ARE your tree-hugging, save-the-Siberian-marmoset friends on their way over? Here’s how to give the impression you’re basically Greta Thunberg. 

Hide the car 

Move it up the street, pop it on a neighbour’s front lawn, drive it into a river – do whatever you have to. Also park a bicycle or two outside, preferably those cargo ones with a box on the front for carting your kids around like posh wine. If you don’t have one, theft is acceptable — you can return it when your superior friends have left. It’s not like you’ll be using it. 

Set the scene 

All reusable water bottles and coffee cups should be rescued from the back of cupboards and placed on display by the sink, as if they’re lining up to go into battle. Now hide the clingfilm under the bed, empty your pulses into paper bags and don’t offer anyone a bleached teabag. Also, take out the main bin because 50 per cent of the stuff in there should have been recycled 

Make sure it’s freezing 

If you can afford to put the heating on a little bit, just to take the arctic edge off your living room, don’t. Offer your friends a blanket if they’re chilly, but don’t wear one yourself — pretend you’re used to the temperature. If your teeth start chattering, claim you’re having a seizure rather than admit you’re used to a toasty 23 degree house. 

Move your tumble dryer into the back garden 

Or at the very least throw a tablecloth over it and disguise the laundry room as an alternative dining area. Make sure all the towels in the house look suitable crusty and air-dried. 

Police your photos  

Take down any pictures of holiday destinations you clearly have to fly to. Only shots of grey clouds, windswept hair and miserable children are permitted to prove you wouldn’t dream of holidaying outside the British Isles.  

Don’t flush 

Make sure all the toilets in the house are unflushed. Since your friends may not even need to use one, it would be preferable to take a dump, at least in the downstairs loo, so the stench will let them know that you would never dream of wasting water in this way. If they do use the toilet and are horrified to be confronted by a large turd sitting there malevolently, they won’t quickly forget how much you love the planet.