On a Farm in France - Donkeys (Series 001, Episode 003)

Welcome to 'Hear English', we provide English listening resources for free.  You can see our blog at http://hearenglishhere.blogspot.com/.  This is our first series of blogs and webcasts which provide an audio clip and a written script to go with it (these can all be found on our blog).  They follow our adventures on a 3 week working holiday on a farm in France.  This third episode for intermediate level listeners is about donkeys.  

Donkeys

Click above to listen.  You can get the .mp4 here, and the .mp3 here (opens in new window).

“Have you been to see my donkeys yet? The three smaller ones are lovely, but the larger one, he’s a bit mad.”

“We walked past their field yesterday and we stopped to stroke them for a bit, but we didn’t realise they were yours.”

“Yes, they came with the house, and I thought I’d keep them, I’m really glad I did because they’re worth their weight in gold, even though they can sometimes make a racket.”

“Everyone I know with donkeys just keeps them as pets, I’ve never met anyone who makes money out of them, is their milk valuable?”

“Very, some people just sell it to drink, it’s very expensive but also very good for people with allergies, and it’s a healthy alternative to cow’s milk, because did you know that cow’s milk is very bad for you.”

“Cow’s milk is bad for you?  What does it do?”

“Its awful for you, it’s high in fat, and low in iron and protein, and it causes anaemia, cramp, osteoporosis, heart disease, gastrointestinal bleeding, non-hodgkin’s lymphoma, baby colic…”

“Baby colic?  But that’s a childhood disease.  Is cow’s milk really bad for healthy people drinking a sensible amount for their age, as part of an otherwise healthy diet and lifestyle?  It surely can’t give me colic, can it?”

“Um, I’m not sure, all I know is that it’s really, really bad for you, really bad, and donkey’s milk is better, but it’s expensive.  You can also make it into soap, it’s meant to be very good for the skin; people like the idea of bathing in it like Cleopatra.  You can also do donkey trekking, you can make a lot of money from that.”

“So do you make a lot of money from the milk, the soap and the donkey trekking?”

“No, we don’t milk the donkeys, and we’re not insured for donkey trekking.”

“Oh…um, then how are they ‘worth their weight in gold’?”

“They keep the grass in their field short, and stop the weeds from taking over.”

“I see, and why do you need the grass short, what do you use the field for?”

“Nothing, its just for the donkeys.”

“Right…”

“But it means that we don’t have to cut it, and we don’t have to look after the donkeys at all, they feed themselves off the grass, and can drink straight from the stream.”

“When we walked past we saw that the donkeys couldn’t get to the one stream because there was an electric fence in the way and we wondered what they drank, is there another stream that we didn’t see?”

“No there’s no other stream.  That is odd though, I wonder, if they can’t get to the stream, what on earth have they been drinking?”

Click above to listen.  You can get the .mp4 here, and the .mp3 here (opens in new window).

On a Farm in France - The Mountain (Series 001, Episode 002)

Welcome to 'Hear English', we provide English listening resources for free.  You can see our blog at http://hearenglishhere.blogspot.com/.  This is our first series of blogs and webcasts which provide an audio clip and a written script to go with it (these can all be found on our blog).  They follow our adventures on a 3 week working holiday on a farm in France.  This second episode for intermediate level listeners is about a mountain.

The Mountain

Click above to listen.  You can get the .mp4 here, and the .mp3 here (opens in new window).

“So is it easy to walk up the mountain?”

“Yes, you will be able to see it from the holiday cottage.”

We had just arrived at our host family’s house and were sipping coffee whilst our hosts, and the other two guys who would be working with us on the farm, told us all about the things we could do during our stay, which included a hike up a nearby mountain.

“Do we need a map, in case we get lost?”

“No, it’s right there in front of you, you can’t get lost.”

“How do we get there, which footpaths should we take to get to the top?”

“Well, you just go, you know, up.”

It was frustrating that Vincent and the others wouldn’t give us a straight answer to any of our questions, but it was obvious that they had done the walk millions of times, that it was very easy, and that we were silly to be worrying about it.

“How long does the walk take?”

“As long as you want it to.”

“Well yes, of  course, but…” The answers I had been getting weren’t particularly useful, so I phrased my next question more carefully: “…how long does it take to get to the top, and then back down, by the shortest path?”

“Erm…2 hours, a little bit more maybe.  There are large metal crosses which mark the very top, you can get your photo taken with them.”

With all this information to hand we headed up the mountain the next morning, starting off quite late because we’d been told it wouldn’t take long. 

We got back just before it got dark, in time for tea.

“How was the mountain?”

“There were wonderful views, and we saw a fawn.  We got to the ridge, but not to the peak, we had to turn back because it was starting to get dark”

“You didn’t get to the crosses at the top?”  Vincent sounded surprised.  “Why not, did you get lost?”

“Not lost as such, we could always see the top of the mountain and could easily get home, we just kept going the wrong way.  We couldn’t find a path at all at first, and the footpaths we eventually found weren’t well signposted or well marked.”

“Did you at least get to the shepherds’ cottages?”

“The stone buildings laid out in a circle?  Yes, we found them eventually but after that we turned left along a footpath that took us a long way around the mountainside into the next valley, it was slow going too because it was poorly marked.  When we eventually got to the final ascent to the peak it was getting late, so we came home.”

“Well maybe you’ll have more luck another day.”

