Right, where to start! Last weekend I went to Bath and Bristol for the weekend to see the students…..otherwise known as my boys. Both absolutely fantastic cities a four hour road trip away that will each get their own blog post as we got up to allsorts over the weekend and had a good Mum and sons catch up but the student accommodation really does deserve it’s own post!!
It was the first time I have been down there this academic year as I made a point of making them sort themselves out this year with my new found determination to let go of the apron strings…..they have chosen their accommodation with their friends, sorted their equipment and even moved themselves in. I just pay for it!! So off I went to see what I was getting for my money.
Oh my goodness!! I’m still reeling. I just could not believe some of my discoveries. I thoroughly enjoyed my one hour nosey in each house. They don’t seem to be bothered where you wander and photograph and I am a bit nosey so I took full advantage of my opportunity to explore every nook and cranny.
When they decided to move down South I had mixed feelings. I was pleased that they were brave enough to spread their wings so far as there is so much more opportunity down there in their chosen fields and as a parent you want the best universities, life chances and standard of living for them. Selfishly though I was quite upset that I would not be able to see them that often. It’s worked out quite well though as I need no excuses for a weekend away and we always have such fun together when I visit, usually once a semester.
Now I feel I need to explain that they each live in a house with five of their friends, and they are all male households. So that’s two houses, one in Bath one in Bristol, twenty minutes drive from each other, one containing six 22 year old males and the other with six 19 year old males.
Whenever I leave them I always leave them with the same words of wisdom…….”live your best life, work hard, play hard and make the most of the fantastic opportunity you are both lucky enough to have been given”. I get to see the grades so I know they work hard most of the time but this weekend was evidence of the fact that they are definitely playing hard and living their best lives!
First stop Bath. A lovely 6 bedroom Georgian terrace house a few streets away from the Royal Crescent. I was fully toileted before arrival so there would be no need to use the student bathroom and with appropriate footwear to avoid any sticking to the floor I was greeted with a smile and a hug at the door from my eldest. Looking a bit bleary eyed he felt the need to explain before I entered the house that they had had a party the night before and it didn’t normally look like it did that morning. However, the Sherlock Holmes in me had already spotted the bulging can and bottle recycling bin at the front door!
In I went. It was quite quiet as no-one was up yet……it was 12 noon! First stop the bedroom, lovely big bay windowed room which apart from various things strewn on the floor did not look too bad. Then onwards to the lounge. After a couple of minutes clearing the sofa there was space for me to sit, avoiding the damp patch, and admire the empty bottles and remnants of a card drinking game.
I’d been told there was a garden so thought I’d have a little wander. Sure enough I found it, a bit overgrown but with a little patio some plastic chairs and a rather new looking table. I was informed that the table was indeed new and was a joint household purchase after the old one had ‘accidently’ got broken the week before when the legs had been removed to improvise as bats in a game of drunken baseball.
I then turned around to see the Grade ‘A’ Food Technology student eating for his breakfast the staple diet of the student, a chicken and mushroom Pot Noodle.
Off I trotted to the kitchen where I was offered a drink….if I made it myself. Looking at the worktop it looked like a choice of Vodka, Chenin Blanc, High 5 Protein shake, Smirnoff Rasberry Crush or Heineken. I eventually unearthed some coffee. Fortunately I don’t take sugar and it’s a good job I can drink it black as the milk in the fridge had a best before date of 28th September.
I settled back on my dry bit of sofa and what followed was like a scene from Zombie Apocalypse. Various bodies started to emerge from all different directions. Surprise on each others faces……”Oh I didn’t know you stayed last night…..where did you sleep?!?!” was the general question.
Now I love this household of six. Four of them came to stay in Yorkshire with me last summer when the pandemic restrictions were lifted. What I thought was a flying visit of a few nights from Brighton turned out to be a full week where they took over my sitting room, ate me out of house and home and provided much hilarity and entertainment. I obviously looked after them too well but they are a great group of lads.
Then it was on to Bristol to have a good old nosey around student house number two who had also been partying the night before. It did not dissapoint!
These are the 19 year olds and this is their first year in their own house, not in University halls. So just like I did for the oldest one in his first shared house I went with the ‘Welcome to your new Student Home Gift Box’ I like to make for them. Now what does this contain? The essentials:
- A mug with your name on – one each for Henry, Sean, Matt, Will, Nathan and Jack.
- Chocolate – everyone likes chocolate.
- Toilet cleaner – the toilet needs regular attention in a student house.
- Rubber gloves – absolutely essential for the above.
- Toilet rim block – masks various odours in the toilet.
- Lenor laundry scent boosting pearls – because all students smell.
- Smirnoff Raspberry Crush Vodka – I might be 51 years old and a bit out of touch but even I know the mugs are not going to be used for tea and coffee.
So in I went through the front door fighting my way in through an absolute mountain of cardboard! They felt the need to explain that they had only been there 2 months but hadn’t worked out how to get rid of the cardboard recycling. “Oh well”, I thought, at least the intention to recycle is there! It also gave me the opportunity to nosey at the recycling (you can tell a lot about someone’s lifestyle by looking at this). In this case it evidenced lots of pizza and beer. I got slightly worried af the sight of a large ‘Love Space’ box but a quick Google search revealed that this was not a flat pack build your own space for loving but an online space storage solution……thank goodness for that!
On to the living space and kitchen or ‘El Cocina…….home of el Jefe’……a bilingual household nonetheless! A well used cooker top with four dirty frying pans, two saucepans and a seive. They probably weren’t in the sink because they would not fit in it. Despite the presence of six scouring pads (one each) there was little evidence of washing up and the token bottle of multisurface cleaner on the windowsill made me smile.
The living room contained everything you could ever need as a student: keyboard, huge wall mounted gaming TV, karaoke machine, xbox, laptop, lots of wiring, a football in a washing up bowl, table top darts, dirty oven baking tray, token plant, drinking card game, dirty pots, Gorilla Thai takeaway menu, empty beer bottles and the best and most ornately carved and decorated bottle opener I have ever seen……everybody needs one of these!
However, the icing on the cake for me was the display in the corner, or is it a sculpture or perhaps just ornamentation. Most of us have a vase of flowers, pictures, an ornament or two but I bet there is no-one else out there with a beer keg, supporting a full size set of real traffic lights, wearing a top hat, adorned with an inflatable banana!
Asking no questions I moved on to the bedroom. A bit of a tip but still a little bit of floor space, a sort of made up bed and believe it or not some work on the desk.
Quick exit and on to the garden. Lovely little artifical grassed and covered area complete with broken bench, two indoor sofas, well used ashtray, two broken plastic chairs and a pair of Bristol Royal Infirmary Hospital crutches…….in case you have any drunken mishaps down the bottom of the garden I guess? And finally…….the BBQ which has seen better days and is clearly just a stand for the disposable BBQs because when you are a student why on earth would you use the real thing which will require an amount of effort and cleaning!
So all in all a lovely start to my weekend with the boys. So happy to see them living their best lives and having so much fun. Not sure I’m getting £13,000 a year’s worth out if my rent payments but the upside is my own house felt incredibly plush, clean and tidy when I got home……I really need to upgrade my ornaments and up my game on the bottle opener front though!