Do you remember Mrs. A from our previous issues (Health, Sport and Identity?). She’s now writing her diary while on a British Studies summer course in Starbienino. This time all the idioms are connected with the topic of the countryside. See how many you can work out through the context.

If you need any help understanding the idioms in the diary, just place the mouse over the purple ball to find the clue displayed on the screen.

When you have read the text, do the exercises below.

5 ^thJuly, Thursday

Serious packing. I’m leaving at 6 o’clock in the morning. I’ve re-read Michael’s letter again. It’s sown some seeds of doubt. Do I really want to do a course on the subject of ‘the countryside’? Whenever I think of it, the image that leaps to mind is of animals abused in our everyday conversations. ‘You rat’, ‘you bitch’, ‘what a silly cow’, ‘they behaved like animals’, ‘what a swine’. I don’t think animals deserve such insults. The whole idea of a cross-cultural approach to teaching seems slightly fishy. I hope they’ll know what they’re doing and it’s not going to be one more course that will turn out to be another story of teaching grandmothers to suck eggs.

6^th July, Friday

So this is the official get together. Thirty-odd budding web designers in the middle of nowhere. A hole in the ground. This place does not even exist on the map of Poland! Do they think that if we are so far away from civilisation we’re more likely to produce something? The whole idea is that we’ll design some cross-cultural web pages. The journey was awful. We spent four hours waiting in a traffic jam on the motorway in terrible heat. When we finally got there I was dog tired. It’s a truly international group: two ladies from Slovenia, a man from the Czech Republic plus over thirty Polish teachers. The rumour is there’s a Brit coming as an ordinary participant. Why would any British person want to do a British Studies course in Poland? It is a mystery to me. My guess is he’ll treat it as a case study – us, the natives trying to understand the nuances of a foreign culture and finding it difficult to twig. Phoned home three times between 10 and 12. No answer. When the cat’s away… At midnight there was still no sign of the Englishman. Must have got lost.

7^thJuly, Saturday

Trying to find the Englishman was like looking for a needle in a haystack. He was finally spotted while sitting on the tank in Wejherowo, so the story goes. Course-wise, some fruitful effort. On the first day of my countryside education I was in clover. I enrolled in the group of computer beginners. I’ve had some experience with the internet but I don’t want to seem a silly ass. No one missed classes. What a surprise! Such beautiful weather and everybody working. We really must be a bunch of eager beavers. The day went OK. Richard tried to sell us his property, but as an estate agent he proved a broken reed. And then we larked about with Malgorzata exploring her magic box. I still don’t know what topic to choose and who to work with. I only hope I won’t turn out the fly in the ointment.

8^thth July, Sunday

In the morning Michael showed us how to use films in a cultural studies class. It was great. He really is the bee’s knees. People were speechless with admiration. Later we did some crossword puzzles. Do I really want to know thirty something names of birds? What’s the difference between a crow and a raven anyway? I’ll need to have a gander at a specialist book, or better still one of the ornithological sites. In the lab Wojtek, the Lion King in his lair, was showing us how to use a scanner. I was watchful as a hawk. But when it came to showing what we’d learnt I made a pig’s ear of my job. By the way, why does a lion in his lair sound more impressive than a hen in its henhouse?

9^th July, Monday

Some new trainers arrived. For most of the day they were just swanning aroundadmiring the views. The best thing was ‘a quiz night’. In one of the contests people were supposed to recognize others in their old childhood photos. Nobody recognized me. Well, evidently, I’m no spring chicken any longer. We also had to guess the origin of some proverbs. When it comes to language work Michael always talks turkey. This was serious stuff. I learned that the only free cheese is in the mousetrap and if my shoe is tight, who cares if the world is vast. My group made a dog’s breakfast of most contests. Others were also better at neighing, mooing and meowing. And although I didn’t win the first prize I went to bed happy as a lark. For our goodnight story we were told that there had been a very heavy downpour in Gdansk and the city was flooded. Time and tide wait for no man.

10^thth July, Tuesday

Everybody came to class on time. Fresh as daisies. But I looked like I’d been dragged through a hedge backwards. Not a single hair in place. This country air must be bad for my city hairdo. We’ve formed mini groups to work on our materials. I’ll do the National Parks. It’s good that others are also interested so we’ll make a team. I’ve made friends with three Hanias and five Ewas. Birds of a feather… and all that. I only hope that our choice of subject area won’t turn out turkeys voting for Christmas. In the afternoon we had a trip to Slowinski Park Narodowy to see the Kluki skansen and a lighthouse. Other people were busy as bees interviewing the locals for their project but I just beetled about taking photographs. On the way back we acquired a new trainer, Mariusz , an IT specialist. How symptomatic! All the technology in male hands and women trainers are for posters, postcards and magic boxes. Not that I want to rock the boat, just a thought.

11th July, Wednesday

I surfed the net looking for more info about the National Parks. Took me hours. There’s just too much of everything. Tomorrow is the writing day and my idea of the materials is as clear as mud, but I’ll have to take the bull by the horns. Francis the Englishman, who is actually Scottish, agreed to answer our questionnaire. It’s the tenth he’s doing, I think. Still, as the proverb tells you, make hay while the sun shines. I’m beginning to be optimistic about our plan but better not to count my chickens.

12th July, Thursday

What a day! Everybody was running around like headless chickens. The computer room was constantly occupied and there were such crowds there you couldn’t swing a cat. Our team barely managed to start typing things in. In the afternoon another publishers’ visit. They were crowing about their latest textbooks and multimedia teaching resources. Well, you can’t teach an old dog new tricks. Maybe, just maybe, if my materials are on the web, I’ll go to the school computer lab more often. There was an extra plenary meeting to decide the pecking order in the lab. People should be given equal chance. After all, what’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. In the evening there’s going to be a barbecue. If they have something vegetarian, I’ll pig myself.

13th July, Friday

Plans for pigging out fell flat. Nobody has yet invented a Polish vegetarian sausage suitable for roasting. I suspect though that some of us will have to try to take the hair of the dog … Free afternoon. We went to the sea. I felt free as a bird. No computers, scanners or digital cameras around. Tomorrow is the last day of writing. We’ll reap what we’ve sown.

14th July, Saturday

Well, we’ve actually produced something. Things that people have put on the site look quite impressive, to me at least. Michael and Richard will probably have a different opinion, but I’m sure they’ll try to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear and things will look splendid. I do hope other teachers will use our materials and the whole product won’t just sink like a stone.

Follow up activities

1. You can try the quiz based on some of the idioms.

2. To find the full list of idioms, click here.