Summer Guests

[katy]

If you and your partner are happy with each others company I think you have cracked it. Many couples (especially the ones living here) seem afraid to be alone. One couple we know want to turn a Saturday lunch into a weekend marathon. We are getting quite anti-social, could be the amount of weirdos we meet in Spain. today someone popped in for an hour and that was great but I just don't like lengthy sessions, max is 2 hours or so in a Restaurant

When we travel to the UK I would hate to stay with friends, I like the anonimity of a hotel. Finally what really píssés me off is when people call up in January to see if it's ok to visit in July...how does anyone know what they are doing in 6 months time

[alaninspain]

Katy, you should worry. I don't know what I am doing now let alone in 6 months time. We have 4 lots of friends/relations/aquaintances coming between the end of August and the middle of October. One lot stay next door and another lot are staying at El Paraiso, so they will not be on our doorstep all the time. We try to find a balance between being a tourist guide and holidaymaking ourselves. Usually works too.

[Beachcomber]

I think you have hit the nail on the head Katy. Many people seem to have moved to Spain in the hope that it will be a panacea for all of their problems of a financial and personal and business nature.

We tend to keep friends at arms length and certainly do not welcome visitors. We go out when invited but do not look upon it as a pleasure and we would rather walk over hot coals than go to some eat-all-you-can grot-pot of a greasy spoon for 'Sunday lunch'.

Victor Meldrew? OK, if you like, but I look upon that as a compliment!

[Paula]

Surprised you are still getting invites Beach

I think alot of people go through that early stage of wanting the world and his wife to come and see La Casa in the sun, and its a case of aren't we lucky while you lot still have to live back there.
I have had far less visitors this year than previous years, purely because I decided enough is enough. I would be even happier if the few that I am happy to see would just come for the odd weekend, but they do seem to think that if they are laying out for a flight may aswell make it at least a week.

[peteroldracer]

House-guests are like fresh fish - after three days, they have gone off.

[BENIDORM]

Well...I think that some of you are miserable, anti-social, boring old farts........

I'm always pleased to see all of my friends and family, and my Wife enjoys cooking for them and I do my best to keep them entertained...
All of our guests reciprocate by bringing or buying food, or paying for meals etc, even though we tell them not to...
Perhaps if you give off an air of animosity...that's what you get in return..

[Julie]

I personally don't encourage visitors, here or when in the UK, to selfish, we like doing our own thing too much, having said that, i wouldn't go camping in somebody elses house either, but it takes all kinds too made a world, each to there own

[oliveview01]

Our very good friends back in the UK was asked by a lady I knew (children werre at playschool together 25 years ago) for my email address, so she could email me about coming to stay with us Luckily my pals did not have my email address on them
Just cos we live in the sun doesn´t mean anyone is welcome here

We have been here in Spain for 4 years now, I saw a cousin when back in the UK last month and she said about coming to stay...... I´ve not seen this cousin for about 14 years or had any contact what so ever, she didn´t even know we had moved, so why does she want to come to stay? Except for a freebie holiday???

We have family coming to stay in just over a weeks time and again next month, but these are family members we have kept in contact with over the years and are welcome any time (as long as they bring me a book or two )
We have been lucky with our visitors, they have been willing to share the workload and the kitty too. I guess there will be visitors who will want us to be their hotel/staff, they will be dissapointed

[Marina]

I have to agree with Benidorm and Grouser.

I enjoy my guests. I'm generally fairly anti social, unlike my OH who will talk to anyone. I am happy in my own company and don't need guests to feel popular.

Although I generally enjoy my own company and that of close family, I have had some lovely, interesting, guests this summer that I wouldn't have missed for the world!

Last week we had 10 in the house (thankfully one is a chef so I didn't have to cook at all) and it is just so nice to have a house full of people, all enjoying themselves and sharing experiences. My youngest is seventeen and our oldest volunteer is twenty six and they re out and about together and learning from each other. (Don't go on the rocks when you need a pee at midnight, is a very useful lesson)

I don't cook, ferry people about or dance attendance on them but our guests do feel comfortable here and I take that as being complimentary. We often get work exchange volunteers who ask to extend their stay and again, I take that as being complimentary.


It certainly isn't restful. In the last two weeks we've had a badly sprained ankle, luggage off loaded from a bus on route and even a lad who managed to get himself kidnapped! I have several more grey hairs than I did last winter, but have thoroughly enjoyed myself so far and have a few tales to tell!

I can't honestly say I'm looking forward to the arrival of my Mother in Law in September but until then we have quite a few others coming and going. I'm especially looking forward to the arrival of an Italian chef next week.

One day, I may be old and decrepit and no one will want to visit. Until then I will enjoy the company of Friends, volunteers and rental guests! I may sometimes feel like a miserable old *beep*, but luckily it would seem that our guests don't view me like that yet!

[BENIDORM]

Mixed views...Great...that's what a forum is about...nice to hear how everyone has different ideas and experiences about how they handle visitors to their homes..
I probably enjoy having visitors because I get bored easily, the only time that I sit still is when I'm 'computing'....
Remember it's not good for your health to sit around doing nowt....you will go to 'seed' very quickly...And think of all the exciting places that you can visit, to show your guests, we have been to places that we wouldn't normally have gone to, and really enjoyed ourselves.....
My Wife gets to try out new recipes on our guests, and it stops me from eating too much...she still thinks she is 'hotel catering', and is incapable of making meals for two...always 20 portion meals !
And she organises me to do the house cleaning, I don't mind...cleanliness is next to Godliness, and anyway I'm very skilled with a mop....I should be after serving as a deckhand on a submarine, for many years... ..

Enjoy your day....

Regards...Gordon....

