The Landlady avoids a culture clash in a teapot

Every year from September through until June, I have at least one BIMM student staying with me. Normally they are 16 or 17 years old and I think I’ve been really lucky with the ones I’ve had staying as, lately they’ve been fabulous boys. I say this because in the past I’ve had my fair share of awkward ‘Emos’ who, with their attitudes, are about as likely to succeed in the music industry as I am to become a top soprano.
My current Bimmer is a talented boy who, at the age of 17, has an uncanny knack of instantly sussing people out. He is refreshingly honest and open and I really value his opinion. He has a naturally inbuilt sense of other people’s personal space. For example, my kitchen is very small and doesn’t allow more than one person at a time to be cooking, ironing, or making tea therein. If my lodger comes into the kitchen and sees me there, he will come back when I’ve finished. You’d be surprised at the number of lodgers who stand gawping idiotically in the doorway as I iron a pillowcase. Worse still, some of them barge their way in while I’m trying to empty the dishwasher and attempt to put something dirty in. A dangerous undertaking when I’ve got a sharp knife or rolling pin in my hand. I will certainly miss my BIMM lodger when he goes at the end of the month.

As an older person who is on the well-fermented side of cynical, I am aware that I occasionally judge people too harshly, often forming an instant (although sometimes all too accurate) opinion of them. Take the recent Spanish student for example. I’d formed an unfavourable opinion of him before he’d even set foot in the hallway. Just to get a second opinion, I asked my Bimmer what he thought, to which he replied that he thought the Spanish guy was weird. He went on to elaborate that the Spanish lodger had poked fun at my student’s very English habit of putting milk in his tea, then asked him what time he finished college so that he could make him a cup of proper coffee. It has to be said at this point that the Spanish guy makes coffee by adding boiling water to £1 instant shop brand coffee, then squirts glutinous condensed milk into said concoction.

Clearly my BIMM student, having seen this ‘Spanish’ coffee making technique, was not too keen on the threatened afternoon coffee session and told me he was glad to be going home for the weekend so he could comfortably avoid said ordeal and continue to make tea with milk, in that bizarre English way of ours.