We’ve had visitors! Rather a lot of them of late.

Here are the tell-tale signs that we have enjoyed the presence of family and friends in the past month.

1. I haven’t written a blog post for a while. No time. Not 5 minutes to think, really, since the beginning of October.
2. The fridge is full of family supplies of foods. The relatives foraged for food by themselves. Which is fine except they did like family packs of food we may not eat in a week, or even a month. I predict a bit of waste or a binge on lettuce, and cherry tomatoes.
3. We’ve run out of toilet roll. Says it all really.
4. I have never driven so many miles in such a short time in my life.
   While Becky was visiting, Maurice was away so we had some fun trips to Dallas and Austin as well as more local trips out to the beach and visiting friends. Then while my siblings were all here, we visited Asheville, Nashville and Memphis, me driving a rental car, and then continued with more local trips to Galveston and around Houston. The car has risen to the challenge – I managed too with a few more grey hairs to show for it.
5. I can’t find kitchen utensils. They are here somewhere, they must be. But precisely where? Everyone who visited was so helpful. But I now have to second guess the layout of their kitchens so I can locate that missing fish slice.
   We had a great time when all were here, we have had nine visitors in total since mid September.  The most at any one time was four, but with an ‘overlap’ of an additional two when the four and myself took off on trips. The house can happily accommodate four visitors and ourselves, although some daily routines had to be planned a bit more than usual. But they did help with the dishes and the kitchen remained pretty spotless – even if my utensils are not all quite in their usual location.
   The first batch of visitors….

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6. A TV remote got lost. We firstly thought it might have been packed in a suitcase inadvertently. A sweep of the room could not locate it. Finally in desperation (we can’t change the channel, for goodness sake!) I moved the bed and found it tucked under there, quite out of reach. Phew – normal service resumes.
7. A few possessions have not made it home. Oops, we did do a thorough search on the day of departure, but an item of clothing, and the contents of a bedside drawer which will remain nameless (!) did not surface for packing. Oh well, they’ll be taken back via Maurice post when he returns to the UK. He’ll find it cold back in blighty as it has continued to be warm right through into November here in Houston. The visitors were very fortunate weather-wise. Harry and Frances managed to avoid the recent rain in Austin and New Orleans and had really lovely weather. Apart from a bit of drizzle in Asheville, our girls road trip enjoyed sunshine all the way.
8. We ran out of insect repellent and bite relief. A visit to the beach at Galveston, after heavy rains had flooded the car park, was perhaps not the best idea. The siblings and I all got attacked by black flies which devoured our naked bits of skin, still exposed due to the relative warmth. We lasted 5 minutes on the beach on that occasion. A shame really as the previous visits with Becky and Trevor and Lindsay had been wonderful. We even witnessed a wedding on the beach – they were lucky not to be getting married amidst a cloud of black flies…
9. There’s quite a lot of ironing to do. I didn’t have time. So there is quite a large pile accumulating and I can’t muster up the enthusiasm to do it. But I will soon or we might run out of essentials like – well – clothes.
   Our visitors were mainly family so we managed to rub along well and not feel we had to stand in ceremony at all. Just as well, really, as I don’t know when I might have managed the hoovering or dusting.
   The second batch of visitors and some trip pics…

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10. Maurice learned how to work the oven. This only after deciding to abandon the idea of cooking pizza and settling on toast instead. The visitors that weekend had two important questions: a) did your wife actually  know you were expecting visitors? and b) can you cook anything other than toast?

The house is now strangely quiet….