As I sit here in the dark with naught but the glow of various monitors to currently keep me company, whilst back on the nightwatch tending to the ill of the parish, I have been considering that which is my recently hectic schedule and wishing greatly it were not thus .
Within this small slice of time I have had time to reflect that it was almost a year ago to the month that I was privy to a week spent dwelling in the company of strangers. That the strangers were in France and, for the most part, French makes no never mind to me but it does play a small part in that which is to follow. I shall elucidate….
I had agreed a while before, after much badgering from my other half, to attend the wedding of a couple she had known for many a year but who were utter strangers to me. So far, so blah blah blah. Nothing unusual there, I know. It happens to the best of us all at some point to be counted in the numbers to attend such formal affairs. It is the way of things, I concede, but I am
never greatly pleased by these calls on my time.
I am not by nature very keen on the attendance of these things when they are arranged by my own family. I am sure as hell not getting any more excited about being summoned to attend the various hatches, matches and dispatches of people that I hardly, if at all, know purely based on the fact that I am the ‘plus one’ in the deal.
A touch grumpy, I will admit. Not one of my more endearing qualities but there we are. As Popeye said, ‘I yam what I yam’.
Any how, the crux of the matter was that I had reluctantly agreed to this attendance. The larger issue was that it was to be held in the South of France. Amongst French people. French people whom I had never clapped eyes upon afore. French people who, as far as I was aware, spoke no English.
Oh joy be mine….
Before it be said to me, I personally have nothing against the French in the least. I am not afflicted by the tendency of others in the UK who have an ingrained distrust and general dislike of all things Gallic. I have actually always liked France and the French. Every time I have been there I have had un grand temps altogether.
No, the trouble I foresaw was that I had not been to France for many a long year and my command of the lingua franca as a working, living, spoken tongue was all but forgotten. I don’t like doing small talk in my own chosen tongue with strangers. How to get around this as the only paddy in the village, then?
The solution was as timeless as it was simple, really. Alcohol. Lots and lots of lovely alcohol! Well, it was a wedding after all. I won’t bore with the details but, suffice to say, that once this concept was grasped and embraced, the whole affaire was a grand success and everyone had a whale of a time all round.
Which leads me back to my reverie and thinking that I could do with a top-up on my on-going education in spoken French.
Well, it would be rude not to reinforce the entente, n’est-ce pas?
As they say in another French(ish) speaking part of the world; Laissez les bon temps rouler…..!!
