Yesterday was a hectic busy day, because we welcomed my aunt (and godmother) Tessa and uncle Bob who are visiting en route from Dallas (where they live) to upstate New York, where they're spending the summer.
Our Pennsylvania trip wreaked havoc with my guest preparation schedule, such that I spent yesterday tearing around the flat, trying to make it vaguely presentable. Unfortunately this place just doesn't really get clean, so it still looked really grubby after I'd hoovered and scrubbed everywhere.
But the real disaster was the bedding. As anyone who's stayed with us in London knows, I pride myself on Hotel Devo boasting lovely matching bedding, but have little to work with here. I washed the one set of spare bedding we have here and it broke the washing machine!! The washing machine just stopped, mid-cycle and when I tried to manually shift it on a bit, it just filled even more with water! Aaaarrrggghhh - SO not what I needed a couple of hours before Tess and Bob arrived.
Fortunately Anne was home and let me use her washing machine to rinse the stuff, but in doing so, I managed to drip water everywhere between here and there and the sheets weren't going to be dry before our guests arrived, so I had to cobble together a woeful mishmash of sheets and pillow cases for them, while hanging my head in hospitality shame.
What's slightly worse is our washing machine is full of water and because it's 4 July weekend, a maintenance man can't come until Monday. I feel sure that a washing machine full of stale water will in no way stink after 5 days in this hot hot heat. Nice.
I had just about got my act together by the time I opened our bedroom blinds to find Bob outside, having miraculously parked in our parking space, despite not knowing which ours is. They were going to call ahead from the road and I was planning to tell them stuff like that and that our front door isn't actually on 19th St, but they just arrived and as such I had to go down and rescue Tess from knocking on many wrong doors.
It was lovely to see them and they both seemed very well. I made them some tea and we sat down, chatting, then didn't get up again or stop chatting until it was time for supper! It was really nice to get to talk to them both at such length as, due to our gigantic family and their living over here, we usually only get 15 mins of 'how are you' at family dos before one or either of us has to move on to talk to someone else.
We walked down U St for supper on the roof terrace of Local 16, which was very nice. Last time I was scuppered by not taking ID and therefore not being allowed to drink, but this time it wasn't a problem, as I'm still off the booze (good thing I took my ID anyway though, as they wouldn't let me through the door without it, regardless of whether I was drinking).
A slightly flustered Maxy met us with the good news that he's definitely going to both conventions in August. This is great, as we worried he'd be expected to stay in the DC office and just give instructions from afar to correspondents who are at the conventions anyway. It'll be the political highlight of his working life here and he'll finally get to see Obama, having had to endure covering Clinton and McCain already!
Today was busy and utterly exhausting. I'm so embarrassed that I'm more knackered than my aunt and uncle in their 70s and 80s!
After a morning of sitting around chatting, I took them to see the Jacob Lawrence exhibition at the Phillips Collection down the road, which they both enjoyed. Tess has an even shorter attention span than me at galleries, so it was great - we just dashed around the greatest hits and then headed to the fancy Italian place down the road for an al fresco lunch of cold meats, bread and olives.
Weirdly, one of our fellow diners was the old chap I met in Georgetown aaaages ago - Lanny Carew - but I didn't re-introduce myself.
We stopped off at the BBC Bureau after lunch, where Max gave us the tour (turns out it's way bigger than I thought it was - I hadn't had that tour before), then headed to the Mall.
It's been SO hot today, it's unreal. Both Tessa and I came over all faint a couple of times and I regularly thought I was going to pass out. Tessa and Bob used to live here (Bob worked for the FBI) and Tess was a bit disappointed when we got to the Mall to see that there was a huge event taking place, with masses of tents and flags and things, as she was looking forward to seeing it in all its unencumbered glory.
I couldn't quite get to the bottom of what the event was, but it's been going on for two weeks 
and seems to be celebrating Bhutan, Texas and NASA. Quite what those have in common, I'm not sure. But we watched some Bhutanese folk dancing, which was interesting - the ladies were wearing funny clogs and the men's shoes were curly at the end like Rumplestiltskin - but they must've been BOILING in their traditional dress. I felt hot just looking at them.
Bob was very keen to see the World War II memorial, as that's the only one that wasn't here last time they visited. So we trundled down the Mall, desperately trying to not melt on the way. SO. HOT. It's been really brilliant getting to know Tess and Bob more, as there's lots I didn't know about their lives. Tess told a funny story about how she met Bob when she was travelling in Mexico and her Dad got him checked out by J Edgar Hoover's deputy, who knew a friend of his! And I learned about all the places they've lived, including Guadalajara, Bogota, Caracas and New Mexico and how Bob was the only FBI agent allowed into Jonestown in 1978.
I also hadn't realised that Bob served in WWII (just), spending two years with 
the airforce in the Philippines. By the time he got there, there wasn't much combat going on, but it was interesting to find out how he felt about it all. It sounds like he very much just took it in his stride. Anyway, there's a pillar at the WWII memorial for the Philippines, so it was nice for Bob to see that. I meanwhile was resisting the temptation to dive into the massive fountain in the middle. AND I was outraged to see that the memorial bears in the name of George W. Bush - it's the George W. Bush memorial. What an outrage. But I think it has something to do with him being the president when it was created.
I tried not to cry as we passed a hopeful-looking park ranger standing in front of a sign saying that his next talk was in 5 mins, with no-one waiting for him, and we limped home in the heat. I was absolutely exhausted when we got home and embarrassed that my aunt and uncle had way more energy than me!
We had dinner up the road at the very fancy Cashions, which Max and I had been wanting to visit for ages now. But unfortunately it was really disappointing. There just wasn't anything on the menu that appealed to me or to Bob and it all took ages to arrive. As we were leaving, Max's friend Oliver accosted us and it turns out that he'd been there all along. He was having dinner with a friend who does interviews for the Guardian. I'd like her job, please.
Having shunned the over-priced desserts at Cashions, we dug into some tasty Ben & Jerry's frozen yoghurt back at the apartment and chatted even more.
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