The B-list

These aren’t essential, but would help guests feel at home:

• Instant and ground coffee (with a plunger), rooibos and Ceylon tea, sugar and milk. Put a bottle or a jug of fresh milk in the fridge. Forget about those triangular little boxes of long-life milk – they’re never enough for a cup of coffee, messy and environmentally unfriendly. A bag of ice in the freezer compartment won’t go amiss either.

• Decent soap, two-ply toilet paper and mosquito repellent.

• Flowers in a pretty vase.

• Rusks in a pretty tin.

• Chocolates on the pillows.

• Recycling facilities, at least for glass and plastic.

• Books, magazines, playing cards, board games and/or puzzles.