As lockdown is over we wondered if we could come visit and have a dip in your pool?
Why...
Do I suspect our home is about to be invaded by numbers that make the Mongol hordes look like a tea party?
Over the next four months my wife and I are bracing ourselves not only for requests to visit from dear and close friends, but everyone I have ever met; from the STD doctor I once spilt coffee over and gave my gentleman’s sausage third degree burns, to a Fulham traffic warden who gave me so many tickets he knew my name. He’d even stop me in the street to tell me he’d just given me another ticket or worse what he called a curbie grip (clamp).
The pent up desire from people in Northern climes to ‘come and unwind’ for a few days now they are released from Covid’s lockdown embrace, could eventually transform me from a gracious host into Basil Fawlty.
As some readers know, the problem is people think because you live by the sea in a warm environment that you are de facto permanently on holiday. No, it’s home! I work from here! It’s like assuming because you choose to live in Des Moines you are as bland as sliced bread... well actually that’s true, bad example... but you know what I mean. No matter where you live, in a Palace in Pacific Palisades to a bivouac in Hackensack. It’s home. Not a holiday.
Some people are shocked when you cannot drive them to see the worlds largest bunion (or whatever your locale has made famous) or that the fridge is getting low on beer.
“Yeah the red burns on my arm are not caused by the sun but permanently working on the bar-b-q”, I add dryly to a enquiry as to my health.
Please note... actually it’s barbe a queue, literally beard to tail when you spit roast a chicken or even a pig on an open fire. So now we not only have to thank the French for their Letters (think about it, it’s a subtle joke) but also allowing Australians to think they can cook.
I digress...
...and another thing (continue to read this post)
