An American came to stay – and completely changed my attitude to water | Emma Beddington

My son brought his girlfriend home last month and we really wanted to make it nice for her. We started with a shameful cleaning but were immediately betrayed when our son walked in and exclaimed, “It’s so neat! I’ve never seen it so clean!” (It got worse when he showed her my office, the portrait in the attic and the rest of the house is Dorian Gray.)

She’s from the US, which brought with it an extra set of concerns about how we live, particularly around ice and water. I’ve watched enough TikTok videos of shocked, disgusted Americans bemoaning the inadequate water supply and the meanness of European hospitality to know that we’re notoriously bad at providing American visitors with adequate and sufficiently chilled hydration. To make things better, we’d rush to the supermarket to panic-buy bags of ice to fill the freezer, then pretend to be casually and casually comfortable with this cold, watery way of life. Want ice-cold water? Yes, we always offer each other tall glasses of cold liquid, filled with ice cubes, perfectly normal behaviour here!

They’re gone now and we’re back to a cozy mess, with one really disturbing exception. After pretending for a while, ice water has normal for me. I hate water – I once went on the radio to defend my water-hating stance and was forced to down a glass live and “react” – and ice is just colder, worse water. Usually, when hydration becomes necessary, I force down a reluctant, lukewarm thimbleful, as my Yorkshire heritage and bad dentistry dictate.

But now I can’t get enough of the cold stuff. It’s an out-of-body experience to watch myself walk to the fridge, fill a glass with ice, refill it with water, and drink it. I’m currently chewing the cubes with the reckless abandon of someone with perfect tooth enamel—and I’m going to do it again. We’ve had a whole bag of ice since they left. What’s going on? Am I American now? I’ve never been so hydrated—or lost—in my life.