It felt fairly humiliating that we hadn’t managed to get to the summit; everyone seemed genuinely amazed at how incompetent we were.

Later that week we tried again, setting off earlier and knowing our way better meant we got to the shepherds’ cottages much more quickly.  From there we got to the ridge walking in the opposite direction around the mountain to the last time and after a few very steep climbs, we found a footpath along the ridge and from there it was reasonably easy to walk and scramble to the peak, where we took a photo of us standing next to the metal crosses.  We carried on down the other side of the mountain and walked home along the paths we had come up last time. 

We thought that we must have taken the wrong paths completely.  The whole walk had taken 4 times as long as we had been told it would take and we knew it had been much harder than it should have been, because if it was meant to have been so hard, Vincent would have given us a map and directions.

“So did you get to the top this time?” Vincent asked over dinner.

“Eventually, yes.” 

Everyone stopped eating and looked at us with surprise.  “Wow, you actually got to the top?  Did you see the crosses?“

“Yeah, we got a photo of them.  We must have gone a really stupid way though because it took us over 8 hours.  Is there a more direct route than going around the mountainside after you get to the shepherds’ cottages?”

I was expecting Vincent to laugh at the idea of us getting so lost but instead he just shrugged his shoulders.  “I’ve no idea,” he said, shaking his head, “none of us has ever been.”

There was a silence as Sarah and I looked at each other in disbelief, and wondered why had they misled us about how easy the walk was if they had never done it themselves.

“How did you know about the crosses, if you’ve never been to the top?” Sarah asked.

“Oh, we can see them from here, with our binoculars.  It’s good to know you can walk to them though, we weren’t even sure if it was possible to get to the top.”

I rolled my eyes, and Sarah slumped onto the table with her head in her hands.  These people were, albeit incredibly friendly, absolutely mad.  We still had over a fortnight left of our holiday and I wondered what exactly we had got ourselves in for.


Click above to listen.  You can get the .mp4 here, and the .mp3 here (opens in new window).

On a Farm in France - Fox (Series 001, Episode 001)

Welcome to 'Hear English', we provide English listening resources for free.  This is our first series of blogs and webcasts which will provide an audio clip and a written transcript to go with it.  They follow our adventures on a 3 week working holiday on a farm in France.  This first episode is for intermediate level listeners and is about a fox.  Visit our blog at http://hearenglishhere.blogspot.com/ for the written transcript for this episode and for all our other webcasts.

The Fox


Click above to listen.  You can get the .mp4 here, and the .mp3 here (opens in new window).

“Can you hold him for me?”

“Um, no, not really, he’s full of ticks and fleas and has mange.”

“Can you drive the van?”

“No, I’ve not got my driving licence on me.”

Vincent gave me a look, as if to say I was being unreasonable and then went round to the back of the van to find a box.

“Why are we stealing a fox?” Sarah sounded exhausted.

“I don’t know.  Maybe it’s injured, or maybe he’s worried it’s too young to have left the den.  Or maybe,” I sighed, “because he’s completely mad.”

Vincent jumped back into the driver’s seat and plonked a box on my lap.  “Hold the top, so he can’t get out.”  The fox was curled in the corner of the box, shivering with fear.  It also stank.

We had been on the way back, after a day’s work on a market stall at a fair outside of Toulouse. We had made the same journey, there and back, twice that weekend and it should have taken an hour, but as Vincent was hopeless at directions, couldn’t read signposts while driving, never brought a map, ignored any of our suggestions and drank a beer before setting off, we had got lost every time.  On this journey we had been lost for over 2 hours, it was late and we were very tired, and just as we were nearly home a fox had jumped out in front of us.  Vincent had abandoned the van in the middle of the road, shouting “I am going to have him”, had chased the fox into a ditch and had caught it.  And now, it seemed, had given it to me.

 “When we were children, my sister found an injured fox and kept it as a pet.”

“Ah, so it is injured.”

“No, not this one, he is fine.”

“Then why are you keeping it?”

“He will be a pet for my eldest son.”

“I don’t think this is a good idea, you’ll have to keep him here for another 2 days, and then it’s a 3 hour journey to your house in the mountains.  Do they need injections?  Do you even know what they eat?  Plus aren’t they very difficult to train?  Your son is 6 years old, surely its better to wait until he’s older?”

 “You think I shouldn’t take him?  But it’s always been my dream to have a fox.”  Vincent was crestfallen, his voice wavering.  “There are lots of hunters here,” he said, after a pause, “if I left him, they would just shoot him.”  This last comment restored his confidence and so he repeated it, which didn’t convince me but seemed to make him feel justified.

We got to the house and whilst Vincent busied himself with the fox, Sarah and I unloaded the van and then we all sat down to eat. 

“Have you given the fox anything to eat and drink?” Sarah asked.

“I’ve given him some water, but we don’t really have much food in the house, so I gave him some of my left-overs from lunch.”  We had been worried about the fox and so were relieved that Vincent seemed to know how to care for it.

“How is the fox?” I asked as we ate breakfast the next day.

“Ok, he’s still a little scared and he’s not eaten any of his food, I don’t think he likes spaghetti Bolognese.” 

My heart sank, it was obvious that Vincent had no idea how to care for the fox.  I couldn’t believe he had fed the fox pasta, moreover because Vincent was a vegetarian, and the bolognese was not made of meat, but of tofu.


Click above to listen.  You can get the .mp4 here, and the .mp3 here (opens in new window).