Is there anything good in the world at the moment

[Robin4]

Hey, I need some help! My wife of 48 years is being progresively taken from me. Lots of couples don't make it for one reason or another. They just fall out of love....one of them has an affair....one of them dies!

But, this is a sh*t of a situation because...we both love each other, but we are being progresively pulled apart by this bloody disease....Multiple Sclerosis!

I come here to the CC because I want to escape for an hour or so every now and then, the reality of life.

I am sure, for every problem post, there are 1,000 nice posts that I would love to read and be a part of. I logged on tonight and this is what I see....

Although I have, I don't feel I want to respond to any of those....I can conjure up enough problems in my life without taking on more!

I want to start a thread that is devoted to hosts who loved their guests, and guests who loved their host....I know there are many. I think we are loosing that great attribute.....empathy. It is all very well to help each other out of a scrape here or there.

But can we please start to see what has made this platform great for us. I loved reading Freds post about how he built and atoll into an Island hosting.

There are millions of funny stories out there, God I have related many, but they just disappear into an obscurity of hosting gloom.

Can I please ask you to post on this thread your funny happy stories so I can luxuriate in the things that have made us what we are.....human!

Cheers......Rob

[Willow3]

I iron - but not the entire sheet... only guest pillow cases and my own garments.  I bought a steam press that makes the pillow cases go so much quicker - and since the bed is dressed with seven pillows, it's a lot of pressing!  

[Rosemarie9]

I'm addicted to ironing as well! Must be an Australian hang up, although might be the perfectionist virgo in me. I even iron the fitted sheets which my friends think I am mad to do! 

[Petrina3]

I have only had great guests so far (touching wood as I write this). I like the human touch approach too and nearly always meet and greet my guests.

I am getting a few repeat stays which warms my heart as it is so lovely to know that my efforts are being rewarded and it is like greeting old friends when they arrive.

Just an aside to Rosemarie- i recently had a couple concieve whilst holiday in my villa by the sea here in sunny Coffs Harbour, they left a positive pregnancy test in the bathroom bin. I like to think that I am now an "Airbnb grandmother"

[Robin4]

@Petrina0

Now isn't that great, an Airbnb 'Granny'! 

There was a post here a year ago from Kippy who was upset at the fact that guests would be so disrespectful as to have a 'testing of the bed springs' with the accopanying sound effects on her property. That post still gets a fair bit of traction!

I am sure Petrina, with an attitude like yours, you will continue to have the great guests  that you thouroughly deserve.

Cheers.....Rob

[Petrina3]

Rob- it must be the ex nurse/midwife in me! 

ps I am very good at making beds.

[Rosemarie9]

Petrina that is wonderful! I know your part of the world well as I used to drive up the coast on my holidays and stayed in Coffs and in Woolgoolga on the way up to the Sunshine Coast. I am from Sydney's Northern Beaches and live in Kinsale, Ireland now. It is nice to know that our houses have good memories for people who have stayed. 

[Robin4]

@Rosemarie9

Do you know Rosemarie there is not a property on the northern beaches from Manly harbour to the BarenJoey Light,  back up to Kuringai Chase that is worth less than 1 Million dollars now.

Sydney is expensive real estate.

Cheers.....Rob

[Rosemarie9]

The price of property in major Australian cities is getting crazy. The northern beaches are beautiful and i am grateful to have lived there so long. I put on Home and Away, not for the great acting, but to see the beaches I miss so much! When I was younger I lived near where Skippy was filmed, I have fond memories of my late father wrangling goannas and snakes that got too close for comfort. Property prices in Kinsale are getting crazy too, I was lucky to find a bungalow in one of the best locations before things skyrocketed. I have been redecorating and renovating which is driving me slightly crazy, but I am getting there!

[Petrina3]

Rosemarie, you wouldnt recognise the Pacific Hwy as it is mostly dual carriageway all the way from Sydney to Brisbane now and lots of towns have been bypassed and "black spots" have been eliminated. It has taken hours off the journey. A lot of my stays are 1 night as we are well situated for a stop over between the two major cities and the people who travel one way usually  stay on their way back. Others just come for family holidays to enjoy the beach and surrounds. We are still waiting.....waiting.....waiting for Coffs to be bypassed as the traffic through town during peak holiday times is atrocious.

I have spent some time in Ireland (loved it) My husband is originally from Glasgow so we have spent alot of time on that side of the world.

[Robin4]

@Petrina3

Oh you are so right but didn't that road take a long time? I thought they were never going to get that stretch around Bulahdelah finished.

We have friends at Lake Cathie...(pronounced cat-eye)  and we drive that road each year and yeah, the Pacific Highway is now one of the great drives in the country.

