Guest #3 - Biddy the horsewoman

As I came back from New friend Ian's house after guest #2, I had a request the next day from Airbnb, another of the homestay websites. I had only put the most basic details on this one, such as photos, and this was my first guest with it.

The request was from Biddy who was coming to a horse class being held at one of the farms near to my corner of Essex. It was the weekend before Dubai, but the flat was still in super clean condition so I decided to take the reservation.

Biddy wasn't here so much, really only the overnight as the horse classes were all day Saturday and Sunday. However, I came home to some lovely flowers--such a great view from my entrance upon my return:

In addition, she managed to break one of my (ultra cheap) Turkish tea glasses from Germany that I keep as wine glasses. She very graciously left a 5 pound note to pay for a replacement, which was well beyond anything I would have expected, considering they sell in six packs for below 5 EUR. However, I left her with thanks, nice feedback, and a promise of a discount the next time around if she gets a chance to come back for further horse classes.

Overall I was pleased with Airbnb, payment through the site was quick and their take appears to be lower than Crashpadder's, so I plan to fill in more details on their site to hopefully have more guests to visit.

Another visitor

Winter here has been trundling along. I was recently back on the continent (not DE) for a work trip, but otherwise I'm trying to hold on for spring seedling plantings.

A few months back I mentioned that I occasionally host visitors via hospitality club. My corner of Essex is convenient to Stansted and all of the cheap Ryanair and Airberlin flights for people looking for a short hop on the way into London or to explore Essex.

Tomorrow I have a Brazilian arriving from Poland, for one night before returning to Poland. He has spent a few weeks in Poland and got one of those ultra cheap flights so he's coming to the UK for one night. He has never been to the UK so he's looking forward to a massive front of English. (I didn't mention to him that I speak 'American' English and Ian speaks 'British' English. This should be enough to blow his mind.)

In additon, under interests he's listed WW2 books. A Brazilian with WW2 interests, this promises to be interesting. I offer a couch and a vegetarian meal and he enthusiastically accepted both and looks forward to his first trip to England; this should be good fun.

The painted kitchen

You'll probably recall, I had a German visitor a few months back. In the meantime I had a nice guy visit from Slovenia too. (My location is very convenient to the train and bus station in my town.) I gave the German an open invite to pop round whenever she needed a place for the night, so she stopped in once or twice as she was traveling through. In addition--she was doing some major walking (20 miles one day!) and ill-equipped for the task by having only a regular backpack and plastic sacks. So I lent her my camping rucksack with the agreement that she would come back around before leaving to drop it back.

Someone asked me, 'how do you know that she'll actually give it back?'

A. Because she's German and she said so. I put a lot of faith into German honesty.

B. Because she asked to leave some items here which she didn't need for the rest of her trip-mainly library books which she'll need to return to Germany.

And even if she didn't come back, it was my older rucksack which I keep for secondary purposes, the one which has been through a lot, so if it went on to never return that might not be so bad.

So she ended up coming round on Wednesday night, at the end of all of her adventures. She was out of cash and had seen enough of England at this point and was mentally preparing to jump back into school and a new flat on Saturday, after seven weeks of being on the move in the UK.

Since she last visited me I had window blinds installed and had bought my ebay bookshelves. In addition, I painted the bathroom. After painting the bathroom, upon removing all of the tape, I just put it directly up in the kitchen, my next painting project. I have been busy with work, etc. though, so I didn't get further than that on this project, although I had everything bought and ready to go.

As a thank you for letting her stay here and for something to do, she asks if I would like her help to paint the kitchen. I have relatives who are 22 in the US--if they asked to help paint something I'd probably hesitate a moment as it could be more trouble that it's worth. However--I knew that as a 22 year old German, she would have had YEARS of painting experience. (Which, of course, she did.) So I hesitated perhaps half a second before accepting her kind offer.

As expected--this got done the German way, immediately after dinner we began. Jump right in and start taping and preparing, no hestitation, just get 'er done. Within two hours we were cleaning up. She was an expert at wrapping the radiator and lightswitches in plastic and I couldn't be more pleased. I would never have even hinted at a Hospitality Club or Couchsurfing guest to have to assist me with anything, so this was such a pleasant surprise to have the offer.

Here is the before photo. The chosen color is the 2nd from the left, a slightly mossy green.

The after shot is a little washed out to be able to see the color. However, to get an idea--it's matching the lightest tiles here: