Je ne parle pas français

I don’t know what I was thinking. I don’t know how I could possibly have imagined that I was fluent enough in French to get by with our day-to-day needs. I’m not really. It’s mad.

I have a few key phrases and what has quickly become my standard opening line: “Désolé, mais je parle très peu français.”

If I’m very lucky, the person to whom I am speaking will turn out to speak English fairly well. If I’m somewhat lucky the person will say, “I speak a little English.” Now, I have come to understand this means their English is as bad as my French, but it also means we may have some useful keywords with which to work, so I smile and somewhat conspiratorially say “entre nous”. The other person immediately gets it. Somehow, between the two of us, we’re going to make this work and we do. Phew.

There’s another thing I find myself saying a lot: “J’aime penser que je parle un peu français, mais quand j’ai besoin d’un certain mot…” At this point I do a Poof it’s gone hand gesture beside my head.

The great thing about using this hand gesture is its universality. The person whose English is roughly on par with my French, immediately smiles, nods and says something like, “Oui! Absolument! Moi aussi.”

We went back to Najac yesterday. Mainly to go up the other hill and have a wander around the fortress. It’s been drizzling for a while, but that’s still the worst of it when we get out of the car near l’église Saint-Jean l’Évangéliste. The church is quite large and quite badly lit, but I do manage to get the requisite pulpit shot.

Who is that, you ask? Well, if you’ve been around since the beginning of the year, you might remember me asking my friend Ray to photoshop an image.

Not long after we got here, Ray decided to insert himself into one of my photos.

Since then, we’ve been having fun with other photos – more so after I figured out how to do it myself. Now he’s pretty much always in a pulpit.

Anyway… The rain was falling more heavily when we emerged from the church, but it still wasn’t all that bad, so we persevered.

And then, just as the fortress was within sight…

… it started bucketing down. Cats and dogs. Thunder and lightning. The whole shebang. We did manage to shelter in an alcove for a while, but it clearly wasn’t going to stop any time soon, so we made our way back down to the car.

And why am I sharing this in a post that began with me admitting that I really do not speak French? Because Najac is where we discovered the book/tea shop run by the lovely British woman. And there was nothing, absolutely nothing more likely to lift my saturated spirits than a scone with clotted cream and jam served with a mug of (actually called on the menu) Builders Tea in a place where I don’t have to pretend I am capable of communicating in any language other than English.

Fantastique!