I will say this only once

I know it's another kitten photo but this one of Eddie was just so good I can't resist.

I have a confession to make. the French lessons have fallen by the wayside due to TS having work that pays money. It's a shame but given the choice of eating and paying bills or sitting ecoutez-ing and répétez -ing it's no contest. However, all is not lost because we are plowing on with the Michel Thomas CDs. He has cleared up a lot of mysteries for me and I might finally be finding a French voice.

Than again.

Yesterday the phone rang I said "Hello". Like you do, you are perhaps thinking. But no it's not just a random choice of word it's for two reasons.

One it's probably someone English ringing and

Two if it's not then it's easier all round if the person on the other side of the phone doesn't start off with any great expectations about having a conversation.

It was a French lady so I did my usual "I'm sorry I only speak a little French but if you speak slowly then perhaps I will understand"

She asked if we had a freezer I proudly confirmed we did, Because we have. A bargain buy the other week for the princely sum of twenty euros that is so old and noisy it has to live in the barn but it makes stuff cold, really cold.

Anyway she was from a frozen food company and would we like to buy some with free delivery. Thinking of the portion of curry and brown sliced loaf that are the sole beneficieries of all the freeezy coldness going on in the barn I expressed guarded interest.

Well the upshot of the shooting my mouth off in French is that they are turning up on a Friday between 9 and 10 and may or may not be making a delivery of some stuff that may include salmon, scallops, ice cream and cauliflower. Or that could of been an example of an order. Oh and I'm not altogether sure which Friday either.

But I will be receiving a free recipe book.

I think.

Good moaning

Finally today we got to our first proper French lesson.

The ones we enquired about oh last Octoberish.

I've really tried, honest I have, to buck the system and get things moving even to the point of trying to get someone round to give lessons while we were in Leeds but to no avail. I was beginning to think I was cursed to spend the rest of my life having the poor lady in the bread shop explain the difference between saying "I'd like two croissants AND two pain au raisins" and "I'd like two croissants OR two pain au raisins"

So today we have done days of the week, months of the year, bonjours and aurevoirs, thank yous and excuse mes. All of which I know but I am trying to get a proper grip of things to fill in the gaps and I thought going back to the beginning was the best way to learn all those pesky little making sentences words that get you beyond talking like a two year old and asking for socks of apples when you mean apple turnovers. On the down side it will probably make life very dull for the local shop keepers.

I always have a mental picture of myself as the policeman in Allo Allo (though he is probably better than me) as I wander round The Limousin generating gallic shrugs in my wake



Other than that we have mostly been doing the garden and I'm pleased to report that Bristish hooligans will soon be rampaging all over the place. Hooligan pumpkins of course.

It Don't Mean a Thing Part Deux

I'm coming to the conclusion that I don't know enough English to learn French. English grammar that is.

Verbs, nouns and adjectives are about the limit of my grammar words the rest seem to of passed me by somehow. Probably while I was writing "I must remember to bring the correct books to my English lessons" 500 times for most of a term in high school. Except for infinitive but only because my english teacher was always going on about Star Trek splitting the infinitive in "To boldly go" and mentioning Star Trek would get my attention.

This leaves me trying to learn two things at once - the words and the words for the words. If we just knew at school which stuff was padding and which stuff was going to come in handy it would save so much trouble later. I can still remember how ox-bow lakes are formed and that little bit of knowledge has never ever done me any good. In fact it is probably taking up brain cells that I could be putting to some useful purpose right now.

So I listen to that man on the CD

"say give me 13 euros"

"say I have some"

"say will you buy me some wine"

"listen and repeat"

"say how much do I owe you"

on and on with the words that never spring to the tip of my tongue because that bloody river making that bloody ox-bow lake is meandering through my mind.

Geography teachers, they have a lot to answer for.

It Don't Mean A Thing

We are waiting to start proper French lessons.

We've been here since March and while we can understand lots of what is going on and what people are saying our spoken French seems to be stuck at the two year old stage. We can say lots of names for things but somehow sentances are something that happen to other people. As for conversations well they feel like being on the loosing end of a tennis match. The French speaker is effortlessly batting comments my way while my head runs all over the place trying to muster a reply. It's exhausting.

The tv has been good strangely enough for spelling and numbers. This is down to quiz shows like the French equivalent of Wheel of Fortune and Countdown. It's also good to watch the local news and get a bit of an idea of what is going on. Not that much does go on which is nice.

So anyway we decided progress had to be made and went to see a French teacher to get assesed for what level we were at and book some lessons. We are "wrong beginners" by that she means we have lots of words without having the grammar rules to put them together.

So we are waiting for her to get a few more English signed up and away we'll go being right beginners.

It's Not What You Come With

The Gods of Used Electrical Goods are smiling down on us this week. Hard on the heels of the washing machine comes a telly.

Visiting friends we mentioned our theory that French tv would help us with the language and they promptly produced not one but two tellys surplus to their requirements. We chose the smaller of the two. As my grandma used to say it's not what you come with it's what you go home with that counts.

Now we just need to get some kind of televisual signal to it (I'll leave that to Tech Support). Yes the theory is that watching things like quiz shows where a formula is repeated and where the conversations go "Hello, who are you, what do you do" etc etc should boost our command of the language no end. No doubt I will become profficient at phrases like "come on down". Whatever, it will beat asking for socks of apples at the bakers when I mean apple turnovers.

In fact thinking about it "come on down" could of been useful the other day at the DIY having ordered and paid for our roof insulation we went round the back to the collection point where I boldly pressed the buzzer on the intercom (being the person in charge of communicating in an official capacity with French people) then said "aaahm bonjour aaahm je aaahurrrrm" and then got a fit of the giggles . Luckily the warehouseman was fluent in useless English woman trying to buy stuff and came out to get my receipt.

Seriously though I would like to extend my conversations with Madame next door beyond "yes isn't it a nice/horrible day you are welcome to the eggs yes the chickens are laying very well what? your dog is on the roof?" I have been watching various DVDs in French with English subtitles. Buffy the Vampire Slayer is one of my favourites but I don't seem to be picking up much vocabulary, anyway to my knowledge we don't have a big vampire/demon problem round here.

So if we ever get more than snow on the tv I shall teach you some useful catch phrases for your holidays.