Every year I take them and every year I give out. Foreign students I am talking about. It's not the students themselves that annoy me, but the various language schools that arrange the trips and farm them out to Irish families. I know their parents pay astronomical sums for them to come to Ireland, but the money certainly does not permeate down to the host families.
The form arrived last week from the language school asking if I would offer the usual Irish hospitality next summer. If I provide breakfast, packed lunch, dinner each day, hot showers on request, wash and iron clothes, and - oh yes - the student would prefer his own room, I will get the princely sum of £77 a week. Inevitably I end up taking a few students because, like everyone else, I need the extra money in September when my own children return to school. The form asks you to state a preference about gender. Now sexist as this might sound, there is no question about it: the girls are much nicer. They want to get to know you, they want to help, they want to visit relations. As time goes on they want to share their feelings with you - but do I really need this? Maybe a bored, boorish male would be easier.
Then you must give details of your own children. The idea is that they try and match a student with a member of your family. Our middle guy, Darragh, got Andreas, who came to us at 13 and repeated the visits for four years. He was both loved and hated - loved when he arrived laden down with presents, hated when sons were moved in with each other so he could have his own bedroom. During the first year I had to physically separate Darragh and him. Apparently Andreas had criticised my cooking and my champion was saving my honour. Things changed later on when they united against me. All our photo albums have pictures of Andreas - it seems we only went out as a family (Clara Laragh, Brittas Bay, the zoo) when we had a student. We learned that Continental people have different table manners. Elbows would be on the table, knives and forks would fly around, bread was used to slurp up gravy - and my lot would do exactly the same. (Even after the students were gone and grandparents were visiting!)
And then the inspecting of the pots. Andreas would insist on lifting saucepan lids to see what was simmering and would then ask for a description of my concoction. It was only on a trip to Barcelona when I saw diners trooping into the restaurant kitchen to see what was cooking that I realised it was a Spanish custom.
One year I had two Italians as well as the regular Spanish guy. His nose was a bit out of joint with the intrusion of the loud, affable Italians. One evening he picked up a wizened little carrot and told Bruno that it resembled a part of his anatomy. My lot would take delight in teaching them "dirty" words. I was regularly told how my dinners were "f***ing lovely"; Andreas would lovingly talk of his friends as "greasy dagos".
Last June, the doorbell went and there stood a lovely dark-eyed student. "I am Lucca," he said helpfully, as I continued to stare at him blankly. I invited him in and he told me he was holidaying in Ireland. He had so enjoyed his stay with us that he was now here on holiday with his parents. He stayed and chatted for an hour. When he had gone we got down the photograph album to try and identify him. "He's the one who put the cornflakes into the milk jug," the daughter suggested helpfully. None of us could remember him. But we'd obviously made an impression of some sort.
The form falls to the floor. Will I, won't I? There must be easier ways of making money, I whine, as I bend to pick it up and start to fill it in once again.
