{"id":3536,"date":"2015-12-14T12:16:21","date_gmt":"2015-12-14T12:16:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/?p=3536"},"modified":"2015-12-14T12:16:21","modified_gmt":"2015-12-14T12:16:21","slug":"the-hostess-with-the-mostest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/?p=3536","title":{"rendered":"The hostess with the mostest"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Domestic<\/a>

Domestic goddess\/Neda Andel\/flickr<\/p><\/div>\n

I sometimes wonder, especially at this time of year, what it\u2019s like to be a guest in my house. I realise I can\u2019t assume that it\u2019s the comfortable, convivial experience I\u2019m aiming for. This is where Robert Burns\u2019s \u2018giftie\u2019 of seeing ourselves as others see us would come in handy, though the results might be rather distressing. <\/span><\/p>\n

Not least because of the dreaded spare room. Now I think the bottom line as far as a spare room is concerned is that it should have a bed, a bedside light and a window covering of some sort. A friend of mine stayed in a spare room with no curtain or even the wherewithal to drape a blanket over the window. It was an old house and the window was set so low in the wall that any revellers returning from the pub who happened to glance up would have seen her in bed. My spare room has all the essentials, and books, a chair and a mirror besides; it\u2019s just that it hasn\u2019t been redecorated since it was occupied by a teenage boy. \u00a0Enough said.<\/span><\/p>\n

The other possible drawback is that it\u2019s right next to the bathroom, which of course is convenient, but what I don\u2019t know, and haven\u2019t had the nerve to test out, because it would be, well, weird, is how audible from the spare room are the things that usually happen in a bathroom (with a loo in it, if you get my meaning).<\/span><\/p>\n

On the other hand, audibility from the bathroom is essential if you are to have a decorous, yet unspoken queuing system for the bathroom. (Not quite so much of a problem for me as for everyone else, since given my horror of being woman in a dressing gown, I make sure I get in first.) <\/span><\/p>\n

No one has presented the challenges of festive seating <\/a>as brilliantly as Julie Walters, as she ponders who to put on the Ali Baba basket, who on the ironing board and who on the tumpty, and how to offer suitable arrangements for an ailing relative: \u2018If he don\u2019t keep his knees up above his underpants, his buttocks cave in.\u2019 It was so much easier when you could consign all the children to a little table in the corner, but they are starting to kick up a fuss about this now that they are in their 20s and 30s. <\/span><\/p>\n

And all this is before you\u2019ve even offered anyone anything to eat or drink. I\u2019m not keen on having people in the kitchen while I cook as I get so distracted I don\u2019t know what I\u2019m doing, forget ingredients and make other silly mistakes like overloading the blender and spraying the kitchen with bright green pea soup. (On that occasion my chatty chum was so engrossed in her story she didn\u2019t even notice.) I also suddenly see the cooker with fresh eyes: it\u2019s no longer a noble, battle scarred old friend, source of thousands of fabulous dishes; it just needs a good clean.<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s a wonder anyone ever crosses our threshold, really.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

. . . spraying the kitchen with bright green soup . . . <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":3540,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,55],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3536"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3536"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3536\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3541,"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3536\/revisions\/3541"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3540"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3536"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3536"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3536"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}