ESL stories from Alan Townend.-2012

English as a Second Language Playground
1
  1. Front gardening I hate.

You’re always so involved in and committed to other people. Not like in the back garden where you can emulate the heir to the throne and talk to your plants and nobody really cares - least of all the plants. But back to the front garden. There you are down on your hands and knees pulling ivy off the trunks of the hedge when you suddenly come nose to nose with a passing dog or worse still with one leg raised it does the unspeakable.

If you attempt to sweep the path with an oversize broom a curious mobile child in a push chair will call out: “What’s that man doing, Mummy?” Mummy will say in her best motherly manner: “He’s sweeping the path to make it all nice and clean.” I defy anyone not to respond and then do a few more exaggerated movements of the broom to make the point. There are those too who’ll put you right: “You’ll never get rid of chives that way. You need a special preparation.” Do you thank the adviser, ignore him or do what I do and wanly smile as if to admit your stupidity?

The other challenge to your peace of mind is the sound of a car drawing up, the window being pulled down and your attention sought to direct someone. Now this happens to me a lot. I have that approachable sort of face and I clearly garden in a sympathetic manner. The trouble is that I have no sense of direction and in truth although I’ve lived in the same house for the best part of a quarter of a century, I still haven’t quite cracked the sequence of roads off the road I live in. So it’s either a case of pretending to be the jobbing gardener or having a stab and giving a rough idea of how to get to Ravenscourt Lane or wherever. It can of course lead to problems. Take the other morning.

I was hard at work tackling ivy again - the plant I mean not the young woman who lives opposite - this time I was actually on the pavement so in a manner of speaking I was rather exposed - when I heard a car draw up and an electric window purring itself open. Clearly this was serious business. A woman’s voice rang out. “I say!”, it said. The tone suggested a very superior upbringing, a person not used to being challenged and a style indicating that I was a rather inferior individual who ought to snap to it. I didn’t. So the “I say!” rang out even more imperiously this time and loudly. Eventually I turned round to see a reincarnation of two characters in a TV serial called Richard and Hyacinth Bouquet. Hyacinth is a snob and likes her name to be pronounced the French way and hates being called: “Mrs Bucket”. Richard, the very long-suffering husband in the TV show, was driving and on the side next to the kerb and was being leaned over by Hyacinth in a large hat and she naturally was doing the “I saying” bit. As Richard tried to keep his balance and his nose out of Hyacinth’s hat, which was literally blooming, and pretending that he was nothing to do with this overbearing woman, she cleared her throat and explained why I was needed. “I have to get to a bank very urgently” she pronounced, waving a large handbag at me and I understand that there is a bank in Cavendish St. Be so kind as to direct my husband’ Now I knew Cavendish St like the back of my hand and I could picture the bank as if it was right in front of me but I just couldn’t think of the best way to get there by car. Richard’s beseeching looks brought out the best in me and I gave him fairly good directions. He thanked me kindly and I smiled looking in the car for a reaction from Hyacinth but she had settled back with her blooming hat and I was dismissed.

As I strolled back to the garden checking with myself whether in fact I’d given the right direction, I noticed a brown purse lying in the grass. As I examined it, I noticed there were several £50 notes inside and there was a name and address showing in the flap: Mrs Hermione Sidebotham, 24, Cherrytree Lane, Beaconsfield. It had to be hers - Hyacinth’s Hermione’s and I conjectured on how she would pronounce that wonderful surname. I looked up in a vain attempt to attract their attention but they had long since gone. I returned the money to the house for safekeeping and resumed the gardening. For a full 20 minutes there were no distractions. I’d reached that stage in gardening when it all seems worthwhile and I stepped back to admire my handiwork. It was then I became aware of a flashing blue light. A police car stopped behind another car outside the garden and in that other car sat the celebrated Mr and Mrs Sidebotham. I guessed what she had been up to and turning to the house I went to retrieve the purse to cries from Mrs S of: “Stop him, officer!” I opened the door with the words: “Ah Mrs Sidebotham, I believe. I think you must have dropped your purse”. Jaws dropped. Mrs S clearly didn’t know how to eat humble pie - she hid in her hat and it was Richard who did the apologising.

