Monday, April 18, 2005

Rain and Guests

It rained on Friday. Strange, the weather site had stopped predicting it at all, but it was quite a heavy downpour when it came. About two hours of it, though the last hour was drizzle and (thankfully) Tim's ceiling didn't leak.

We had a guest for Friday and Saturday. Someone we first knew many years ago when we lived in Birmingham. He went to the same church as we did, and lived not far away. Then a year after we went to live temporarily in Colorado Springs in the USA (1992-1994) this friend and his wife came to live there too, working for the same organisation and we got to know them better.

Then we moved back to Birmingham, and in 1997 we moved to Cyprus. So it was good to catch up with him; he had been in Limassol for a conference and came to spend a couple of days with us before flying back. He and Richard talked until the early hours both nights he was here.

On Sunday we had another guest just for lunch. We didn't know we were going to, because Richard had confused the dates of his arrival. It was a young man from Sweden who works in Tanzania, and who landed in Larnaka airport mid-morning after all-night flights via the Middle East. Ouch. Tim was cooking roast chicken and trimmings for lunch, so it was easy enough to have an extra person. I rustled up a quick dessert and we had a pleasant time. This guy is now staying at Richard's office in the guest room there, and learning from him about Internet Radio.

Tonight we're having yet another guest for our evening meal - a friend who used to work here, but currently lives and works in Egypt. He's here for a week while his wife goes to various meetings locally with their organisation. Richard and he have a lot to catch up on, so despite Monday being rather hectic, he'll share our meal.

One of the mailing lists I'm on has been discussing hospitality. It's not my strong suit, and I realised we hadn't had guests for meals (other than visitors who were actually staying with us) for quite some time. I knew it was something I should make more of an effort with. So we invited people to lunch for two Sundays in a row, as a starting point... now suddenly it seems we're being inundated. God has a sense of humour!

It wasn't supposed to rain this morning but when I got up it was grey and the atmosphere felt damp, so I decided not to make a start on the vast pile of laundry awaiting me. I haven't done any washing since Thursday, since our visitor came on Friday morning and I never do laundry on Sundays. The basket is more than overflowing and the guest bed still has its sheets...

I was right, though, as it did start to spit with rain around 9.30, and this afternoon it's raining a bit, off and on. Getting washing dry in wet weather is almost impossible so it's much better to leave it another day.

2 comments:

Lora said...

That's quite the social schedule, especially when your not use it. I really enjoy having people over for dinner, just one or two mind you. I wish my schedule allowed me to do it more often. I enjoy cooking and making people feel comfortable and welcome. Plus, sitting around after a meal brings a depth in conversation that's hard to obtain at other times.

Jenni said...

That's quite amusing about all of your guests at the moment - I heard this quote once: "God is just a commedian playing for an audience too afraid to laugh" .. I think that's true.