It comes around every year, without fail… visiting season. As sure as death and taxes (well, death anyway) the season begins as soon as the hottest time of the year is through and lasts right up until the flesh once again starts to sizzle on our bones if we are foolish enough to even contemplate stepping outside.
Point me in the direction of an expat who doesn’t part rejoice and part despair (the ratio of the two is entirely dependent on how nice a person you are and whether you have a spare room or not) as the weather starts to cool down around September. Because it is just around that time that the phone calls and emails start, and the great date shuffle begins in earnest. These two can only come out between these two dates, but someone else has said they want to be there then too, but they’ve not booked their ticket yet so could be flexible, but the only other time they can do is the same time as a business trip that has been bought and paid for, but they want to go to Dubai anyway so maybe they could do that and then and if and he and they and *explode*
When you finally fit everyone in and you realise how few weekends you’ve got without a house-guest… well… this gal feels a little like she’s staring down the barrel of a gun! All I can see is how many times the bed needs to be changed; will there be enough clean towels? Do we have enough sheets? Is the cleaner coming between each guest or (heaven forbid!) am I going to have to clean the guest bathroom myself? Oh the horror, the horror.
Having visitors, especially visitors from home, is wonderful. You get to spend some really good quality time with the people you love and miss so very much – because a visit home is never long enough to spend as much time as you want with all the people you want.
That said, really how many times in a four month period can a person actually visit the Grand Mosque if you’re not going to pray in it – as beautiful as it is. And the inevitable increase in eating out can add up. It’s exhausting playing the host, because no matter how emphatically your loved ones tell you that they don’t need entertaining and are happy to just hang about and entertain themselves, you can’t help wanting to make sure they’re having a good time and it’s pretty unlikely that ‘a good time’ for them involves slumping on the sofa in front of a DVD every night with a takeaway.
We had two lots of visitors towards the end of last year, then a respite over Christmas and New Year when my husband and I went away (Malaysia actually, and it was absolutely lovely – thank you for asking), and since we got back we have had nearly back-to-back visitors which will continue until the end of March. I can’t wait to see each and every one of those people and spend time with them… but there’s an ever increasing part of me that also can’t wait until flesh sizzling season.
