Teaching (Friday day off again)

Teaching, well it’s been over a week and I haven’t talked about this yet. Let’s start with the English Teaching course first. It was tough for me, I’d never really learnt anything about English grammar, just used it but didn’t understand it. Now I can recognise loads of grammar forms, tenses, you name it, I’ve now taught it. The course was very intensive and more stressful than I could imagine. It was also quite weird being taught by a Czech about your own language.

My first lesson was the worst. On the teaching course, you spend hours preparing a lesson. My first lesson I had 2 minutes to find the page and then I was off in front of students looking at me and hoping to learn something.

When Czechs ask for a teacher from an English Speaking country, they are usually at a higher level. Beginners lessons are normally 75% in Czech, because of explanations.
Anything from Intermediate level upwards can be completely in English, but you have to slow down and keep it simple. I’ve taught Elementary students, but it’s tough explaining grammar. Quite often these students will tire of a native speaker and ask for a change. Don’t despair, it’s nothing personal, it’s tough for them at this level to speak nothing but English at this stage.

Teaching can be very rewarding, a real ego boost when they laugh at your jokes, or better still when you can see they’ve picked something up.

I gotta tell you now. Czech women are gorgeous, they’re taller, slimmer, dress better and prettier than anything you could dream about. Temptations are everywhere. Some are like filmstars, but beware, if you’ve got a class of both male and female, don’t fall into the trap of neglecting the guys. They’re the ones who’ll help you out, telling you the best places to get your car fixed, where the best pubs are etc. They’ll be your mates, the girls will go back home to their husbands and boyfriends. If you’re not professional about this, you’ll lose students, it’s as simple as that. But, the girls are nice to look at and tell jokes

Monday, another week

Start of another week. It’s a bit blowy and I’ll take the tram because it’s a nightmare parking right in the centre. I like trams, they have nice faces, sort of happy. They have newer ones that don’t look so happy with their downturned mouths.

It took me a while to get used to travelling this way and I thought the trams were really cheap, until someone told me that you have put your ticket into a little yellow mouth to get it time & date-stamped. I’d had the same ticket for 4 weeks.

I also like the lady’s voice who announces the next stop, it’s easy to understand and a good way to learn Czech , in a limited sort of way. It’s the same voice in Prague and Brno (she get’s about you know!) Here in Brno they call their trams “Shalina” or “Elektrika”, which is nuts but nice.

Mum’s Grandad was a tram driver in London, he was a big fat guy with a short temper, she said. In those days drivers sat outside in all weathers, so he always wore a huge greatcoat buttoned up to the neck, even at home, they said. Back then, trams didn’t have faces, just Great granddads beefy grumpy face aproaching at the front. No wonder they pulled up the tracks.

Another Great Grandad was a London Bobby and when I visited my Gran, she used to always talk about him. “He had to shoot someone you know” she reminded me quite a few times. I always used to wonder why. Was it a compelling urge that he couldn’t control and just did it one day? Or did he get instructions; “Constable, go out and shoot someone today.” They never gave any other details.

Sunday Evening

We went out for a nice lunch today, up in the Vysocina area. They call it Highlands, but it doesn’t look much like Scotland. Driving out in the countryside is ok here. They don’t believe in cats-eyes and there’s loads of potholes, but the traffic is very light and you can do your own speed most of the time.

Honza’s gone to visit his mate and compare computer games, so we’re alone in the car, just listening to the radio.

I like the radio here, it’s better than the UK. There’s far more channels and a much bigger range, in England it’s either the BBC or Rap, here you can get normal rock and pop. Most radio stations play 50- 50 Czech and British/American music. I was listening to something as we drove home and commented to Dagmar that I liked Czech music, “It’s Slovak” she said.

We do get the BBC world service here, if you’re interested in the latest news from Africa, which is all it seems to pump out these days.

It’s not very popular here now and according to most Czechs, pretty pointless unless you’re from Africa.

Sunday evening’s a sleepy inactive time. Honza’s actually away from the computer and watching a dubbed American detective thingy on TV. Dagmar’s ironing some shirts and watching a pohadka (fairy tale) on the little telly in the kitchen.




I’ve just been sitting on the balcony having a fag and a beer and watching the world go by. I wonder about Mum and Johnny, and if they spoke today, they’re a long way away, but they seem to have taken over my life the whole weekend.

