English grans only

Zonne

*Yammy*?apologies for misreading the tone of your first post.

Thank you I never meant anything than to thank Volver for being kind enough to ask English grans what they thought.

Really couldn’t say *Volver - ?
But then - I’m a Scouser !!!! ?*

Lots have mentioned Tea, pubs and country lanes. Yes, they are lovely but just as fabulous in Wales, Scotland and Ireland (North and South)...

What is uniquely English?
That's harder to say.

We were sitting in the garden today with my grandson playing with a friend, altogether a lovely, sunny, English summer afternoon. It struck me that one child was half Hungarian while his father is a quarter Italian and the other child was Polish.I was the most English person present and even I have a large chunk of Irish. Not sure what Nigel Farage would have thought.

Our lovely countryside and woodland which unfortunately is declining at an alarming rate.

And just ignore the random question mark above.

Yammy?apologies for misreading the tone of your first post.

Zonne

Goodness, Yammy, you are graceless.

Specifically English (or English diaspora related) as opposed to British: change-ringing.

Can any one please enlighten me on what did I say to volver that was graceless? I admit I am Northern blunt and will answer back but I was not being facetious. One of the Scots grannies who have left used to tell me privately where I had gone wrong.
Ive never upset my American GC and must admit have a good laugh with my DD 's Icelandic friends so maybe it is the Scandi in me. Though please enlighten me.

kittylester

Fabulously changing weather!

Yes, kittylester - often all 4 seasons in one day

Always being able to recognise a facetious comment or situation a sense of irony and the ridiculous.
Our ability to smile about ‘rewilding’ used as an excuse for not keeping the verges and pavement edges neat, and our ability to sue the council when an accident happens because of this.
Our ability to get on our bikes and cycle to work, even when there aren’t enough cycle lanes and cycle up our 1:10 hill, whilst being told that in the Netherlands, cycling is much more prevalent.
Our ability to direct people accurately to their destination without even knowing the names if the roads they need.

Accents and sense of humour! I’m a Geordie and proud.

I love the fact that the Romans were here for a few centuries and left such us with such an amazing legacy, they gave us so much , structured towns, roads built on the grid system, bookkeeping, journals, record keeping, their language, introduced all manner of different fruit and vegetables, their ancient version of fast food, Pizza Express, plumbing, aqueducts, Lambrettas so we could get around easily on their super straight roads, villas with toilets, showers, baths, mosaics on the floor, flat screen t.vs on the wall. Then they made some flimsy excuse about Rome being overrun and in a nano second they were gone it was all interminable bloody Beowulf, raiding and pillaging after that, no wonder it was called the dark ages

Zonne

Goodness, Yammy, you are graceless.

Specifically English (or English diaspora related) as opposed to British: change-ringing.

Yet again I have been picked up wrong I was not being facetious and was thanking Volver for actually thinking to ask the English Grans for their opinions. I see it has led onto Welsh grans what is special about their country.
I am actually DNA-wise more Scots than Engish though English born and bred.
I will say I come from where a spade is called a shovel.
No Diaspora that I have found for at least 4 generations back except maybe a county hop and deportation or two to what were the penal colonies.
If you've never seen a Solway sunset you will have no idea what I was talking about,
Really I am wondering why I am asking you why I am graceless? Volver has not complained to me so maybe she understood what I meant does your opinion matter, not in the slightest.

Got to be the sense of humour for me as well. I have been met with some blank stares when I tried to be funny here in France. Must be the way I tell 'em.

SueDonim

WRT honesty in opinions, we had a young person visit us from South Africa, a school friend of our dd. We took her to York, because how can anyone not love York? We asked her at the end of our visit what she thought and she said ‘It’s ok, but it’s all so old, don’t you have anything modern in this country?’ ???

An American friend’s child, having been dragged (by me and her mum) round cathedrals, Battle Abbeu, Hever Castle and Penshurst over a few days, finally demanded ‘But what’s so good about old stuff?’

https://www.gransnet.com/uploads/talk/202207/medium-483752-20220110-080010.jpg https://www.gransnet.com/uploads/talk/202207/medium-766947-img-20210124-wa0020.jpg

Fabulously changing weather!

WRT honesty in opinions, we had a young person visit us from South Africa, a school friend of our dd. We took her to York, because how can anyone not love York? We asked her at the end of our visit what she thought and she said ‘It’s ok, but it’s all so old, don’t you have anything modern in this country?’ ???

England is a very interesting country to live in. I've got lots to compare it to, having lived in 4 other countries. We've got lots to do, beautiful landscapes and beaches and we're a very cultured place, too.