So should you be passing number 96 in future, don’t stop and ask that chap doing the gardening with a nervous twitch - he could seriously mislead you with the best of intentions of course.
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Next: ESL Story: Driving lessons

Author: Alan Townend

2

Hello Alan,

Front gardening I hate. I wrote about my front gardening( I deleted accidentally) Tomorrow I rewrite again.I am very sorry.

Regards:
Kati Svaby

When I am gardening in my front garden I am committed willy-nilly to other people. In our village the people like very much if people make their front garden more beautiful. They doesn’t care about I am down on my hands and knees I enjoy doing my gardening they ask me different questions.

What you are doing? Or Are you gardening? As they wouldn’t have eyes. Yes I am.-I answer politely, because in this village of 500 inhabitants everybody responds to everyone. They are hanging around, and I see that they are pulling out some weeds from fun. Others give me some advice how pulling ivy off the trunks, how pruning the hedge or roses.

The advisers are very rarely tolerable, I am fed up with their advise .

Nothing can be done after 45 spending years in this village we remained in their eyes forever townspeople. When we bought this house the weed was very high in the garden… My husband bought a scythe. He received so much piece of advice . Can you scythe the grass? It isn’t a simple thing. –they didn’t have idea that my husband used to have a practice as he had been brought up in the country. When he began to do it our neighbours were standing curiously to see his failing.

Jaws dropped-when they see his scythe easily and smoothly cut the weed. Those people - who admired his job with the scythe – now are in the cemetery. They died we are growing elderly. We bought a lawn mower , but today we couldn’t move the lawn mower either so we have a jobbing gardener to cut the grass.

Alain expressions: (he doesn’t like that people take advantage of his gardening and ask him all kinds of question. )
1.I defy anyone not to respond and then do a few more exaggerated movements of the broom to make the point.

  1. There are those too who’ll put you right: “You’ll never get rid of chives that way. You need a special preparation.”

  2. He asks us: Do you thank the adviser, ignore him or do what I do and wanly smile as if to admit your stupidity? Me? I thank the adviser, I don’t pretend that I ignore him/her only with a wanly smile of course laugh up on my sleeves.

  3. The other challenge to your peace of mind is the sound of a car drawing up….and ask him show the way somewhere.

  4. The trouble is that I have no sense of direction…. I still haven’t quite cracked(damaged with lines in the surface) the sequence of roads off the road I live in.

  5. So it’s either a case of pretending to be the jobbing gardener or having a stab and giving a rough idea of how to get to somewhere.

  6. “I say!”,(Hallo there!) it said. The tone suggested a very superior upbringing, a person not used to being challenged and a style indicating that I was a rather inferior individual who ought to snap to it.

  7. Now I knew Cavendish St like the back of my hand and I could picture the bank as if it was right in front of me but I just couldn’t think of the best way to get there by car.

  8. As I strolled back to the garden checking with myself whether in fact I’d given the right direction,I noticed a brown purse lying in the grass. It had to be hers , Hyacinth’s Hermione’s

10.“Stop him, officer!” -cried the woman -Alan said:“Ah Mrs Sidebotham, I believe. I think you must have dropped your purse”.-Jaws dropped. Mrs S clearly didn’t know how to eat humble pie.(= to say how she is sorry for a mistake she made) The man had to apologize.

Regards:
Kati Svaby

3

Driving Lesson

“Confidence, competence and control. That’s what they’re really looking for.” These were the words that were drummed into me with each driving lesson I took with my instructor, Jock… The three “C’s” he called them. My throat was dry, and there was a nasty sweat in the palms of my hands. There was a slight flutter in my knees too. And the reason for all this – I was taking my final lesson the evening before the driving test… The car seemed very impersonal that evening as I tried hard to remember all that Jock had told me during the course. It was as if it had decided to be as unhelpful as possible.

All my friends had either passed or given up. I’d had endless tips of course. People who had got their driving licence would sit back and make smug comments like: “There’s nothing to it really. Just drive carefully.” “Well, I was lucky actually. I used to ride a motor bike.” That wasn’t very much encouragement and certainly didn’t exactly boost my confidence. After all, you’re so alone at the wheel. And then – “You’re staying too long in third.” I could hear Jock’s voice nagging me.

