Category: England

Lost in Translation

Umbrellas sheltering the unjust?

The rain it raineth every day

Upon the just and unjust fellah:

But more upon the just because

The unjust hath the just’s umbrella.

This daft ditty came into my head as a sudden shower threatened to stop our concreting efforts in the yard – we’re nearly ready to show you the final result – watch this space.  And I thought – ‘If you, dear English reader of my blog, had been here with us, whether you know that verse or not, you’d probably have come up with some doggerel of your own – a nursery rhyme perhaps’:

Doctor Foster went to Gloucester

In a shower of rain.

He stepped in a puddle

Right up to his middle,

And never went there again.

And then I realised that if instead you’d been with me, dear French reader, I wouldn’t have been talking about ‘just and unjust fellahs’ at all: lost in translation doesn’t even begin to cover it. I’m finding that more and more, I’m missing that shared cultural experience. By culture, I don’t mean the literature, the art and so on. To an extent you can mug up your Molière, get up to date with Gavalda.

One potato, two potato, three potato, four….

I mean the shared heritage we all grow up with from childhood. In France I don’t know the equivalent of that whole children’s choosing routine that involves ‘one potato, two potato, three potato, four…..’, or ‘ip dip dip, my little ship, sailing on the water, like a cup and saucer…..’

I don’t know how to criticise someone’s persistently down-beat attitude other than by telling them not to be such a Tony Hancock. Or a Grumpy Old Man.

Anyone in the UK, I guess, would immediately understand ‘I speak English. I learn it from a book’. That’s Manuel in Fawlty Towers. Astonishingly, a French woman actually said that to me last week. How could I have explained, if I’d given in to the almost uncontainable urge to burst out laughing?

Then there are all those people we feel we almost know, but who are probably unknown abroad. Anne Widdecombe and other politicians like her have gone from Scourge of The Left to National Treasure in the blink of an eye.  In France, who cares?  People like me rely on the likes of Nigel Slater and Nigella Lawson to come up with new ideas for Thursday’s meal.  Who does the job in France?

I’ve not heard programmes like ‘The News Quiz’ on French radio.  It would be lost on me if I had.  But then I can read ‘Private Eye’ with some enjoyment and comprehension.  ‘Le Canard Enchainé’?  Not a chance

Mine is the popular culture of an already bygone age. I know cream’s ‘naughty but nice’, and that ‘life’s too short to stuff a mushroom’ (it isn’t), but in the right company, I understand and am understood.  Of course I’m not really complaining that I can’t go round France talking in clichés.  What I do mind is that here, I don’t recognise the allusions that I do hear, and I certainly can’t make them myself. It’ll simply have to remain a closed book (or switched off TV).

Diminishing Returns

About 15 years ago, we moved from Leeds (pop. 716, 000)……. to Harrogate ( pop.72,000).    How charming and manageable in size it seemed!Now we’ve moved to Ripon (pop. 16,000).  Its cathedral gives it city status, though it’s so much smaller than Harrogate.And of course, we also live in Laroque d’Olmes (pop. 2, 600)Where next?  A farmstead on a remote hillside?

Next stop: Ripon

After that outburst last week, we had a think.  And then we thought some more.  And some more.  And we realised that we really need a base here.  For us, and for our daughter.  Home-hunting was as depressing as it always is.  Until we had an idea.

Our new flat's near here

Would Ripon, a mere 10 miles from Harrogate, but too far for regular commuters to Leeds, Bradford and York provide a more affordable answer?  It did, in the very first flat we looked at to rent. It’s small, but the complex has been thoughtfully developed on the site of the old College of Ripon and York St. John. Its trees and parkland have been preserved.  By car, it’s out of town.  On foot, it’s a ginnel or two away from the town centre.

And we love Ripon.  It’s so near to Harrogate that we can easily maintain our relationships there, but it has a different centre of gravity, with the open spaces  of North Yorkshire so near to explore, and Fountains Abbey as a near neighbour.

Market Square

For over a 1000 years, it’s been a market town.  Its Thursday market is still busy and lively and there are plenty of independent shops in the  ancient streets clustered round the market square.  It has a Cathedral, and a lively cultural life.  I’ve just discovered it’s twinned with Foix, departmental capital of the Ariège.  I think we’re going to be happy here as we divide our time between France and England.

Ripon Cathedral seen from the River Ure

That Wedding

I’m not a big fan of Prince Philip.  But he was right on the money when he declared to Marc Levy, author of ‘«Elizabeth II, la dernière reine» that  ‘You French are frankly funny.  You adore the monarchies of the rest of us, but got rid of your own.’

William-and-Kate-mania can’t be escaped by simply fleeing across the channel this week

Last week for example I noticed a French magazine headline that suggested some 14 million French will be glued to their sets to watch That Wedding.  The Prince and his bride-to-be have already had a big chunk of TV air time, and just look at this week’s schedules:

M6 kicks off on Thursday evening with a three and a half hour marathon, but Friday the 29th is the day those 14 million French take the phone of the hook, kick off their shoes and hole up on the sofa.  Here’s their schedule:

TFI: 9.30 – 14.45
France 2: 9.15 – 13.45
M6: 9.00 – 17.35 ( that’s 5 programmes all about the couple, one after the other)
W9: 20.40 – 1.50.

