Tongue-Tied

So what now?

Two months without a word. What a disgrace! What sort of blog is this?

I do apologise. I love doing this blog but have been overtaken by events of late. In May the departmental choir, to which I belong, offered a series of concerts throughout the area . The music (all modern composers from the Baltic states) sold itself really. All we did was present it well with obvious enjoyment and enthusiasm. But now all that's finished.

We ended the year at AVF (Acceuil des Villes Françaises) with our AGM and me finding myself co-opted onto the management committee as Chargé de Mission with responsibility for communications. How did that happen? I hate committees and meetings. My French will no doubt improve when AVF resumes in September but, till then, AVF is finished.

Cinèclub has also closed it's doors for the summer. Scrabble Club is in recess while we melt and Beginners' Bridge won't be welcoming any debutants until October.

So now what? How do I keep up with French?

We've been to a couple of fêtes in villages close by and we stood at a roadside near Montréal and watched the Tour de France go by. We ooohed and aaahed at the town fireworks on 13th July and gazed in child-like wonder at the splendid display on Bastille Day at Carcassonne for L'Embrasement de la Cité. We even spent a couple of hours yesterday at Limoux Plage. Limoux is an hour from the sea but the Mairie decided that the town needed a coastline for Bastille weekend so the square was turned into a sandy beach with a lake. There were donut and melon vendors, cafés and restaurants dotting the shoreline and a jazz band all rigged out in Belle Epoque swimming costumes. There was even recorded surf and seagulls as gentle, ambient noise. Completely dingue but so much fun!

We're getting up regularly at 6am so that we can enjoy a walk before work without having our brains boiled. We've trekked in the hills throughout the Limouxin, eating kilos of cherries of every variety (white ones are the best). We've become connoisseurs of the vaious types of figs growing wild and can identify a variety by the scent alone at fifty paces.

We're reaping the rewards of last autumn and spring's labours and enjoying, no, RELISHING, home-grown tomatoes, peppers, plums, peaches, radishes, melons and cucumbers.

We're working hard managing the gites of some friends of ours.

We're working even harder at trying to maintain a reasonable core body temperature. This usually involves cold showers every hour on the hour.

Life around here is not dull, in fact it's rich - very rich indeed.

But none of the above are the sort of activites that are going to force me to speak French. The ordinary chores will not do the trick; one cannot practice the language in the checkout line at Leclerc. The very helpful woman at the tax office wants to sign off on my dossier - chat is not on her agenda. Short of becoming a salonnard (lounge lizard) and preying on unwary locals in the hope of conversation, my options seem limited.

Looking back on previous blogs, it's clear that the most convivial, natural and instructive French lessons I've had have been across the mealtable where the talk is of ingredients and recipes and good wines. Perhaps it's time to start making a conscious effort to spend food-time with friends. It's wearying cooking in such hot weather but we all have to eat and good food is not about the hours spent in the kitchen but the quality of the ingredients. It's about taking care and using imagination, giving of one's best and being appreciated. It's about getting a little bit drunk, lighting the citronella candles to ward off the bugs, and talking into the night, learning some real French. Words like the verb "grouger" which is the act of gently masticating (caressing with the teeth, if you will) and then swallowing an oyster! Mmmm. Then its about learning the second meaning of "grouger" which is to get the better of someone in a business deal, only less politely and with elements of sex and violence. Ughh!

Yes, that's the answer. Time to get friends over. Time to start sharing some of the fruit and veg and using it to invest in our life down here. Time to perfect my vinaigrette, if not my accent. Time to get back around the dining table. That's where friendships are made and nourished and where an appreciation of a language is cultivated, alongside an education in food and the art of living.