On A Farm in France - Jam (Series 001, Episode 009)

'Hear English' is a blog that provides podcasts and transcripts to help people learn English, find us at http://hearenglishhere.blogspot.com/. 

Jam

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Julian was a Polish guy who worked with us during our holiday on a farm in France.  He was completely hyperactive and capricious, and he often acted more like a naughty child than an adult.  This was often annoying, but it was hard to stay angry at Julian, whatever he may have done, because he was a lot of fun and a really nice guy.  At first we thought that he was not very bright, but he was actually a fantastic artist, and was brilliant at logic problems and was the only one amongst us who was able to complete the Rubik’s Cube that we found in the cottage where we stayed.

The first thing that struck us as strange about Julian was that he always walked around with a spoon in his hand.  The second thing that we found strange was the amount, and how often, he ate, especially considering that he was in good physical shape and was, in fact, incredibly strong.  Not only would he eat more than everyone else at mealtime, he would also eat huge amounts throughout the day.

Julian wasn’t very good at cooking, and so would instead eat anything that we left lying around, even if we specifically told him not to eat it, so we had to hide everything that we didn’t want him to eat.  If we made bread for breakfast the night before, it would be gone by the morning.  If we turned away from food we were making, even just for a second, there would be less of it when we looked back.  In fact we sometimes had to physically restrain him to stop him eating our food, and because he was so strong, sometimes we couldn’t, and so we just had to watch him eat it.

When we finally started hiding our food, so that there was none lying around for him to eat, Julian was forced to cook.  The only thing he knew how to cook was pancakes, but he would make them whenever he had a spare minute, even getting up in the night to cook them.  For the first 2 days, he ate the pancakes with a small amount of jam.  When we first arrived on the farm our hosts had generously given us 30 jars of home-made jam.  After a while though Julian just ate his pancakes with nothing on them.  We presumed he must have got bored of eating jam all the time.   

On the third day of our stay at the farm I decided to make a dessert.  There were only enough ingredients to make something simple, but as I’d found a jar of chocolate spread at the back of the fridge, I decided to make tarts. I made the pastry for the tarts with no problems and I was going to fill some of the pastry cases with the chocolate spread and make the other pastry cases into jam tarts.  When I searched in the cupboard for the jam, however, I found that it had all gone and all that was left were empty jars.

I thought immediately that Julian must have eaten it all on his pancakes, but then realised that there was no way he could have eaten 30 jars in 2 days like that, because he only ever put a small amount of jam on his pancakes.

“Do you know where all the jam has gone?” I asked Julian, turning to face him.  “No” he answered, but he said it in a strange way, and with a guilty expression on his face.  He was holding something behind his back, and then I noticed he had chocolate spread on the side of his mouth.  I looked behind him and he was indeed holding the jar of chocolate spread, which, apart from a spoon sticking out of the top, was now empty. 

The idea that someone could eat chocolate spread with a spoon, directly from the jar, made me smile at first but I quickly stopped laughing and instead looked at Julian in amazement as I realised why he carried a spoon around with him all the time, and why there was no jam left.  He had been using his spoon to eat the jam, directly from the jar, and had managed to eat 30 jars of jam, in just 2 days.  It’s no wonder he was hyperactive!

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

On A Farm in France - Marshmallows (Series 001, Episode 008)

'Hear English' is a blog that provides podcasts and transcripts to help people learn English, find us at http://hearenglishhere.blogspot.com/. 

Marshmallows

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

I can’t believe they stole your marshmallows.  Thank you for telling me, they’re in bed now but I’ll tell them off tomorrow, and they won’t be having sweets for a while.  They’re good children usually, I’m surprised at them, stealing from a guest.  It’s not as bad as it could have been though, they managed to connect up the hosepipe and soak our last guests with water, and earlier this year we had to evacuate some guests from the holiday cottage because the children found some matches and set fire to the garden. 

I’ll tell them off this time, they need to know that they aren’t allowed to behave badly, although I generally don’t like to be too hard on them, they need to be able to have fun, and anyway, boys will be boys, after all.  In fact we don’t really believe in disciplining our children, we don’t think telling them off stops them from being naughty, and when we do they get upset, and it can’t be good for them to be that sad, so we forgive them very quickly, they don’t often do anything really naughty anyway.  I didn’t realise they liked marshmallows so much though.  Maybe I will buy them a packet or two when I go shopping tomorrow.

I’m glad it was food they stole, I think its important for growing children to eat lots so that they grow up to be strong and healthy.  Maybe I won’t tell them off too much, I don’t want to put them off eating.  I’m quite proud of them really, finding the sweets on such a high shelf, and then getting a chair so they could reach them.  They’re only young and that involves quite a lot of coordination, its good to see them using their brains. 

Some of the teachers at the school think they’re a little behind the other children because they don’t perform well in tests, but this goes to show that they’re quite clever really.  The problem is they don’t go to school too often, they prefer to stay at home, and it’s difficult and tiring to make them do things that they don’t want to do, so its easier to let them stay at home. I don’t want to force them to do something they don’t want to do either, I want them to enjoy themselves. 

I try to educate them at home, but that’s difficult too, they aren’t really interested in learning and they can be disobedient, so I usually just let them play.  I work from home, so I am able to look after the kids at home instead of sending them to school, only it’s difficult to work at the same time, so I end up not getting much work done, which means we have less money, but I think its more important for the kids to be happy.

They also miss a lot of school through injuries and illness.  They’re always getting hurt playing around in dangerous places and banging into things.  I try to make them be more careful but you know what boys are like, and I don’t like to stop them having fun.  They’re ill quite often too.  I worry about their health, so I make sure I give them a lot of natural food but it’s not enough. I try to treat them with herbal remedies, I don’t really trust what the doctors say, they just do what the big companies tell them, and all these medicines are made from plants, so I think it’s best to just use the plants and herbs and simple household remedies.  If they get stomach upsets I give them bicarbonate of soda, for instance, which can also be used for wounds and burns.  I use it in small amounts to treat insect bites, and I think you can use it to treat snakebites too, although I imagine you’d have to use a larger amount. 

It’s quite good that they get ill though because it boosts their immune system.  A lot of people get their children inoculated, but we don’t really believe in that, neither do many people in this village, its better if they get used to diseases naturally, and the more they get ill, the stronger their immune systems will be.  That’s why I was so surprised when they got measles.  There was an epidemic in the village recently and almost 100 children were ill. 

One of my boys was very ill and had to be moved to the big hospital in the city and he was there for several weeks.  It was the doctor’s fault, they didn’t think it was measles, despite the fact that all the other children in the village had measles.  The doctors said it was my fault for not getting the children inoculated, but I explained that I don’t believe in inoculations, and rarely give them medicine, so they should be very healthy and you know what?  They accused me of being a bad mother.  Can you believe that?

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