The people are more politially clued up than in a lot of countries as well. We can be a bit cold and stand-offish but we're also very polite and well mannered.

Our food is a lot better than our culinary reputation allows for. I feel that is a slight that we don't deserve.

Our teachers, despite being much maligned and criticised in the UK, are seen as being among the best trained in the world and are in high-demand in the international teaching arena. I didn't know this when I became a British teacher, but I'm very very grateful for this now!

I honestly don't think I'm biased, because I can also be very critical of the UK.

BlueBelle

*Terri bull* I can so relate to your post my EX son in law born on the Belgian border to Germany was polite quietly spoken but his brutal honesty at answering sensitive subjects was spectacular ( not so honest as to get away with not paying fines etc) but if asked a direct question would have no problem telling you a politely delivered brutal honest answer
Once when I gave him a birthday present bought from the sports shop he used and approved by my children after undoing it he handed it back to me thanked me very much but said I will give it you back as I will never wear it thank you
I was mortified and hurt The following year he got an oxfam card with a tree to grow in Africa

Yes I agree Bluebelle I think I'd lie rather than hurt someone's feelings particularly in a face to face encounter

My German friend was a wonderful girl whose frankness , quite possibly a northern European characteristic, got mistaken for bitchiness. Some of the other girls didn't like her but we shared an office and got on famously. Boy did she come out with some corkers though, we had a Jewish guy in the office who took an instant dislike to her because she was tall, blonde and very Aryan to look at, he'd do everything to rile her, called her "Jackboot Jane" to her face she responded by singing "Deutschland Deutschland" when ever he came into our office. He constantly provoked her and she rose to it, sometimes in the most appalling way for example when she and I were having a quiet coffee in the company's quite large kitchen, he came in to disturb us immediately coming out with some anti German claptrap and she responded with "shut up or I'll shove you in the oven!" I did say to her later, "that was shocking!"Of course today they'd have both been sacked for some of the things said which were unacceptable on both side.

She wasn't an anti semite at all, just pissed off with him, he always started it. Such a clever funny girl, wonderfully fluent in English she was only 19 around that time understood humour and nuance. of another language just picked up by having an English boyfriend. Whenever there was a war film on the telly she'd come in next day with a "did you see that film Germany lost again" She also told me how awful it was for Germany post war, how her mother as a teenager had been the one of the many women raped by The Red Army when they swept through and her mother suffered endless bouts of depression because of that.

When you first come to England the green is startling. Really, really bright. Even in Winter it is never that bright green here.

Terri bull I can so relate to your post my EX son in law born on the Belgian border to Germany was polite quietly spoken but his brutal honesty at answering sensitive subjects was spectacular ( not so honest as to get away with not paying fines etc) but if asked a direct question would have no problem telling you a politely delivered brutal honest answer
Once when I gave him a birthday present bought from the sports shop he used and approved by my children after undoing it he handed it back to me thanked me very much but said I will give it you back as I will never wear it thank you
I was mortified and hurt The following year he got an oxfam card with a tree to grow in Africa

The pubs . The tea. Sense of humour . Variety of accents. Variety of cuisine , bread and cheese. But most of all just so green and lush.

Ditto to the lush green of spring/early summer.
On the morning of dd1s wedding, we were having breakfast in an Oxford B&B with a Finnish lady who was on holiday. It was early June, admittedly beautiful weather, and she said she’d never thought anywhere could be so green. ‘I thought Finland was green, but…’.

Until I’d spent a couple of years in the Med in my early 20s, I don’t think I’d ever really noticed such things, but I certainly did later. And even more so years later, having spent 13 years in Middle Eastern deserts.

A Swedish friend’s son who spent a few years in the U.K. , later told me he really missed the pubs. At the time we were in particularly nice, very trad one in Devon - so I dare say that influenced him, but he went on to say that bars just don’t have the same feel.

Terribull, from experience, Swedes are the same, and from what I’ve heard, also the Dutch - they call it being ‘direct’. A dd also had a Norwegian friend who could be very direct, which often came across to our ears as rude, or at least lacking in consideration for other people’s feelings.

Meticulous attention to keeping a neat garden.

I'm up on Dartmoor at the moment and it's beautiful. Lots of horses and cattle around and not too many people. These west country moors are unique with their granite tors.
Widdicombe-in-the-moor is just ahead of me and it's very English with it's thatched cottages and ancient pubs.
I have to say that I am extremely fond of Scotland having visited my sister many times. It's sad in a way that's she's relocating to England after all these years.
Nice of you to start this thread Volver.