I moved to Leith three months ago, but it didn't feel official until the house guests arrived
We’ve bitten the bullet and hosted a couple of sleepovers
I don’t really like having overnight guests.
There’s the catering and pre-visit tidying, and, when they’ve arrived, wondering how soon you can slope off to bed without it being embarrassingly revealing about how un rock ‘n’ roll you are?
I’m not like my parents, who were always the hosts with the most. In fact, there was a spell, when they even owned the most Seventies and middle class of things - a visitors’ book.
And it was packed, with scrawled names, addresses, and lovely ‘reviews’.
“The kids had a great time with ‘the girls’ and the cat is looking well”. That kind of thing.
If I had one of those, it’d only have about three entries.
When they had guests, they’d do a lovely dinner and there would be canapes - usually crisps in bowls, Twiglets or Ritz crackers with pickled mussels and cayenne pepper on top.
They’d stay up late, playing records and my mum would be the first to retire. My dad would stay up and occasionally crack open one of his musty cigarillos - I stole one out of the ashtray once, when I was about eight, and, bleurgh.
Mum would lay out breakfast the night before, for the full hotel experience. Sometimes, they’d splash out on those mini Kelloggs variety pack cereals that we loved as kids.
They even pulled out all the stops when it came to pranks. When one set of friends came over, the pair of them put pyjamas on and pretended that they’d forgotten about their visit.
I haven’t inherited those social skills.
Still, I was vaguely looking forward to having our first overnight visitors, across two weekends, to stay in our new house.
We just wanted to show it off.
For our first open weekend, we had my six-year-old nephew and 12-year-old niece over for a night. They’ve been here a few times, but never for a sleepover.
As it’s an old property that creaks like a galleon at night, I thought they might worry about ghosts, but there were no sightings.
I hadn’t really thought much about the sleeping arrangements.
I’m not sure how it happened, but we ended up with the youngest snoring, while lying diagonally and faceplanting, in a sort of sozzled seal pose, in our bedroom, and the niece ensconced in the spare boudoir.
The grown-ups didn’t have it so good. I slept on two sofa cushions, covered with an ancient sleeping bag and a chintzy single duvet that I’d taken home on the bus from my mum’s house.
Every time I rolled over in the night, the two cushions would edge apart, like tectonic plates, and my rump would drop through the hole.
Meanwhile, my husband tried to escape the snoring seal who’d fallen asleep in our bed. He went downstairs, to kip on the remaining sofa cushions, with a thin tartan blanket.
Anyway, we were exhausted in the morning and our backs ached, but the kids slept very well.
They were so full of bouncing beans that, in the morning, one of them managed to yank the handle right off the shower, and all the fire alarms started shrieking because of the steam.
However, it wasn’t all bad. My niece and I had stayed up late and watched Celebrity Traitors, then we had French toast, bacon and maple syrup for breakfast. That was lovely, as we now have a kitchen that has space for a proper table in it and an oven that actually works.
We discussed what we’d do if crocodiles attacked en masse, and went for a walk down to Leith Market at the Shore.
My niece loved this area’s ‘friendly witchy shop’, Portal, and she ordered a hot chocolate at Mimi’s Bakehouse, which was like an incantation against the cold. They’d run out of cream but, still, ‘delicious’.
The next afternoon, we dropped them off with my sister and that was overnight stay number one in the bag. A success. Well, we all survived.
A positive review went in the imaginary visitors’ book.
The number two stay, the weekend after, involved my sister-and-brother-in-law, and my 18-year-old niece, who was coming through for a university open day.
This time, we would keep our bed for the night, praise be. Also, the shower was fixed, so they could do their ablutions.
Unluckily for my niece, she was to be the one sleeping on the sliding cushions. Well, a sofa bed is still on our new house wish list.
After we’d given them a tour of our new gaff, and they’d made all the right noises, we walked along to the Port Of Leith Distillery Restaurant and Bar.
It would be the teenager’s first time ordering a proper cocktail and she was stoked to be up on the seventh floor with her debonair drinkie.
“It’s tickling my nose,” she said, of the fruity and frothy mixture she’d ordered.
The rest of us had variously a French 75, a Paloma, a whisky sour, and one of the best cocktails I’ve ever had, the incredibly heady Industrial Chic. It made me go all googly over this place, and feel proud that we had such a cool spot right on our doorstep.
On the way home, we all bagged fish and chips, white puddings and smoked sausages, from Guido’s on Great Junction Street. It was our first try, and it’s a win, even if they did forget to put the sauce on my supper.
“I should’ve got the sweet chilli haggis, too,” said my brother-in-law.
As I snaffled my last chips, I thought, isn’t this nice, introducing guests to my new neighbourhood and home.
And that night, we all slept pretty well. The shower worked the next day. Our backs didn’t hurt and there were no crocodile ambushes. I could get used to this.
Another imaginary visitors’ book review in the bag. Let’s hope they said something nice.
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