The Cotswolds

It took me some time, but eventually I managed to convincingly explain to Frenchie that in England, when it is Bank Holiday, nobody works.  The concept of shuffling slowly away from one's desk four days before the Bank Holiday, getting closer and closer to the lift/ exit whilst squirming out of your shirt and tie and high heels into sunglasses, flip flops/ walking boots and barbeque spatula, ready to sprint out of the door to your mini break, was somewhat alien to Frenchie who likes to work.

"In France," he informs me, "We work hard."

Ah.  I see the culture clash here and I come at it from a different angle:

"In England, we Bank Holiday."

Obviously, in Teacher, we just Holiday most of the time so I had had a previous week of blissful nothing (other than gardening, spending money on a bicycle I may never use and baking disgusting cakes and drinking coffee) planning our Romantic Mini Break to the Cotswolds.  The Cotswolds, I assured Frenchie, are an area of great natural beauty.  The greenness and pleasentness found in the Cotswolds rivals all other green and pleasant land that we had yet seen.

In the Cotswolds, they have agriculture and quaint villages and horses and Georgian architecture and the further west you go, the funnier the accents become (until you're in Wales where they have a different language all together).

Frenchie was not yet convinced.

"In France, we work hard," he repeated, with Gaullic frown.

I racked my brain.  How to justify?  How to justify?  Hmm.  Ah!  A lightbulb moment.

Many fans of the previous, more tropical (but no more exciting or adventure packed) blog, www.emmadoessoutheastasia.blogspot.com may remember that Frenchie really likes fish and really likes going to aquariums where he can embrace his autistic self and tell you aaaaaall about every single fish in every single tank.  Well, it turns out that Frenchie is not just obsessive about fish, but about a whole range of subjects, one of them being trees.  Frenchie is so obsessed with trees that when he was little, he wanted to be a tree.

So.  With this in mind, I sidled around into his peripheral vision where, like a deer, he couldn't see me coming and I said, "In the Cotswolds, they have an arboretum."

Despite the fact that the word is made up of almost entirely French vocabulary ('arbre' = tree; 'etum' = when's breakfast?) we had to clarify what exactly an arboretum was, at which point, Frenchie's eyes lit up like a small, tree-child and he began talking about his agronomy degree and agroforestry and then it became very poetic and he began talking about cherry blossoms in spring and hanami and then he wrote a haiku and I knew that Anglo-French negotiations had been successful.

By the way, if you ask Frenchie about his love of fish or trees or his hanami haikus, he will look at you slightly offended and with insulted dignity, say something like, "What 'as she been writing on her silly blog, zat silly Eeenlgish wife of mine?  I do not like ze fish.  Ze fish are okay.  I like ze tree like any other normal hard working man likes ze tree.  Ze Eeenglish wives, zey are very - 'ow you say?  Eembarrassing on ze social media."  Because he doesn't like the concept of artistic license for comedy effect based in real life (he stubbornly calls it 'lies'), so maybe don't mention it to him.

Anyway, I had made all the arrangements, which was quite tricky considering that my previous adventure to Liverpool had been so hedonistic and wild that it resulted in a speeding ticket (I cried because I felt like a criminal and I am so law abiding most of the time and a respected member of the community and many young people look up to me) and both parts of my license are still with the Merseyside Police, those can't-have-a-go-at-them-on-the-internet-for-just-doing-their-jobs-and-keeping-our-roads-safe-bastards so Frenchie had to drive on the wrong side of the road with a gear box on our strange motorways and roundabouts which, according to Frenchie, should be named more accurately (oval-abouts/ squareabouts/ figure-of-eight-abouts) and tiny country roads where the speed limit is still sixty.  He did very, very well, but again, don't mention it to him because he will scoff and say something like, "I am French.  In France, we know 'ow to drive ze car, eh?  Eet is not ze rocket science."

What made this trip a lot of fun was that Frenchie is very observant and likes to comment and analyse and seeing a part of Britain with which I am fairly familiar (the M4, village life, service stations), through the eyes of a very observant foreigner really does remind you how funny British culture is.  And we just accept it as completely normal, even when it's illogical and silly, because it's what we've always had.

Other than our stamp-sized speed limit signs and the fact that it is so common for stuff to be really old that everyone just shrugs, disinterestedly at the fact that a tiny village church has records dating back to 1200 and there seem to be Roman ruins everywhere, there were a few noteworthy aspects of British normality that Frenchie managed to highlight as really, well, silly.

1. Landed Gentry

In Cirencester, the town where my grandparents live, which has been frozen circa 1790 but cleaned up a bit and with a Joules and a few coffee machines and flash sports cars added for modern effect, there is a big park that in Britain, we like to refer to as 'a Ride'.  Does any other country in the world refer to a big path flanked by grass and trees that goes on and on in a straight line as 'a/the Ride'?  Do Rides even exist anywhere else in the world?  Anyway, this Ride is not National Trust, which Frenchie has begun to understand in a sort of limited way ("In National Trust zey 'ave a cafe and a jardin.") but rather the privately owned estate of the 9th Earl Bathurst, with whom my grandfather is apparently chummy, and comes with a polo pitch frequented by Princes William, Harry and 'little George' and of course the lovely Catherine, a big house and a private park/ garden into which the hoi polloi like us are not allowed to stroll.  It's like Downton, which we also love.  But real.

