Friends Visiting: Formula for a Successful Weekend

I love having friends over. Whether for a weekend or just for one night, I love hosting and everything that comes with it. A big part of hosting are the preparations; cleaning, cooking, arranging. As a project manager this is a very natural state for me to be in, organizing. This weekend my best friend is coming over to relax and for a girly weekend. The only plan we have is a table booked for Saturday evening in Kaks Kokka and that there will be shopping. I always want people to feel as much at home as they can and it all starts with preparations.

I always start from cleaning. Vacuum, wipe the dusts, do the dishes, change the sheets and clean the bathroom. Once upon a time I wondered what was the point of cleaning before a party because you will have to clean up the day after properly anyway. But the truth is that nobody would feel at home coming to a place where every surface is covered in dust and there are clothes hanging everywhere and dishes in the most imaginative places, like the coffee cup that I set down into my underwear drawer while I was dressing up in a hurry one morning and forgot it there. 

For me cleaning is pointless if you can't sense the cleanliness. That is why I tend to buy flowers when I clean up. The smellier the better (which means that I can't host any people with severe pollen allergies). It is also my way of showing respect to the flowers to not buy them when the apartment is too messy to deserve them. 

Then, also a very important issue: food! Dinner for Saturday is set but we will need breakfast and on Friday evening some snacks with red wine when she arrives late in the evening. For a long time now I have been dreaming of cured salmon and avocado slices on a traditional and dark Estonian sweet bread. But I have never bought avocados and rarely eaten them and I've read that if you buy avocados that aren't just the right ripeness it's a waste of money... This is a risk I would rather not take when my best friend comes to visit. What a nice way to start a morning: Oops, these are not edible so bread and cheese it is! Instead I opted for a more British breakfast: scrambled eggs, sausages, tomatoes and bread. Works every time and should be filling enough for us to manage a whole day of shopping.

I'm, very specific about what I wear when I step out of my apartment. That means I always have clothing crisis when my friends come visiting. What to wear that would be good for both, a fancy dinner and a night out? This is a process that I love, even though it sometimes drives me in the brink of desperation. But it is also a process that is helped hugely when there is a critic present, so I will leave this for when she is here! Have a happy weekend you all!