That was the thing about Jock. He was friendly, but he was very hot on any lapses. A lot of people never take lessons. They try to make you feel stupid because you have had to pay an arm and a leg for your lessons. They’d say things like: “I grew up with cars, you know. Driven since I was a kid.” Well, I am an idiot as far as mechanical things are concerned. I imagined that driving a car was as straight-forward as steering a lawn mower between the flower beds. I’d mastered that when I was a child. Just imagine coming out with a remark like this: “Well, I was lucky actually I used to use a lawn mower.” As a learner driver you’re treated as an outcast by other drivers on the road mainly because you’ve got a large red-lettered ‘L’ stuck on the back and the front of your car. You gain a little confidence, however, by the fact that you can’t actually see the L-plates yourself.

It was getting dark as we returned to the school of motoring. I relaxed in the knowledge that there was a good night’s rest between now and the test. There was a policeman in front, doing things just like the friendly looking one in the Highway Code. “He’s asking you to stop,” whispered Jock, using the dual controls. Jock and I parted tensely, having arranged the time to meet for the next day. It was all right; I passed. Jock couldn’t contain himself with joy. He’d been getting very edgy towards the last. Funny really, I mean I wasn’t that bad. I suppose he was getting on a bit and showing his age… Still, all things considered, it was after all only my 10th attempt.
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Next: ESL Story: Learning to teach

Author: Alan Townend

4

Can I say a true story? "Why I couldn’t learn drive?- How did my instructor see the role of husbands when he wanted to learn me to drive?

I try to cut a long story short. It is a true story. My husband always told me: “Not to learn to drive, I am here so you have a very good driver.” I never thought that he really hadn’t want that I could drive.

Once I came from my work-place and in the street where I live I saw a notice: Now we instruct you to drive at a bargain price. I went in, the course already began I told that can I still register this course? The instructor told me that I had to pay now 10 000 Forints and at the end another 10 000 Ft.-s I told that I live near here and I bring the money. The instructor told me that sit down and when he finishes our instructing of Highway Code I could go home and come back with the money.

When I arrived home I asked my husband what do you think why I came home later? Of course he couldn’t answer, and I said to him very happily: " Give me very quickly 10 000 Ft because I had myself registered in a driving car course " What? -he hurled- you didn’t ask me. etc. I said to him to give me the money because I had to pay.

First there was the exam of Highroad Code test-exam. I passed it, and an instructor began to instruct me how to drive. The instructor was very satisfied with my driving. He regularly pledged to me that "till you wouldn’t pass the driving test your husband how much intreated you to show him how you could drive : “YOU NEVER SHOW HIM ONLY AFTER THE EXAM”

Once we came there in the village and my husband very kindly asked me: " Kati, show me how you can drive." I said first “Non, because my instructor one hundred times asked me that I would show you after exam”

Of course:Finally I agreed. We went in a very big parking place in the campsite, as there was already October, it was empty. I could do everything what he asked me. But my driving went awry. How ? He began ask me more an more difficult maneuvers to do.

At the end he told me :
-Do you see that trash container ?
-Yes- I told.
-Drive there and stop in front of it for 20 centimeters.
I drove there, and I stopped about 40 centimeters from it.
-I asked you to stop 20 centimeters.-he said.
-I don’t know.-I told him.
-Try it.
I became so confused that I pressed the accelerator instead of the clutch, and I turned over the container, I crashed his brand new car, and I broke down, and I got a crying fit. I gave up my driving lessons-I said -because I lost 3 very important the three “c” = confidence,competence and control.

In the afternoon I went my last instruction to say “Thanks” to the instructor.

He asked: What happened? I said to him. And he told me you didn’t keep the GOLDEN RULE: I BEGGED YOU ONLY AFTER THE EXAM YOU MAY SHOW HIM HOW YOU

5

Holiday in waiting
“No, I don’t think we’ll take the chicken, Albert.” “Oh, why not, Maisie?” “Well, we don’t want bits of it getting stuck in our teeth now do we?” Maisie had decided she wasn’t going to waste unnecessary time cleaning her teeth on her wedding night. These two honeymooners were the last guests in the dining room at the end of my very first day of waiting in a hotel. I shall always remember them with affection for by that time of the evening my feet were killing me and out of the enormous menu I presented them with they chose only one dish — Peach Melba with cream.

I had decided to earn some money on holiday that year instead of spending it and had chosen a hotel as far away as possible from my home in London, in the Lake District for my debut as a temporary waiter. The evening before I started I had arrived complete with bow tie, white jacket, black trousers and shoes.

