Visiting Time

The living room of our tiny cottage is festooned with washing. The washing machine has been busy and the rain has so far prevented it from drying. A few soft building blocks lie abandoned in the corner. The travel cot upstairs is packed up and waiting to be returned to the kind parent who loaned it to us. The house seems strangely silent.

 

Visiting time is over. It was exciting, intensive, busy and surprisingly short. Now all our visitors are gone and the house returns to its peaceful, but rather predictable routine. Living in one of the U.K.’s best-kept-secret scenic locations, we are used to seeing a few visitors. The village where we live is busy with campers and caravanners, swelling the numbers in the village shop and making the weekend road traffic totals soar. It’s summer and we are no longer alone in our rural paradise. Down the road, the nearby seaside town bustles with life; the fish and chip shop is doing a good trade and the car parks are almost full. This is not a place for peak tourism but there’s quite an increase in numbers here even so and a sense of excitement in the air.

 

As for us, our duty is done. Our guests have been fed and watered. The new bed settee has been pronounced a comfortable success (thank goodness for that!) and has justified the not inconsiderable expenditure to acquire it. The baby has slept at least for part of the long nights in its colourful travel cot. Dozens of meals have been consumed and the freezer needs a refill. Alone at home, we are experiencing a mix of emotions: a sense of achievement because our organising skills have been sufficient to ensure the happiness of our holidaymaking family, a certain amount of pride that we have achieved another successful stint of tour guide activity and  holiday information service, and a sense of relief that we no longer have to tiptoe round the house, avoiding creaky floorboards, using shaver and hairdryer downstairs to avoid waking the baby and spending long car journeys in silence for the benefit of the tiny tot sleeping in the baby carrier on the back seat. No more games now of peek-a-boo; no more ‘changing time at Buckingham Palace; Christopher Robin went down with Alice’ (thank goodness it wasn’t measles!); no more of those silly games and nonsensical rubbish with which we entertain babies.

 

Our ‘duty’ was a pleasant one and now we are left with a feeling of loss and we wonder what we should do next. Strange how all the tasks and hobbies of past weeks suddenly pale into insignificance in comparison to the infinitely more worthwhile pastime of spending valuable time with loved ones. Isn’t that good? It is with a pleasant sense of loss that we realise that our family has once again brought us joy. Can loss be pleasant? Well, yes. In the same way that the permanent loss of a loved family member brings first grief and then mellows eventually into pleasant remembrance, these small temporary losses bring both grief and pleasure.

 

Thank you family for the joy you brought us, for the business, fun and sense of purpose. And thank you too for the pleasant remembrances that will last us hopefully through the winter months until it is visiting time again. Please come again.