This is what a polo pitch looks like on a cloudy day, just in case you're wondering.

Now if you're a Brit reading this, no eyebrows have yet been raised because you probably grew up watching Upstairs Downstairs or reading Pride and Prejudice and this is totes how the British aristocracy roll.  But after some moments of chatting breezily about his Lordship and 'little George' over lunch, a confused Frenchie, who has been listening studiously up until that point, trying to join together the dots of the conversation, seeks clarification.

Frenchie: I'm sorry...
Me: That's okay.  You can't help it.
Frenchie: That park.
Me: Yes?
Frenchie: The one we walked through.
Me: Yes?
Frenchie: With the polo ground.
Me: Yes?
Frenchie: And the impressive hedges.
Me: Tallest of their type in the world, apparently, yes?
Frenchie: That is owned by one man?
Me: Yes.
Frenchie: And he is a...
Me: An Earl.  Like... um... a Duc.
Grandfather: A duck?
Frenchie: ... but in France, this would be a scandal!  They would make him leave.
Me: Hmm.  Yes.  In France he would have his head chopped off.

I absolutely took this photo myself.

When you think about it, it is understandable that Frenchie finds it difficult that in a country where 13 million people officially live in poverty, one man owns, simply by being birthed to the right set of people, who happened to be related by blood to lots of other people who owned a lot of the UK at a time when there weren't as many people living in the UK so land was more available to those who were buddy buddy with whoever was ruling at that time, a lot (a lot) of land and thus makes a lot (a lot) of money.  Simply for being himself.

The discussion goes back and forwards for some time, until I - unsure of exactly where my loyalties should lie - with my inherent patriotism or the logical socialists - realise with some horror: but Frenchie, if people like the 9th Earl Bathurst didn't own this land, then who would spend their time investing in things like local honey, 19th century Arts and Crafts wallpaper and rare breeds farms?  A clinching argument, I think you might agree.  That is, if you are completely illogical.  That is to say, if you are British.

2. The Church of England: specifically, High Anglican churches

WOW guys.  I mean, really, wow.  I bet you have all been into one of those high-roofed Norman churches or cathedrals as a tourist to look at all the stained glass and gold or to wonder whether medieval convent life would suit you, but have you ever actually sat through a real live Easter service in one of these High Anglican, used-to-be-Catholic-until-Henry-VIII-got-bored-with-them churches?

I, quite happy at the understanding that this service would be 'like school chapel but scarier', slipped into a pew on Easter Sunday morning and began to play 'spot the ethnic minority' (there are none in Cirencester, but there are lots of wealthy looking redheads, old people with owl-like eyebrows and impressive ear hair and also tweed.  Tweed everywhere.)  Frenchie, on the other hand, stared around him as if he had just entered a Masonic initiation ceremony.

In England, we like our state religions to be IMPOSING.

I was slightly amused by the Phantom of the Operaesque organ introduction that accompanied the priest as he climbed his way to the gold, eagle-clad pulpit and leaned across to whisper to Frenchie that this organ was renowned in the area for being very impressive and well maintained, but Frenchie was so wide-eyed in horror that he did not hear me.  Normally, in all the movies, when organ music like this happens, a portal to Hell opens somewhere and demons flood out, or you get sucked in, so he was bracing himself for an apocolyptic battle.

I was cheerfully pleased by the priest's fairly strong voice and wondered what happened if you wanted to be a priest in the Anglican church but couldn't sing whilst happily singing back the responses to the Liturgy or Sepulchre or Corn on the Cob, who knows what it's called, whereas Frenchie stared, dumbfounded at the order of service.

When the trail of incense smoke began to move down the aisle of the church, I tried to shoulder barge Frenhie into turning to look at the Gospel.  The rest of the congregation seemed to know the choreography to this part of the service and I didn't want to give away that we, heathens, hadn't practiced our dance moves and were getting our stand-up, sit-downs out of sync and not turning to look at the Gospel as smoothly as the rest of the masses.

Me: hissing  You've got to look at the Gospel.
Frenchie: I am looking at ze Gospel.
Me: still hissing and also hip pushing  No, you've got to turn to look at the Gospel.
Frenchie: Eh!  Oh!  Eez ze Gospel turning to look at me?  Eh?  I will turn to look at the Gospel when ze Gospel decides ee will look at me.

When everyone turned around to wish peace upon everyone else and shake hands with each other, I happily turned to Frenchie to inform him that this was how the Plague had spread so quickly in the 1600s but found Frenchie gravely and seriously saying to the elderly couple in front of him, "May the Force be with you.  May the Force be with you.  Happy Easter.  May the Force be with you."