Insider View - On Causing Offence

Sister number one has caused unpardonable offence to sister number two by referring to her work chairing an arts organisation as a ‘piddling little job’. This is a slight that will resurface over the years and none of its sting will lessen.

The contemptuous dismissal of another’s modus vivendi is an affront on so many levels; one’s years of toil, experience, reputation all erased in a few words. The pain will linger.

People like ourselves who have turned a family home into – and what can we call it? – a guest house, a dinner, bed and breakfast, a small hotel or a home stay, as they say in India – are familiar with this kind of attitude. “Are you still running your little bed and breakfast?” we get asked, with emphasis on the ‘little’. And if I sound defensive on the matter, it’s because we take our ‘little’ business very, very seriously. Even if others don’t.

And they don’t. This year has seen what has previously been a trickle of family and friends who visit turn into a flood. This must have a lot to do with the state of the economy, and loved ones that are normally to be found in the summer far away on a beach in the Med, instead pitch up on our doorstep with dogs, babies, even grandparents in tow.

Cots, golf clubs, Wellingtons, remnants of the picnic are off-loaded into our hall, and there they stay, never mind that we are expecting a paying visitor to arrive any moment, while the non-paying guests shriek with the rituals of reunion and the joys of anticipating their holiday.

No lip service is paid to the notion that this familial hall is our place of work, that the carpet on the stairs must be free of dog hairs and that the windows that little Felix is presently daubing with his baby fingers have just been cleaned.

As the relatives disperse themselves into every corner of our house, the doorbell will ring to announce the arrival of a guest of the paying variety, and that is when we once again wish family and friends could try to understand the commitment we must give to the strangers who throw in their lot with us. Instead, “I can give you a hand with the breakfasts /beds/garden” we are told when loved ones want to spend their holidays with us.

They don’t, of course, and the only help we want is for them not to be there in the first place. Turn the notion on its head, and imagine for a moment if we were to turn up at their places of work, say a dental surgery, or a bank, or an office with the same attitude; how would they feel? “I can give a hand with the teeth polishing, the mortgage applications, go through the filing cabinets” I could cry, “Let me help you with your piddling little job!”

The long hours and the diversity of activities that necessarily are involved in running a small family hospitality business are under-estimated by those on the outside. There are no hours when you are not on call, no moments when you can slut around in tracksuit bottoms and hair rollers, give yourself up to a radio play or a long telephone conversation.

Forget about an afternoon nap, the doorbell will ring just as the first wave of sleep encompasses; perhaps the French have it right where small establishments firmly shut their doors at 2pm and hang out a notice saying ‘closed till 5pm or even 6’. Nor, I’m afraid, dear relative, does anyone who has just waved goodnight to the last retiring guest, want then to sit up into the night listening to family gossip. Oblivion is all that we want after a day at the coal face.

Then there are the perils of the local wedding. These seem to occur with monotonous regularity. The parents of the bride are, of course, your close friends and ask months before the event, if you would mind putting up some of the guests? At time of committing, it all seems rather a good idea with unworthy thoughts (“this can be in lieu of a wedding present”) springing to mind.

Fast-forward to the actual event and, having turned away a houseful of guests of the paying variety, late morning finds your house taken over by exhausted and hung-over youths gasping for coffee and fry-ups. There is an empty vodka bottle instead of fresh flowers in the hall. Cigarette stubs have gathered around the front door. A little pile of vomit may later reveal itself. Someone is playing Lady Gaga. It is at this moment that the door bell rings and an Inspector calls...