I had a surreptitious cup of tea in the staff room and was later shown the dining room through a secret peephole in the wall. This preview served early to show me the barrier between them and us. The waitress showing me round spoke in a breathless hush each time we came within earshot of them, as she referred to the hotel guests, as if for all the world we were a couple of hunters on safari avoiding the hostile natives. Then at seven sharp the next morning it started. I had a hasty breakfast in the kitchen under the watchful gaze of the regular staff. Again the hush in the air was noticeable. “Pass the sugar please.” “No, more coffee for me.” Then the whispering was shattered by the entrance of the chef who was a Liverpudlian (from Liverpool). “Right. They’re filling up inside. Start taking the orders please.” Here was the man around whom the whole hotel revolved. And like some international operatic singers he was known by the one name only — Chef — as if Christian names and surnames were beneath him.

Breakfast is really the most tiresome meal to serve to large numbers. There are endless variations on the same theme. Just think of all the things you can do with an egg. I took six orders and tried to keep them in my head but by the time I’d reached the kitchen I’d quite forgotten who wanted what. I stammered out the garbled version I could remember. Chef smiled benignly. “What you’re trying to say is that old fatty wants one fried, the three judies (women) fancy it boiled, the colonel wants is scrambled and the duchess wants it ever so lightly boiled.” Clearly, I was redundant. The all-seeing chef knew and heard all. At lunch time he even remembered the number of potatoes the guests required. He had a way with food too that was remarkable to watch. Even peas recognised his touch and rolled where he wanted them to. By three o’clock the dining room was empty and it was our turn to eat. With plates piled high by chef we gobbled our way through massive portions. Over the top of my pile of Brussels sprouts I caught sight of chef’s dish. Sitting in isolation on a saucer was one hard-boiled egg. “I never touch rich food myself,” he said as I sliced my fifth roast potato, “it’s bad for the heart.”

As the days passed, I acquired new skills. I learnt to circumnavigate a round table, carrying a tray full of soup plates, and place them within grasping distance of the guests in a manner that would have done credit to the buxomest of bunny girls. I learnt to deliver scalding hot plates to guests who complained at having to wait, making sure the plates were placed in such a way that they’d have to handle them before they ate. And what was more, I learnt to be a good trencherman. I refused to be put off by the sight of chef eating his solitary egg. As for the lakes, well, I must confess I didn’t see anything of them I was too busy waiting and eating.

The following year I went back to the Lake District as a guest and thoroughly enjoyed myself. After one memorable long walk I bumped into chef. “Come back and meet the wife,” he said “and have some lunch.” I was starving and readily forewent the hotel lunch, which was not as large, I discovered, when you were a mere guest. As the chef went back to his work I sat down in his front room and mouth-wateringly anticipated the lunch his wife was about to serve me. She popped in to see whether I was sitting comfortably. “By the way,” she said, “how do you like your egg done, light or hard boiled?”

6

My favourite paragraph: It is very humorous.
Breakfast is really the most tiresome meal to serve to large numbers. There are endless variations on the same theme. Just think of all the things you can do with an egg. I took six orders and tried to keep them in my head but by the time I’d reached the kitchen I’d quite forgotten who wanted what. I stammered out the garbled version I could remember. Chef smiled benignly. “What you’re trying to say is that old fatty wants one fried, the three judies (women) fancy it boiled, the colonel wants is scrambled and the duchess wants it ever so lightly boiled.” Clearly, I was redundant. The all-seeing chef knew and heard all. At lunch time he even remembered the number of potatoes the guests required. He had a way with food too that was remarkable to watch. Even peas recognised his touch and rolled where he wanted them to. By three o’clock the dining room was empty and it was our turn to eat. With plates piled high by chef we gobbled our way through massive portions. Over the top of my pile of Brussels sprouts I caught sight of chef’s dish. Sitting in isolation on a saucer was one hard-boiled egg. “I never touch rich food myself,” he said as I sliced my fifth roast potato, “it’s bad for the heart.”

The enlightened humorous sentence meant a difficulty for me to understand, but at last I realized its punch line.=

" He had a way with food too that was remarkable to watch. Even peas recognised his touch and rolled where he wanted them to. " Everybody recognised his sense of special knowledge in the restaurant, even the peas rolled where he wanted to."

7

microphone please