Category: French language

Euskal Herria meets the Yorkshire Dales

This week was a first for us, when we made a quick visit to the Basque country (Euskal Herria), way over to the west .  When we got there, there were no frontier posts, but we knew immediately that we’d arrived.  Suddenly, houses, instead of being colour-washed in creams and beiges and ochres, or not at all, were  all tidily painted white, every single one, with ox-blood coloured shutters and paintwork.  Place names were in French and Basque, and quite a lot of other signage too.

But the thing is, despite all that, we thought we’d arrived in Yorkshire, or Lancashire, or somewhere in England at any rate.  Softly rambling ranges of hills, so very green, and studded with sheep.  Roads which preferred to ramble gently round the contours instead of going straight in the French style.  Take away the Pyrénées in the background, their jagged peaks still white with fresh snow, add in a few drystone walls, and – voilà! – the Yorkshire Dales.

After all the hard work back at the house, we needed the peace of the countryside, so we’d chosen to stay at an Accueil Paysan farm. We knew that  meant that we’d be welcomed into simple comfortable accommodation at the farmer’s house, and share a family meal with them in the evening.  Always good value in all sorts of ways.

The welcoming committee in this case turned out to be six cheerily noisy pigs, a gang of chickens, and a sheep dog.  The humans were no less friendly, and we settled in by exploring the small farm with its 30 or so cattle, and about 300 sheep.  Sheep’s cheese is the big thing round here, and throughout the autumn and spring, when there’s plenty of milk, this family makes cheese every morning (far too early for us to be there, it turned out: all over by 7 o’clock) in their fine new cheese-production shed.

Our hosts are Basque speakers.  Their children only learnt French when they went to school.  Now that one of these children has a son of his own, he and his wife (who’s not a Basque speaker) have chosen to have the boy educated at one of the many Basque-medium schools, so that he will be among the 30% of Basques who are comfortable using their language.  It’s an impenetrable and complex one.  Its roots are a bit of a mystery, and certainly it’s not Indo-European.  With French, Italian and Latin at out disposal, we can make a good stab at understanding Occitan, the language of our region, but Basque remains impenetrable to anyone who hasn’t been immersed in it.

The next day, we explored St. Jean Pied de Port. From before the time of the Romans, it’s been a market town, an important jumping off point for Spain.  It’s been a garrison too, and an important stop-over for pilgrims on their way to Compostella.  Now it’s a tourist centre too, for walkers in the region.  It’s an attractive town, surrounded by ramparts.  We pottered around, enjoying views from the ramparts, pilgrim-spotting, ancient doorways, and watching the river, before setting off for a leisurely journey home.

And next time we stay, we’ll make it much longer than 36 hours.

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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.

Franglais

There we all were, at Laroque Chorale last week, singing away, when our Director begged us to sing with ‘plus de feeling’.  I tried not to laugh, then realised everyone else was taking her words to heart, and agreeing a bit more ‘feeling’ wouldn’t come amiss.

It sometimes feels as if there really is no need to learn French – so many English words are an everyday part of life here now.

So let’s just imagine……what if, instead of being a retired Englishwoman of a certain age, I were instead a thrusting young 30-something French business woman?  What if, instead of being curled up with a gardening magazine, I preferred something more like ‘OK’, with stories of some C list celeb. – ‘un people’?  Perhaps my life might be more like this……

‘I always struggle to get up in the morning from the comfort of my kingsize. But it has to be done.  I dress quickly, pulling on my teeshirt, my shorts, and my pull, to take the 5 dogs out.  Didn’t you know I like dogs?  I’ve got a fox terrier, a labrador, a pointer, a setter, a york shire (sic) and a border colley (sic), all pedigree, of course.  We go jogging every day, with me plugged into my walkman.  At the week-end, when we have more time, I do a bit of cross country.

 

After a shower, there’s only time for a quick bite: toast, corn flakes, something like that.  Just occasionally, for a treat, I’ll have a cooked breakfast, like the English do.

Then I have to get to work. I’m a businesswoman, specialising in marketing, and first thing every morning, I have a briefing with the boss. We’re not doing so well in the recession, and we’re no longer a blue chip company.

I’ve got a very short deadline for an interesting new deal, but we’ve got awful IT problems.  E-mail, the internet, we can’t log in or download properly- you name it.  IT support’s always here trying to debug things.

We’ve just done a publicity drive via a mailing, but the feedback was awful, and my manager’s not pleased.  She’s the one stuck with the cash-flow problems. We all had a meeting, a real brainstorming session, and we’re working on a new business plan with a view to downsizing. I find it hard to offer leadership: I’ve no killer instinct.  Frankly, I think I’m a bit of a has-been…..

Towards 12.00, I really need to relax. So off to the gym for a spot of fitness training: stretching, and a bit of a work-out with a punching ball.

I’m starving after that.  I ring my manager to ask her to join me at a snack bar, but she’s a snob, and won’t come.  But I love fast food!  Hamburgers, hot dogs, nuggets – even a sandwich – bring them on!  And after that, an ice cream or a banana split, all washed down with a milk-shake.  No diet for me!

I hardly have time to get to the shopping centre.  But I prefer self service and luckily the shops here don’t shut at lunchtime – they do non-stop shopping.  Sometimes I go to the hard discount stores too, like Aldi, but not today.

Back to work for more of the same, then home for a well-earned break.  A cup of tea, some cake, and half an hour with my book, the new science fiction, a best seller.

Then my mobile rings.  It’s Marianne! She’s got tickets for the new one man show this evening: she must have been making eyes at the man in the box office.  Me, I’d prefer a film, a thriller, or something with a happy end.  Or even a night club with a spot of dancing……  Still, a night out’s a night out.

Marianne’ll be looking gorgeous as usual, with her look designer.  I get out my vanity case, and put my make-up on, the blush, the eye liner, the lipstick. What to wear with my blue-jean? And I’m not even clean yet. Too much to think about! I can’t stay here to chat to you any longer.  Bye-bye’