England is having a rare burst of summery sunshine during the late onset of spring. It was only last week when winter was still in full-swing and just like that, the great british season forgot that it's supposed to be spring still. 23 degrees centigrade was welcomed with confusion and suddenly, it was bra and skimpy skirts galore.
To take advantage (of the sun, not of the bra), we went out for a picnic with Aileen and her family. K prepared the food: pitta bread with some salad and chickpeas and all sorts of veges and fruits. It was meant to be a healthy affair because a) Aileen is pregnant and b) John, her husband, is a good cook, and nothing else can beat that except preparing food that doesn't need cooking.
Then Aileen opened her brand new picnic basket and out rolled the contents: doritos crisps, biscuit kind of waffle, beer, soft drinks. In a word: magic!
Anyway. Their little boy, Seb, then demanded for rice! RICE. It's never a proper picnic without rice, didn't you know that people? If he could just speak Surigaonon, he would have raised his fist and screamed as his little lungs could manage, at all the residents of Derbyshire, that SINUGBA! TINUYA! KINILAW! should be on this awful chequered picnic blanket and not these pretentious Meditteranian style sandwiches and fruits without even an Elmlea single cream.
So, what was there left for him to eat? Cheese. Yes, the cheese that Lewis managed to stuff greedily in his mouth. Seb was left whimpering in protest. Maybe if K and I just closed our eyes, even for just a millisecond, Seb would have pulled Lewis' tongue and demanded to spit out the cheese that he so protectively kept alongside the crisps. I would have done so if I were Seb. Except that Seb is a calm and lovely little boy and I'm not.
John's non-stop yapping was surprising. He was another proof that you can't judge a book by its cover.
They were not the first full Filipino family we have invited into our home but they were the ones we like to know more. They're easy-going, fun and not pretentious. And most of all, they eat loads of crisps.
We tried opening our home to some Filipino families several times and most of the time they send us scampering for cover. I honestly can't cope with people who judge you by the label of jeans you wear, the number plate of your car, or the brand of your plastic rubbish bag. When you meet these kind of people whose existence depend on their shopping ability, brand-name recall, and the prowess to impress, you start to wonder what sort of life they live.
I'm sure it's never a picnic.
6 comments:
i am with you sa last paragraph. ang hirap di ba? mahirap makisama sa mga taong umakyat sa utak ang mga brands...hmmmp!
there's a phrase for that, Girlie, 'showing off'. hehehe!
Hi soy, at last, 15 days no blog hop, here I am, lol
hey, showing off is called also snobbism, very rampant in Monaco.
But as your Lolo advice me always.
Those who doesnt have anyhting loves showing their means.
Those true rich are discreet.
don ako sa discreet, kahit di rich, hehehe.
AND HEY, michel and I vow not to invite filipinos at home.
Kasi they tend to criticize, would say: you should do this and do that...
And michel would only end up throwing them out of the house, haha.
pero meron din na hindi, kasi very refine, but very rare you can find, lol
But Im sure, you enjoy your true picnic with your buddies!
hala, bra ang skimpy skirt galore ka na rin ba?
hey soy! its funny how pinoys remain constant the world over. we sometimes just can't resist the urge to upstage each other.
its much the same in tokyo, although here the bone of contention is the visa status. when i first arrived i was so surprised that people doubted my student visa, they were all like "sige na, aminin mo na, ano ka ba talaga?" hahaha!
hi F, hindi na ako pwede bra and skimpy skirts! sana if I were 16 again! hehe.
Caryn, mababaw talaga tayong mga pinoy ano? hehehe.
how i long to spend my time in this kind of green field...
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