The Guest Room

As I made up the bed  in preparation for the arrival on Friday of the first of our guests for the weekend, I was thinking about about guest rooms I've stayed in.

Some have been quite posh -- complete with fruit basket, fluffy terry robe, and lovely toiletries -- others have been less so but still quite welcoming and comfortable.

The one thing I really like in a guest room, beside a reasonably comfortable bed, is a decent bedside reading light.

When we first moved here to the farm, I was asked to spend the night with Louise Freeman, our neighbor down the hill. Her husband was going hunting that night and she didn't like being left alone.

So after supper I walked down to their house. Louise and I sat and visited, talking of gardens and canning, and this and that as the evening dusk turned to night.

 I knew that it was their custom to go to bed when it got dark and to get up well before daylight. I also knew that I couldn't fall asleep that early so I was prepared  with a book in my overnight bag. 

Louise was not a great talker and by 8:30 or 9 we had pretty well run out of things to say to one another.

She ushered me to her guest room -- about three paces from the bathroom --  and whispered that there was a 'chamber' under the bed if I needed it in the night. 

As soon as the door closed behind her, I got into my night gown and  pulled out my book, only to realize that the sole light in the room was the single bare bulb in the middle of the ceiling. About a 60 watt bulb, at a guess.

So I read for a while, or tried to read, sitting on the foot of the bed as near the light as I could get. It was really kind of pathetic. Not to mention frustrating.

 I've seen lists of things a perfect guestroom should have and ours falls far short -- no desk, no comfy chair, no TV, no fluffy robe, no padded coat hangers. But it does have reading lights.

 And I'll try to remember to cut some fresh flowers for the vase on the chest of drawers.

The cat is optional.