Sunday Morning

Johnny is panicking. I’ll tell you about Johnny first. He’s about the same age as Mum, he’s fancied her for ages, years and years. Johnny’s tall, bald and a bit portly these days. He talks posh and is always jovial and positive, even when Mum wears him out. He’s the senior partner in his firm of solicitors and he always wears a silk handkerchief in the breast pocket of his jacket He’s really devoted to Mum and really tolerant, considering she’s sometimes made a fool of herself when they’ve been out together. But, Mum still looks good for her age, her hairs dyed red at the moment and she pays a fortune for it to look good. They were in Mums local once, and when she was at the bar, some young geezer smacked her bottom, when she turned round and he saw this 59 year old face, he nearly died. Johnny saw it all and laughed and got a bollocking from Mum, but her friends told her to shut up and it was all quickly forgotten.

I know that he wants her to live with him and get married even, but she won’t give up her house and definitely not her name. Johnnies surname is Godfellow and she’s not so sure about this. She was once out with him at some posh reception at the Law Society and after drinking a healthy amount of champagne, introduced him to someone as “John Bedfellow, my er…bedfellow,”

I spoke to Johnny all the way from the pub, on to the tram, off the tram, up the stairs and at home for another 10 minutes before he seemed a bit reassured. He wants to marry Mum, but she’s laying down the law. She won’t move to Westminster, she needs her neighbours and likes her little garden., blah blah, we’ve heard it all before. So he’s thinking about selling or renting out his flat and then he’ll live with her (which he’s almost doing now anyway). As for marriage, just do the engagement bit, I advised, she’ll go along with that. I said I’d ring Mum the next day.

Sunday morning seemed a bit brighter when I got up. I still have some frozen bacon from Sainsbury’s and little Nuremberger sausages from the shop down the road. Czechs have something called Anglictina Slanina, which they think is English Bacon, it’s not.

Czech sausages aren’t really for frying for breakfast either. I showed Dagmar how to fry an egg sunny-side-up once and she was fascinated. So I made breakfast for us all, Honza staggered through, guided semi-consciously by the smell, sat down, had breakfast and went back to bed again. Dagmar was up early as usual, scrubbing and cleaning away at some imaginary cleanliness problem in the kitchen. The cooker always looks like it’s never ever been used.

When it was about 9.30 UK time, I called Mum. Sometimes it’s hard to believe that her and Johnny are almost 60. More like 16 going on 17.

Any way, she loves Johnny and she worries that she’ll do anything he wants and then be unhappy after. So she basically won’t agree to anything. She’s not even angry that he called me, she doesn’t want him to get rid of his flat or even rent it, she likes going there sometimes after a night in the West End. The straight laced concierge on the front door makes her giggle and getting a taxi all the way up through Camden and Kentish town is depressing, she says.

Money’s not too much of a problem for Johnny, but she’ll sack his cleaner and keep it tidy herself. I just know that she’ll enjoy staggering through the main entrance all dolled up after a Saturday night out and then re-appearing on a Monday morning, wearing an apron and carrying a mop and bucket.

She hasn’t a clue how much Johnny is worth and she’s not really interested. She doesn’t want to get married again, not 3 times, it’s unseemly you know!! But it’s ok to have a live-in boyfriend she chuckles. I mention about getting engaged and that it could be fun choosing a whopping great diamond ring. That went down well.

I sometimes wonder what they talk about all the time, but when I think about it, they never talk at work, they don’t even have lunch together, he goes out and she’s always brought sandwiches. Mums completely different at work, always professional and low profile, she says that Johnny wants to chat sometimes, but has to wait until after. To any visitor to his firm, you’d never know they were together, but I’m sure all the others who work there must gossip about them.

When they’re in the pub after work, they don’t talk together so much, but to the other locals. At home I’m not so sure, I’ve never lived with them both.

“Why couldn’t you come over with that nice girl you live with, sometime soon again,” she asks. She can’t ever remember Dagmar’s name, she thinks it’s Doug-something on a good day.

My parting words were that she should speak to Johnny about what we’ve just talked about and then I sent an email to him with the same ideas. I’m such a nice boy sometimes!

Time for a cup of tea and then we’re going out for lunch today. I’ll update you all later.

Saturday

Dagmar doesn’t normally like shopping but she sort of danced round Ikea, which made her bottom wobble very nicely. We bought a big bed and a chest of drawers and put them into the car. Ikea is huge, but not as huge as the one on the north-circular in London, which is like going abroad for the day. We managed to just about get everything into the car.

