‘Do you want the good news or the bad news about the Germans?’ I asked, and then I offered a few more options.
The builder boyfriend got out of his truck as he returned from fixing a gate. He looked askance and sighed. Whatever our latest B&B guests had done, he said, it was obviously going to be bad. But I explained it was not that simple and the options were as follows: ‘If I give you the good news first, it will end on the bad news, which would be depressing, but if I give you the bad news first, it will end on an uplifting note.’
The BB looked uncertain. He made a little growling sound, for we’d had a run of difficult customers. ‘Have they broken the loo seat?’ he demanded, for he fixes a lot of loo seats, and this isn’t just because some guests are large or heavy-handed. It’s because the plumber fitted seats that tended to the budget side in order to get our costs down a bit on our very expensive bathrooms.
Budget loo seats would not be my choice if I could do it all again, because the BB has to keep going in there with a spanner and tightening them. It’s on the to-do list when we close for the winter. Invest in indestructible loo seats, assuming an epidemic of thinness will not break out in humanity any time soon.
‘Did they break the bed?’ I shook my head. ‘Steal the towels? Flood the bathroom?’ I told him they didn’t break, steal or flood anything. The room was fine. They had done something else, which could be viewed in one of two ways.
‘It’s to do with the juice usage,’ I hinted. Earlier, I saw his face as an entire flagon of juice disappeared in front of his eyes as the big German guy disposed of it with a speed that was almost incomprehensible. This concluded a particularly marathon breakfast bar onslaught during which an entire packet of honey nut cornflakes, half a bumper pack of muesli and half a pack of granola was demolished.
The BB has suggested we follow his business plan: give the guests nothing and be as rude as hell to them
Then, just before leaving, as he loaded the car, she came back into the kitchen and, edging me aside as I tried to make another couple’s full Irish breakfast, she started frying a pan full of courgettes and then in another pan flambéed two large smoked fish, which smelt pungently, and left the entire house with a smoked fish aroma just in time for the next guests to arrive.
After she put these into Tupperware, presumably for their luncheon, they said their goodbyes and set off, leaving me to wash up pans full of smoked fish remnants and rectify various culinary bafflements, such as wads of tin foil in the food waste, and so on and so forth.
It’s all tremendous fun, and I confess I do secretly enjoy it. A steady stream of German, French, Belgian, Dutch, Ukrainian and Scandinavian people through your doors, not to mention Americans, Canadians and New Zealanders produces endless revelations that surpass my expectations.
For example, we’re doing breakfast for free this year, in order to get good reviews. But when you tell some people it’s free, they don’t think what a nice bonus and eat modestly – they eat until they can’t stand up, then nick all the loo roll and soap, as if the free breakfast has activated within them a terrible chain reaction.
The BB now doubts my business plan, and has suggested we follow his: give the guests nothing and be as rude as hell to them. No kitchen access, no breakfast. No washing machine, no dryer. No wandering about the house and grounds. Just here’s your bedroom, goodnight. I’ve told him it’s not a winner, and would certainly be no fun, but he’s convinced it’s the way to go.
He screwed up his face as he washed his hands at the kitchen sink. ‘I’d say tell me the good news first, but then again, maybe the bad news? No, give me the good news. No wait…’
‘I’m going to do good news, bad news,’ I said, ‘because that’s traditional. And you can make of it what you want. I personally choose to find it heart-warming. Ready?’ He nodded. ‘You know how the Germans drained an entire jug of juice for four people in ten seconds, while standing, literally pouring it down their fronts as they speed swallowed like a beer-drinking contest?’
‘Yes. The rotten…’ ‘Ah-ah! Wait a minute. They were actually lovely people. The good news is this…,’ I paused for effect. ‘They left us, in our fridge… an entire brand new carton of juice which they brought with them!’ And I waved this resplendent juice carton triumphantly. ‘They easily left more juice than they drank! We’re ahead on the juice!’
The builder boyfriend looked doubtful still. He wasn’t as impressed as I had hoped he would be. He was looking at why this juice had been stored in our shiny new fridge freezer and not in the small guest larder fridge on the opposite side of the kitchen, which they had been asked to use. ‘And the bad news?’ he said.
I opened our fridge freezer to begin explaining. ‘The bad news is, they left the carton of juice lying on its side with the seal broken… and it’s sort of been leaking down the back of the fridge all morning. I was so busy when I was in and out of there earlier I thought, “Oh our new fridge has shelves with an orange tinge to them”… so I’ve cleaned as much of the juice out of the fridge as I can, but I can’t reach where it’s gone down the back and… well, there is a chance that…’
‘…we’re up €1 on what’s left of the leaking juice carton and we’re down €900 on the refrigerator,’ said the BB, finishing the heart-warming anecdote.
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