[Kathy]

[Kathy]

I thought I´d lost that post and I see now it goes onto a second page:-)

[Kathy]

During our first year here we had over 95 guest nights. Ive just looked through the guest book and this year to date we have had 33 guest nights and another 10-15 booked until the end of the year. So subconsciously it looks like we have halved our guest nights over the years. When I commenced this post we had had a particularity bad dose.

Now you may all be thinking, how can someone who iniciated a thread like this keep a guest book, well we do. Mind you, so many sneak off without signing it.
The guests also love to read what they were up to on previous visits.

I´m self employed and it seems so hard to explain that self employed have to go to work even when guests are here. I remember an Asian lady telling me that unless her friends had full time staff, she never stays with them. Well there's no full-time staff here.
Mind you I do find myself dreaming of them.

I would also like to share a few real life guest incidences/notes

Finding sinks full of Bikinis

One couple cleaned out a shelf in the fridge for "their food"

Insisting on excursions, plaguing us to be tour guides.

No offering to share expenses, however that doesn't happen now, as they aren't invited back.

We dont really invite anyone apart from very close family, somehow they convince us that we would love to have more doses of them.

Long faces when we have had to go to work.

We used to fill the fridge with food, before arrival, now we don't always do that.

Guests waiting for food, after we have been to work all day.

Wanting to keep to their home timetable for meal times.

Leaving the lounge and kitchen like The Marie Celeste

We have help on a Tuesday and a Friday, they love making a mess any day but those.

They want us to be out till the early hours.

Malaga arrival times at unsociable almost dam right rude hours and delays to aggravate it.

Expecting meals, I can cook, but don't enjoy it.

We don't invite smokers or people with children, so I cant complain about them.

The ones that leave the children at home and constantly talk about them.................need i say more?

They leave the air con on.

Leave the patio windows wide open.

I love to see my friends, but looking back 3 days is perfect, the very best is that we see them whilst staying in a local hotel or apartment.

The exception to this is my father, who even makes breakfast in bed if requested!

Reading the Poll, to date only 13% love having guests, the numbers speak for themselves.

In honour of Benidorm,
who seems to be a dab hand with the mop, here's and article just for you:)

http://www.andalucia.com/culture/spanis ... onsmop.htm

[masterob]

Kathy, I´m with Grouser on this one and can´t help but thinking what lousy friends you must have! We would only expect/invite family and CLOSE friends to stay with us and we would not use the term "guests" to describe them, indeed the term sounds very formal!
In the 4 years we have been here it has always been a pleasure to have them, although I would admit that sensibly, they rarely come in the height of the summer heat in July/August!

[katy]

As Paula says when you first move over you want everyone to share your good luck. A nice house at a cheap price (well, thats how it used to be)! So, when friends call up it is so easy to say come and visit (for a few days). The 'few days' run to 10 or more and after about a year one realises that your friends are taking advantage. I too like Marina have had to take people to the Hospital, one in the early hours of the morning! Was trivial, she thought she had flu' when it was just a touch of the sun!

[Kathy]

Its not the guests fault, they remember the red carpet treatment that they received on previous visits. If we now don't want to extend this, perhaps we have a duty of care to advise them in advance before they commit to flights?

[Kathy]

looks like after years in Spain, I´m now an andalucia.com resident

[Kathy]

Kathy, oh yes I almost forgot we too once has Christmas and New Year at the Costa del Sol hospital, even the Reyes.

[peteroldracer]

We have been forced to conclude that guests are getting worse due to rapidly declining parenting. My OH's grandaughter, who at 16 lives with her mum's sister because her mother has remarried, so has discarded the kids along with the husband in favour of the new batch, has no concept of tidiness. She has been allowed to have her room at home as she wishes, so when away still throws clothes all over the floor, wet towels dumped on the bathroom floor after one use, every drawer in the place left haging open, little dirty splash marks all over the tiled floors from perspiration, Coke and goodness knows what else. Ceiling fans, room lights, bathroom mirror lights are left to burn for hours, and the friend she has brought with her is just the same. We allowed another girl, holidaying with her family in their boat/apartment in Marbella, to join them for a weekend, having to go and meet her mother in Málaga to facilitate the visit - this lass was, we found out afterwards, intent on using the weekend away from parental "control" to lose her virginity, which apparently she did - and made sure several time - with a lad she had met for ten minutes, on the riverbed near the village. She helped herself from the fridge, left bottles of drink out so that they were no longer cold, and on one ocassion poured a glass of water, took one sip, then asked where she should throw the rest. If I had been there she would have been told to throw it down her throat and not waste anything like that!
There ought to be some way of putting a contraceptive in the water supply, with an antidote only issued to married couples who pass copious tests as to their suitability as parents, proof of income etc.
Having ranted thus, we were told the other day by friends of their experience with a couple they had known for 20 years, and counted as friends. The couple were invited to stay, and asked if they were going out to eat that night. They agreed, only for the 'friends' to expect them to drive, were directed to a restaurant where the cover charge was more than they normally pay for a full evening meal with drinks, and when they pointed out that it was beyond their budget were told that it was a shame, but they could always find somewhere cheaper as the 'friends' were going to eat there anyway! The 'friends' were a judge and his lady, which shows what at least one member of the bench thinks is justice!
The 20 year friendship ended that night, needless to say - if it had been me, I would have driven off and left the pair to sort out things for themselves as to how to get back and take the black plastic bags of belongings from the doorstep of the firmly closed house!

[Kathy]

Lets think of this logically,

If you stay in someones house you should pay the gratitude in some sort of mixture of one or more of these ways

1 Bring a gift for your hosts


2 Take your hosts out for a meal one evening or cook a meal and buy the ingredients.


3 Perform little tasks around the house, within your ability.

This applies to any country.