Hey, seeing as this is a nice story thread,  can I tell you something nice Petrina! One of the neighbouring towns to Lake Cathie is called Laurieton and during World War 2 legendary American comedian performer Bob Hope entertained troops wherever they we stationed around the world. He was on a flight from Milne Bay to Sydney when his plane struck engine trouble and was forced down near Laurieton.

The residents of Laurieton took Bob in until repairs could be made to his plane and his journey continue. Bob never forgot the residents of Laurietion and every year until he died at age 100 he sent Laurieton a personally written Christmas card.....he never missed a year!

That is the mark of a great man!

Cheers.....Rob

[Petrina3]

Thanks for that Info Rob,

i have passed through Laurieton many times and will remember this for the next time.

[Kittie-and-Chris0]

Dear @Robin4 

Thank you for this beautiful sharing. I wish I could change things for you. The love and affection you have for your beloved is so touching. The forum is more often than not sharing everything that has gone wrong. 

It is often sad and often infuriating. 

Thank you for sharing the most wonderful everything that has gone right. Your love is without bounds and is never ending. And that’s what our world needs more of these days. 

[Robin4]

@Kittie-and-Chris0

Kittie, nothing needs changing, I have seriously had one of the best lives, and most of it has been due to Adrienne! I have said before, we met on a blind date in 1968 and there has not been a day since then that I have had cause to regret that meeting!

Moments yes!!!! I remember once, we had an argument and I stormed out the front door probably vowing and declaring never to talk to her again. As I walked through the house entrance past the garage wall a wine glass hit the wall and smashed right alongside my right ear. I probably deserved it, but we both had a laugh about it and moved on. I always knew she was a lousey shot!

Cheers......Rob

[Emily352]

In Italy the fridge for tourists is not just for refrigeration, @Robin4. The typical tourist fridge, a convex model of the 1940s (powered by a Magneti Marelli cooling motor) standing by a law of physics still unknown, has another main function: in the night its deafening buzz is used to keep awake guests. After the earplugs and the soundproof headphones, they remove the plug, causing the defrosting of the refrigetator.

The ice will melt in a few hours, the water will flood the kitchen, causing infiltration in the living room of Mrs. Wanda, older than the pyramids.

She’ll wake up and, after getting her feet wet, (Joshua, wake up! High water!), will call you all overwhelmed to tell you: "Her Japanese tourists. Dressed as refugees, And with a brain as big as a pea. First the washing machine of the Spaniards, now the fridge of the Japanese. It's time to stop it. Ohi, ohi, ohi. My poor flowered sofa! My poor carpet! My Limoges dishes service! Who pays them back now,? I need a draining pump!".

And then, you, host Airbnb, kneeling on a bed of chickpeas and thumbtacks, the head sprinkled with ash, after apologizing once again, closed the conversation, you will scream loudly to make the elastic of the pants tremble.

A demon. You are a demon, a rag soaked in poison. In five minutes you are under the home of the tourists, park your car on a rubbish bin, and head to your "Purple sunset of Rome", shouting "Banzai! Banzai!”

You climb up the stairs, smash the door, stumbling ruinously on the doormat, but the Japanese tourists not even the shadow, just a surplus of sushi, bought at the sushi bar of Piazza Navona run by Filipinos pretending to be Japanese (and in the back room they eat pizza in secret).

You just have to ask your Ficus Benjamina how things really went ... it is the only sincere friend who has remained at home.

[Robin4]

@Emily352

Oh thank you Emily I love it, just love it. You are obviously not of Italian extraction....your mastery of the colloquial English expression is beyond compare....I am jealous!

Italians express themselves with mainly arm movements and gestures. Not a great deal acually comes out of their mouths...I have learned over the years to keep outside arms radius when talking with an Italian!

I also doubt highly that you are from American stock....they murdered the art of good concise english at least a century ago, they now specialise in cramming as many unrequired words into each sentence as is humanly possible, probably to throw the recipient off the conversation thread.."I think I may just go and take a nap, you know what I mean!" Dealing with an American serverely taxes Google Translate!

You can't be French, your style is way too 'blunt' and lacking in any form of subtlety the French go out of their way to cultivate. Your emphasis was on meaning not expression, and that is defintely not French.

You can't be Greek because your tale had a begining and an ending.....Things get started but nothing ever gets completed in Greece! 

You absolutely are not a native Australian! Nowhere near enough unmentionable expletives in your tale.

So, I am buggered if I know where the bloody hell you are from! But I do have a soft spot for you, the Ficus is your sincere friend, so you can't be all that bad!

I still loved it, thank you Emily.

Cheers.....Rob