I gotta say, that I still smirk when I see my car in a car park and when I open it with the remote, it makes that nice clunky sound and the four ways flash at me nicely. It’s mine, mine, mine!!!

We tried to call Honza as we were getting close to the flat, no reply, called again, no reply. We got home and started to struggle upstairs with the bed and chest. The lifts been out for 2 days now. Honza was engrossed on the computer again, but helped us in the end.

Ikea furniture; already quite well known I reckon. It’s a bit frustrating at times, this time the bed went up easily but the chest was a nightmare. To top it all off, the instructions had half the pages missing and the other pages repeated twice. Honza looked for the instructions on the internet and Dagmar called Ikea, but in the end we put it together without their help. Then we all went down the pub.

Czech pubs are definitely ok. The beers cheap, at less than a quid a pint. The beer’s also very good. There’s normally a table service, they mark your bit of paper and you pay the end of the night. We went to this place in the centre near the main square, it brews the beer on the premises. When you stand at the bar you can see the big copper thingies where the next load of nectar is happily bubbling away for us happy, smiley, slightly flushed customers.

We had dinner, something Czech, Honza went home.

Dagmar’s a hoot to go out with, she gets pissed on one beer, after 2 she’s either giggling hysterically or weeping her head off. Tonight it’s shrieking giggles, something about Czech food and why don’t English people know more about it. Then it’s some gossip about a colleague of hers who’s got a hygiene problem. She’s been asked to tackle it, and she’s reluctant to take my direct approach, I suppose that calling someone a fat smelly c*** is a bit over the top, but Dagmar shrieked the place down and people looked.
We were just about to go home, when my phone rang, it was Johnny. Johnny never rings me.

Friday night

Honza emptied the room into the corridor this afternoon, it’s mostly junk and an old wardrobe, then we emulsioned it Friday evening. We got done about 10.pm, knackered, all of us. I tried to watch a film but crashed out on the couch.

My mobile woke me up, it was a text from Kate, “Can we come then ? K8”.

I replied “ if yr good & no funny biz!!”

A reply came back “Ok” with a sad face on the end.

I went to bed.

Friday, day off !! Trabants etc.

It’s Friday and it’s a day off. So we’ll be indoors and clear out the spare room. I like this flat, when I first met Dagmar she lived on the 7^th floor of a panelak a bit out of town. A panelak is the Czech version of an English tower block, but with one big difference, they keep them immaculate here! I think they call them this because they’re made of panels, even the inside walls are just bolted together.

About 8 months ago her mum’s oldest brother died and Dagmar inherited this flat where we live now. I only met this uncle once, he was in his mid 70’s and very very gay. He liked singing and had the kind of voice that would make my mum cry.

After he died, there was a bit of gossip about an ageing partner lurking around somewhere, but no-one seemed to have ever met him. Dagmar described her uncle the first time as an old poof, “ Dagmar” I said, “you can’t call them that now”. Her English teacher from a few years back had given them a lesson or two in not-so-politically correct language. Anyway, she dug out the meticulous notes she’s kept on the lesson and we had a right giggle.

Czech students are really keen on learning all the bad language and quite a few teachers devote a bit of time to teaching pre-politically correct language. People here don’t have the same restrictions as we do in UK, they call anything they want, what they want.

Anyway, I’m off at a tangent again. The flat, it had been obviously well kept. It has 3 bedrooms and a huge living room, the kitchen’s good and we spend a lot of time there.

I can park my car in the backyard of the flats now. There was an abandoned old Trabant in our space, we discovered that it had been her uncles. For those of you who don’t know, a Trabant is a 2 stroke engined car made by the East Germans in communist times. I suppose it’s like a petrol mower that’s still in the cardboard box it came in.

They chuck out loads of blue smoke and the funny thing is that they are really little, but when you see them around Brno, they always seem to be driven by huge guys with long hair and big beards.

We advertised the car for sale and strangley enough, along came this huge man with long shaggy thick hair and a big grey beard with bits of continental breakfast distributed evenly throughout. He gave us 2000 crowns (about 70 quid) and after a bit of a struggle, we pushed it onto the street, annoying a ding-a-linging tram in the process.

Then he towed it away with his son (no beard this time), who was driving an identical Trabant, even down to the green mould on the windows.

Oh yeah, the spare room, we’ll paint it and we’ll need to buy a bed from Ikea. But now time’s getting on, See ya!