t bother renting a car because we don’t want to go anywhere.’ If you want to make a host’s shoulders slump, saying this will do the trick.
If I sound mean-spirited it might be because I’m not a natural hostess to start with. I blame my extremely right-on mother, who filled our bedrooms with asylum seekers when we were at boarding school and forgot to tell them to leave when we came home.
In Greece, we’ve had guests who happily rent their own cars, travel with chargers and leave generous tips. But they are, in my limited experience, a minority. Could this have something to do with the general boorification of the world? Or is it that even the most civilised, self-sufficient human beings regress into helpless teenagers when they stay with you? I say teenagers but there is something about breakfast, a meal I’ve skipped for years, that brings out the actual toddler in certain guests with all their finicky, short order requests. Meanwhile, the second most depressing group of words in the English language? ‘I think your coffee machine is broken.’
Many a bad house guest, of course, has no idea how they come across. In fact, they think of themselves as being exemplary house guests. I cite as an example the friend (usually female) who constantly hovers around you while you are in the kitchen, asking where everything goes, utensil by utensil, and when you finally cave in and let them lay the table they ask: ‘How do you like your napkins folded?’ This is the same guest who pads around your bedroom door first thing in the morning, insisting on accompanying you down to the beach for that solitary pre-coffee swim you hanker after all year – the one to gird you for the rest of the day dealing with everyone’s dietary preferences and wifi issues – wanting a good long chat about life.
A fellow hostess puts such behaviour down to exception-to-the-rule syndrome. Even if you couldn’t have made it clearer that the kitchen is off limits from 9 p.m. and you need to be alone to get dinner on the table, they (usually a she) will automatically believe you don’t mean them (her).
I hate to sound bigoted here, but I’m afraid Americans are the worst. This may not be true on the helping front but it sure is on the towel one. Is it their obsession with cleanliness? When a university friend, his husband and their ten-year-old son visited last year from Los Angeles it felt like living in a commercial laundry. They had our machine going 24/7, often with just a single T-shirt that had been worn for a matter of hours. We ran out of water after three days and they were staying for a whole week.
Even the most civilised, self-sufficient human beings regress into helpless teenagers when they stay with you
But it wasn’t just that. It was their lack of interest in anything or anybody outside their world (retail). After I sent them on a boat trip to an ancient historical site (I thought it might be instructive for the kid, who seemed bored out of his mind) ) all they had to offer when they came back was: ‘How come the buildings are all so low?’
The pièce de résistance, though, was when they set up a photo shoot for one of their social media feeds on the terrace, one of them posing at our outdoor granite table pretending he was writing his journal. I came back from the supermarket to find him practising his signature on every page of our new visitors’ book (leather bound, vellum paper). They also forgot to tip the waiter at our favourite local taverna and had a screaming match with the old lady who runs the roundabouts in the town square.
But what can you do? Another couple (again, American) arrived by taxi and breezed in without bothering to pay the driver. Had they assumed it was pre-paid? Why? My husband discreetly paid because one never wants to make guests feel uncomfortable, but they will never be asked back.
As I write this, I can see how I might have to just suck it up or run a tighter ship. I know of a couple who have a laminated list of suggested house presents in every spare room, as well as a rota for which couple pays for dinner on which night. But it’s silly to compare ourselves with them: they are very rich and get away with it. Crucially, they also have staff.
Not every guest is a dud. Take my hairdresser and his partner, who came last summer. It was so gratifying watching how they, as it were, picked up the ball and rolled with it; how they took themselves off sightseeing, volunteered to get baked goods for breakfast every morning and made every other guest feel interesting. They also left exactly when they said they would. Another phrase that makes me wilt? ‘I suppose we don’t really have to get back tomorrow.’
Anyway, you must come to stay.
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