Actually, I would have been quite interested to watch for a bit, to see how French and British coverages compare, but we’ve chosen that day to arrive in England, confident that the usually busy roads will be traffic-free.  We’ll be glad too to escape the constant questions.  Being British does not make us Royal Experts, but our neighbours are remarkably slow to catch on.

Bureaucracy at work – oh, and a couple of removal men

The phone rang.  ‘Hi!  This is Holly speaking.  Your furniture, all the stuff we were going to deliver to you from England on Thursday….could the lads come now, they’re ahead of schedule?’  A quick summit meeting, and we decided that no, they really couldn’t.  We simply weren’t organized enough yet.  But we’d settle for Wednesday morning.

I put the phone down, and something at the back of my fuddled brain told me I really ought to tell them at the Mairie (Town Hall) that we were having a removal van the next day.  So I did.  Thank goodness.  Not telling them would have been little short of criminal, it turned out.

For more than half an hour, they filled in documents for publication outside the Mairie itself and our house, and sent copies to the Fire Brigade, the Police and Technical Services, among others, for their information.  The mayor came out of a meeting to sign the documents.  Staff told me we needed to take responsibility for placing the barricades they would arrange to have delivered, so that nobody could park in our part of the street between 8.00a.m. and 2.00 p.m.  We would also need to talk to all relevant neighbours and ask them not to park in the street between those hours.

I came home (we live 2 doors away from the Town Hall) and as I fished around for my door keys, I saw a council delivery lorry already putting 5 barriers at the end of the road for us to erect later.  Malcolm commented that this was a tale worthy of that unmissable 1970’s children’s programme ‘Trumpton’, with its vignettes of a way of life none of us could quite believe had ever existed.

This road train's on its last trip ever. Back in the UK, it's going for scrap

It turned out the fuss was worthwhile.  When our removal van came, it was a ‘road train’, 2 waggons long, and mopped up every bit of space in our little parking area.  It had left the UK nine days earlier, and spent all that time roving all over France: Alps, the coast – anywhere the English settle over here – delivering from the UK to some, and collecting for transporting to the UK for others.   Paul and James, in the manner of removal men everywhere, tossed sofas, chests of drawers, huge boxes of books over their shoulders and trudged up and down our narrow stars for two hours till the wagon was almost empty.  Almost, but not quite.  Next stop Perpignan, before they head back at last, to be home just in time for a weekend in England.

Now all we've got to do is sort out, move round, organise......

Ooh, and by the way.  They told us that removal vans sent to Europe are almost always unmarked, as ours was, because they can attract the interest of the Mafia in Italy, and even in parts of France.  Paul had a close encounter himself not so long ago, and had to shift himself quick, never mind that his tachograph said he’d done his hours that day.  Luckily for them, we had no such excitement here.  Just a pile of paperwork for the municipal records.

...and unpack 57 boxes of books

Learning to speak French again after 6 weeks’ hard labour

Returning to France on Wednesday was a bit of a shock to the system.  Six weeks speaking English every time we opened our mouths, and then…..French again.  It was there somewhere, deep inside the recesses of our skulls.  But it was hidden right away at the back, covered in fluff, layers of dust and paint splashes, and scarcely fit for purpose.

Opening our mouths to make simple comments to the receptionist at our overnight hotel stop in Blois that first night back seemed strange.  Standard phrases escaped our lips, sounding odd, like some once familiar lesson learned at school, since long-forgotten.

Two days on, things are returning to normal: the language machine has been oiled and serviced, and is creaking back to business as usual, as we resume our daily round.

But in those 6 weeks in England, we scarcely engaged our brains at all.  We painted the house ready to be put in the hands of a letting agent.  We packed.  We discarded years of family life.  We sorted out bags and bags of stuff for the local charity shop: we called there so often that we fully expected them to open a new branch named after us, and were convinced that the one day we didn’t go, disgorging huge plastic bags of donations from the car, they’d put out a Missing Persons enquiry.  Things that neither family members nor the charity shop wanted got advertised on Freecycle, and we had fun helping those who responded to cram large bookcases or cumbersome chairs into rather small cars.  ‘Freecycle groups match people who have things they want to get rid of with people who can use them. Our goal is to keep usable items out of landfills’.

Furniture and books – 9 cubic metres – were collected by a removal firm who’ll deliver it all to us here in about 10 days, after they’ve collected and delivered other consignments all over England and France.

What would we have done without all the friends who fed and entertained us in the evenings after our 10 hour-long-days labouring in the house?  They made it possible for us to pack up virtually every cooking pot and plate days before the end of our stay.

And what would we have done without our friends in LETS?  Some of you have asked what LETS (SEL in France) is:

LETS – Local Exchange Trading Systems or Schemes – are local community-based mutual aid networks in which people exchange all kinds of goods and services with one another, without the need for money.

