Today, my little family and I were given the honour of being invited to a French family get together. We have seen rather a lot of Chantal and Thierry in recent months and they arranged a soiree in order for their eldest two daughters to meet us.
We have the most amusing Franglais type conversations, where I start a sentence and someone else will finish it, or when things move beyond my command of the language, trying to get the finer points of an idea across using the words you know can be challenging. I love to try. I don't even have to plan out what I'm going to say, I have enough confidence just to go for it, sometimes that approach works just fine, and sometimes you're met with the three second silence when they are trying to put meaning to the 'word soup' you've just delivered.
I find I'm really learning a lot in a short space of time which I'm so grateful for. but, the thing is, what do they get?
I'm not conceited enough to assume that it's as good for them as it is for us, even being the anglophiles that they obviously are.
They are now hooked on good 'ol English tea, the French stuff being virtually unrecognisable to us Brits.
They find the fact that we don't mind (too much) living in a caravan whilst we work on enough of the house to live in bemusing...and I have to admit here that I'm losing sight of why this seemed such a good idea, now that autumn is just around the corner.
All in all, I think we've been really lucky in meeting Chantal and Thierry and becoming good friends with such lovely people. I know that we've found in them, friends that are always ready to step into the breach and get their hands dirty, something that's becoming more and more rare in our modern, insular society. <3
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