Two dates and an hour
A guest states an arrival hour and a departure date before accepting, and then keeps both. A house prepares for an arrival: rooms are aired, food is bought, a plan is made for the first evening. Arriving a day early, or staying a day longer because it turned out to be convenient, spends a host’s arrangements without asking.
Where a train is delayed, one message is sent and no explanation is required. Where the visit must change, it is put as a question, early, and the host is given the room to say no.
The house’s hours, not yours
A guest keeps the hours of the house: when breakfast is, when the kitchen closes, when the house goes quiet. Rising early is a pleasure; making coffee at six and talking about it is not. Going to bed late is nobody’s business; coming in at two and waking the dog is.
The first evening belongs to the host’s plan, whatever the guest had hoped. A guest who arrives with an appetite for a particular restaurant has arrived with a plan, and a plan is what the host was going to provide. From the second morning, a guest may suggest something and should expect it to be discussed rather than adopted.
What a guest may help with
A guest carries their own bag, keeps their own room tidy, and offers once at the end of a meal to carry plates. A guest does not wash up unless asked twice, does not reorganise a kitchen, and does not arrive with a shopping list of their own requirements. Dietary needs are stated before arrival, plainly, and not negotiated at the table.
A small gift arrives on the first evening: something the house would use, chosen for where it came from rather than what it cost. Flowers are sent the day before so the house can place them, or brought already arranged.
Privacy, in both directions
A guest does not open a closed door, read the post, photograph a room or describe the house afterwards. What was seen inside a house is not the guest’s to report, including its size, its staff or its difficulties. This is the promise the host made in letting the guest in, and it is returned.
In return, a guest is entitled to a room that closes and an evening that ends. A host who asks a guest to be present for every hour has made the visit a performance. The courtesy runs both ways, and a guest may say, once and without apology, that they will read for an hour.
Leaving, and after
Strip the bed if the house does its own laundry, leave the room as found, and say thank you to whoever actually looked after you, by name. A written note is left on the hall table or posted within two days, and it names one thing.
The visit is not repaid by an immediate counter-invitation offered at the door under obligation. A house that was well received writes, waits, and issues its own invitation in its own time.