Hosting a Guest

Your guest should feel expected, not tolerated. The difference between these two conditions is smaller than you think: a clean towel, a clear surface, a bed that has been made with something approaching intention. These are not extravagances. They are the barest acknowledgements that another person is arriving and that you were aware of the fact.

The Edwardian country house weekend was, I will concede, an elaborate production. Servants prepared rooms days in advance; fresh flowers appeared on dressing tables; the bathroom was stocked as though the guest might be convalescing from a lengthy illness rather than visiting for two nights. I do not expect you to replicate this. You live in a flat. You have one bathroom. The flowers on your table, if they exist at all, are probably dead. I have made my peace with the modern condition; I ask only that you meet its lowest reasonable standard.

Begin with the bed. If you have a spare room, the sheets should be clean. Not “recently used by you and therefore probably fine”; clean. If you do not have a spare room and your guest will be sleeping on the sofa, provide proper bedding: a pillow that is not decorative, a blanket that is not a throw intended for aesthetic purposes, a sheet if you have one. The sofa is already a compromise. Do not make it an insult.

The bathroom requires attention. Clear a surface. This means removing your accumulated collection of half-empty bottles, the razor that has been sitting in a puddle for a week, and whatever else has colonised the counter. Leave a clean towel in an obvious location, not stuffed into a cupboard your guest will feel awkward opening. A spare toothbrush, still in its packaging, is a small kindness that costs almost nothing and communicates a great deal. If you have soap that is not a cracked bar sitting in grey water at the bottom of the shower, put it where it can be found.

Provide something to drink. Water is sufficient, but it should be in a clean glass, and the glass should not be the one you used last night and rinsed under the tap with the optimism of a man who believes rinsing is the same as washing. Tea, coffee, or something stronger if the hour and the guest permit it. The point is not the quality of the offering; it is the fact that you thought to offer.

Breakfast need not be elaborate. Toast is acceptable. Eggs, if you are able to cook them without setting off the smoke alarm, are better. What is not acceptable is waking before your guest, eating cereal over the sink in silence, and then asking them, when they emerge, whether they “want anything,” as though hospitality were an afterthought rather than the entire purpose of their being in your home.

Anticipate what your guest will need and provide it before they must ask. A phone charger. A key, if you will be out. Instructions for the shower, if the shower requires instructions (and if it does, you might consider fixing that). The principle has not changed in a hundred years: a good host removes discomfort before the guest is aware of it. You are not running a country house. You are not expected to be perfect. You are expected to have tried.