Clouds. Rain. Strikes. And Guests, Of Course.

First, please take a moment to ooh and ahhh with us over the Wardrobe of Enchantment. It was alleged to take five hours to construct, but since we opened the box and unloaded it one day, took another day to separate all the bits and pieces of hinges and bolts into organized piles (and then stare at them), and finally D. put it all together a third day, we cannot speak to the subject of build time. We can, however, say that the directions were, in the words of others, “absolute rubbish,” and it astounds us constantly that people who make flat-packed furniture directions know nothing about scale, but never mind. It’s DONE, done, done. And just in time.

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It’s weird. You can love people a lot, and spend six weeks inhabiting their house (which, we might add, has FIVE bathrooms to our one) and still be very, very, very nervous when they say they’d like to come stay with you.

You don’t want to hear about how many times we’ve dusted, vacuumed, swept and gritted our teeth over the fact that Leslie downstairs is having her bathroom torn out and the door to the building is propped open — letting in the dust from another building project up the road, not to mention the plaster dust and general gak from the remodel here. There are a group of five guys trooping in and out, as well as building-rattling thumps, occasional snatches of loud singing (I’ve got a feelin’ — woo-hoo — tha tonight’s gonna be a good night… — now, add Scottish accent and exaggerated lounge lizard style), slamming doors, electric saws, and clouds of cigarette smoke. (We’ve made a point of letting the guys know we’re in the building, and they’ve courteously toned down that smoking/slamming thing. Mostly.)

Aside from the drifting dirt, yesterday it got really overcast — after several warmish days where you could peep over the hedge and see the whole neighborhood out in the park. The Met Office reported that there would be partial sun for the week, so we didn’t worry. T. then thought to check a forecast that has a 50/50 chance of being correct (which means not the Met Office) and got online again an hour later.

(Okay: let’s just be blunt. T. is paranoid, and has a little OCD, and was trying to negotiate with the weather gods by way of checking multiple forecasts. It’s kind of like gambling — somehow the more places you look, the better your odds of getting what you want.) Well, Murphy’s Law or some such was obviously in effect …and the newly updated forecast showed rain every single day this week.

Sure enough, the heavens opened this morning.

Well, never mind — as a Seattle-ite once told us, if you wait for dry weather, you’ll never go anywhere. That’s doubly true in Scotland. Our guests were well-warned to bring caps and windbreakers, so we’re sure they’re well prepared (although rumor has it that one of them packed shorts, because “that’s what you wear on vacation.” Um, to Tahiti, maybe, not so much here, if you’re from a warmer climate… Oh, well, he’ll figure it out, and it’s really not actually cold – just wet. And breezy). We’ve altered our castle viewing plans only the tiniest bit, and made sure we know the location of every pub and tea shop along the way, just in case we need to duck indoors and get out of the wet.

Other than waiting for the Danish-style pastry to bake, re-potting the plants (What? You don’t re-pot your plants when you have guests arriving?) and making a quick trip to the chiropractor to get adjusted for the week (Nothing to do with our guests – or the futon. Honest.), we figured we were ready at about noon. Our guests were due to arrive on a 1:35 flight, and it was going to be a quick nip out to the doctor, and on to the airport.

We reckoned without British Airways, who has, in fact, canceled the London to Glasgow leg of their flight, and has given them a seven hour layover in London. SEVEN HOURS! They’re now arriving at 10 p.m., and will have been on the “road” for twenty hours. And although they can always take advantage of being in London and shop, still — it’s SEVEN HOURS. You could take a train from Victoria Station and get here faster than that.

We checked with the airline to ask what on earth was going on, and found out that there’s a strike.

And here we were concerned with volcanoes. If there’s a strike, surely now things are back to business as usual around here. We’ll expect the Royal Mail to follow suit shortly.

::sigh::

The thing about guests is that they force you to do all the things you were going to do, but put off, thinking, “when I get around to it.” It feels strange to be in our flat when, for once, everything is …done. But! We’re ready for anything, now.

Mostly.