I thought I would go back in time and tell a story about some of the many students that used to stay with me in the 90's before I started doing short term B&B lets at Parklands.
There are two students who really stood out in my mind. They were delightful Japanese girls who stayed with me for three months – they were friends and wanted to stay in the same home.
They were called Yuki and Suki. They had just turned 21 in the first quarter of the year and had come to England to improve their basic English.
They were just like china dolls – they tiptoed around the house and were as quiet as mice. They smiled and laughed all the time – I'm not sure if that was to make up for their lack of English but it was a delight to have them around, as my sons were five and six at the time and quite boisterous.
They dressed in brightly coloured clothes and big clumsy rubber shoes, which was probably the fashion, but also added height to their slender build.
My two boys adored them and would sit with the girls when they did their homework and in turn Yuki and Suki would help them when it was time for them to do their weekly Kumon maths papers – which they both hated doing...
My youngest was particularly enchanted by them, they taught him origami and would write his name in Japanese characters which he would then selotape on his bedroom door. Their appetites were minute compared to other students who used to stay with me but they made up for that with the enormous amounts of washing I did for them each week!
They loved Nutella and practically ate it off a desert spoon. They also loved my home-made ice-cream. I have an ice-cream maker and would make batches every other day as demand was so high! Their room was complete chaos; with clothes, shoes, bags and everything else in between, strewn on the floor. The cupboards and drawers were bulging at the seams and they had more toiletries than Boots the chemist.
I thanked my stars that I only had to clean their room once a week. Cleaning it daily would have been a real challenge!
Before they left they both wanted to cook us all supper. They made us the most delightful chicken and rice dish and they decorated the table with origami cranes in an assortment of colours. They also made a desert of peeled grapes in a Japanese jelly.
The food was so delicate and delicious and it really changed the taste of grapes with the skin peeled off. Alas, I have never found two hours to spend peeling and pipping the grapes to recreate this dish, but I haven't ruled it out to one day make it as a wonderful desert for a dinner party!