This morning I'm listening to Radio 3 playing classical music about the therapeutic qualities of gardens. The presenter declares if one could design the garden by the guidance of one's nose, the eye will take care of itself.
Well, it's all very well for her to say. But at the moment, I can't smell or taste anything. I'm full of cold and I've been in bed for a couple of days. My body aches and I have all the other flu symptoms.
So, I listen to the classical music and read while I'm lying down on my bed or sofa. I read my French text book. I realised that my French text book is not only teaching people about language but also about manners. It has the similar tone of Barbara Cartland's Etiquette Handbook: A Guide to Good Behaviour from the Boudoir to the Boardroom. It teaches you how to say hello, how to greet, how to ask politely, etc. In my French text book, people smile, say hello, good morning, good night and thank you. (Bonjour monsieur, Merci beaucoup, monsieur, au revoir, madame, bonne journee!) Above all, they are well-mannered and genteel. In one chapter, an English couple (Sarah and Alan who are on holiday in France) went to shop in a French market. They are decidedly middle class English couple who gets on well with other bourgeois French (Michel Bouyssie and Francoise Blanc). Let's look at what they eat.
The text reads, "Michel at the fruit and vegetable stall, knows exactly what he wants: cherries, asparagus, peaches, a cucumber and also a box to put them all in".
In my French text book, people don't shout, get angry, cry, quarrel and fall out of love. I thought this is an ideal world. If only the world could be like my French text book, it will be so much better place to live. Sarah and Alan, even though they sound pretty dull English middle class couple (how come they never quarrel & they agree on everything?), they seem to have lots of friends, a lot of them are bon vivant. They come and have lunches, dinners and meeting up for drinks in cafe in every chapter. In one chapter, Sarah and Alan have ambition to buy a house in Bordeaux and they think a house in that medieval town will be "c'est magnifique". Sarah wants to know if the house is close to pubs (that's very British!). Alan wants to know if the house got a garage and a garden. People are very helpful in my French text book. The taxi drivers are not rude. They take you everywhere you want to go - bank, cafe, museum, the flower market, chateau, theatre and restaurant. It has so many human situations where everyone gets help, consolation, reassurance, happiness, laughter, good food and wine. Perhaps, my French text book should come next to the Victorian novels of Charles Dickens which celebrate the essential goodness of human nature.