Nidderdale LETS is the group in the Harrogate area.  With about 50 members, many of us have worked and socialised together over the years, helping each other revitalise overgrown gardens or have a big spring clean.  People offer massages, Alexander technique, translation services, animal care, teaching and practical skills: all sorts of things.  This time, LETS members turned out in force to help us paint and clean the house from top to bottom.  We couldn’t have done without them, and working together was fun and gave us all a feeling of real achievement as we shared lunch and conversation after a hard morning’s work.

After all that, though, our bodies were exhausted, and our brains non-existent.  No wonder speaking French again seemed a bit of a challenge.

Marmalade: the bitter facts

Forget politics.  Here in the UK, the news story that really means something to any right-thinking English man and woman is that marmalade sales are falling.  The reason though, according to most commentators, is that many of us prefer to make our own.  I do.

Over the last few years, I’ve been so glad to have come across Jane Grigson’s recipe, which gets me out of the whole business of hacking mounds of tough raw orange peel into marmalade sized chunks.  It delivers a tasty sweet and bitter marmalade which beats anything you’ll meet on the grocer’s shelf

Our house, now a temple to magnolia paint and packing cases, is currently innocent of recipe books.  Somehow I contrived to find my preserving pan the other day, and make her marmalade, or something  jolly like it, from memory.  Impressive, huh?

I kg. seville oranges (about 10 fruits)

1 lemon

3.4 litres water

2 kg. granulated sugar, or half granulated, half light muscovado.

Scrub the seville oranges and the lemon, and place in a large pan with the water.  Bring to the boil and simmer till the fruit is soft – maybe an hour or so.  Allow to cool.  Cut the oranges in half, scoop out the flesh and pips and reserve in a large muslin square.  Chop the skin as thick or as thin as you chose – it’s so easy now the skin is soft.

Tie the muslin with its contents into a bag, and put it, with the orange peel, remaining water (about a third will have evaporated) and sugar, into a preserving pan.  Bring the mixture slowly to the boil, so that the sugar dissolves, then cook rapidly till setting point is reached (I can’t manage without my jam thermometer, but that’s pathetic.  Most people seem happy enough to test for the setting point by putting a spoonful of marmalade onto a cold saucer, and seeing if it crinkles as you push your finger through the cooled mixture).

Allow the mixture to sit for about 15 minutes before pouring into sterilised jam jars.  Makes 6-7 jars

Getting in touch with our inner magnolia

Here we are, still in Harrogate.  We’ve given up trying to sell the house.  Perhaps we could rent it out instead?

The Letting Agent called round to give advice.  ‘Hmm.  You’ll find neutral colours are best on the walls’.  So this month is devoted to making the house not neutral, but bland.

Wedgwood blue, sunshine yellow, saffron orange, Moroccan red – all need to go, in favour of  – magnolia.  Well, we could have chosen barley white, walnut whip, almond blossom, Jersey cream…………, but they’re all much of a muchness, and magnolia was on offer when we went shopping for paint.

And what you need to know is that we can’t stand painting, neither of us.  Any dispacement activity will do.  Washing up?  Great! Cleaning the bathroom?  Wonderful!  When we do finally get started, we try so hard only to look at our watches once an hour….and then discover 10 minutes has passed.  We thoughtfully offer to make each other cups of tea at every opportunity, and consider it important to empty our bladders before there could be any possible discomfort.  We climb down ladders to go and inspect each other’s work, brush stroke by brush stroke, and really, it’s a miracle that we have in fact managed to paint 2 whole rooms since Wednesday.  That’s partly thanks to our friends in LETS.  You don’t know about LETS?  You will.  To be continued , perhaps not in my next, but some time in the near future

Down at the Greasy Spoon

No stay in England is complete without a visit to a Greasy Spoon.  Hot, crowded, cheerful,  and full of burly men stolidly chewing their way through mountainous piles of chips, bacon and sausage, the average transport caff is not the place for fine dining.  But the good ones are worth a visit, and today, we visited the Bridge Cafe at Apperley Bridge, on the way over to Bolton to see the boys.

It was only quarter to twelve, but we needed an early break after a hard morning shifting furniture, skidding up and down our impossibly icy street, lugging huge bags of books and discarded household items to the charity shop, visiting the Letting Agent, scouring Bradford’s Asian shops for essential supplies of Indian spices that are hard to get in France.  After that, what better than a hot plate of comfort food washed down with a huge mug of tea?

Yes, quarter to twelve.  But the place was already crowded with joiners, truckers, shoppers, pensioners.  Most were having the all-day breakfast.

This is what you get if you order the small one: £3.80

2 slices bacon, 1 sausage, 1 egg, beans, tomatoes, toast, fried bread, tea.

Some had gone for the Full Breakfast: 2 slices bacon, 2 sausages, 2 eggs, spam, black pudding, mushrooms, hash browns, beans, tomatoes, fried bread, toast and tea or coffee.

Nope, not a chance that we could cope with that: poached eggs on toast was more like it.

A quick flick through the daily papers provided – tabloids of course, broadsheets need not apply – a quick chat to the owners ( Italian?  Lithuanian? We couldn’t agree), and we were off, sustained for an afternoon of meeting 5 year old twins as they came out of school, to enjoy the rest of their action-packed day