And they still came back....

Remember these two?

Ok, I could't find the old photos of them and we didn't make any new ones this year. If you can't tell, I drew that one on the Paint program on this computer. That program sucks. Or maybe it's me...anyway...They are the San Diegan pals, Denise and Wayne.

Third year running, they've returned to the palatial accommodations of Maberga. You might remember their first visit...the coldest week during our tenure here and the country ran out of pellets, which are rather important for our only heat source, the PELLET stove. That year the four of us congregated at the oven in the mornings where we would all try to warm our hands on the gas fire making the coffee.

At that time we also had no stairs in our house so they slept in two twin beds (pushed together, not so they could do what lovers do but rather so they could share body heat - maybe they did both) in what is now our pantry behind the bathroom - a room of about 6' x 6'. You might be wondering what kind of crappy hosts we were in not offering them the bedroom. We did. That was our bedroom that year. David and I spent that week in the upstairs...which wasn't really an upstairs since we had no stairs, and the bedroom hadn't been plastered. You can say that David and I have intimate knowledge of a Maberga winter after that experience. There was a good reason we had been sleeping in the 6x6 pantry behind the bathroom....and it wasn't because we didn't like the pee bucket.

I don't remember what went wrong with Casa Maberga on their visit last year, but I'm sure it was something because as I was reflecting on their visit this year, I noted that they were the first house guests to be here when nothing was broken or broke or wasn't working. There was that one morning when we all woke up and desperately needed showers (some of us more than others) and there was no hot water. For some unknown reason I had turned the water heater off and so by the time we needed to hit the road, the water was only tepid. That's human error, it doesn't count.

So, with nothing broken (or better said, everything working, well, for Maberga) we had a terrific time with these fun people. We ate, drank and were merry for four days straight...well, Denise and I were. David and Wayne unfortunately had a couple of sick days.

Since they've stuck with us this far, I sure hope they will be back for next year's chapter of "And they still came back!".