An Evening Entertaining the French
Sunday 5pm and Trevor picked me up, we were going to Kieron and Julia's for the evening. They were entertaining their French neighbours Rene and his wife and their local farmer Pierre who is also the number 2 to the Maire of St Cyr de Gats the commune in which they all live, and Raymon his wife, add to the mix Steve and Sally and you've got the picture. We were staring at 5pm because the French eat lunch rather than dinner, that goes double on Sundays, and they don't really enjoy being entertained to dinner, so the idea was aperitifs for the French then a meal for the English afterwards.
This was such a contrast to the dinner at Steve and Sally's (no fault of theirs) we all got involved chatting to one another, even some of the conversations between the English contingent were conducted in French. It is true that the smaller numbers would have made it difficult not to get involved, but everyone wanted to be, I wonder if some of the English that had been at Steve and Sally's had been there just what they would have done. In any event there was no hiding and as usual I was amazed at how hard Kieron and Stephen try with their French, neither's pronunciation is good and Kieron is often extremely inventive with his vocabulary, but to their eternal credit they both plough on regardless. The French love the fact that they try so hard and they respond with patience and try just as hard to understand, and most of the time everyone is able to communicate. I must admit that my conversational French has come on leaps and bounds over the last couple of years, so much so that all of the French present complimented me on my command of the language but Rene was also kind enough to say that I didn't have much of an accent. Which means that I've lost the "Alo Alo" tang that dogs most English who speak Freench. Of course speaking reasonable French has its drawbacks, one sometimes wonders whether one is invited as a linguistic lubricant or for one's sparkling personality , but with Kieron and Julia I never doubt that I'm invited for my wit and charm, or at least the fact that I'm a bit of a laugh. I'm not 100% sure why, but Kieron has taken to calling me Clousea, he even introduced me to the French as such, I did ask him why but as often happens with Kieron I didn't get very far
The evening was a great success with plenty of laughter, the wine flowed liberally and the finger food was superb. Finally Kieron brought out the Pineau starting with Trevor's then moving on to Rene's, then Pierre's and finishing with his own. They were all pretty good, Rene's got the blue ribbon with most people, after all he has been making it for a long time, and it was made with walnuts, I think my personal favourite was Pierre's just because I preferred the taste, and I think Guy Guerrin my farmer friend makes a better walnut flavoured Pineau. The French left at about 9.30pm and we adjourned to the kitchen/lounge where we had a prawn starter and a chicken curry. Most people were in fact very tired and Trevor and I left not long after eating, it had been a great night, very different, and just the sort of evening that France should be all about.
This was such a contrast to the dinner at Steve and Sally's (no fault of theirs) we all got involved chatting to one another, even some of the conversations between the English contingent were conducted in French. It is true that the smaller numbers would have made it difficult not to get involved, but everyone wanted to be, I wonder if some of the English that had been at Steve and Sally's had been there just what they would have done. In any event there was no hiding and as usual I was amazed at how hard Kieron and Stephen try with their French, neither's pronunciation is good and Kieron is often extremely inventive with his vocabulary, but to their eternal credit they both plough on regardless. The French love the fact that they try so hard and they respond with patience and try just as hard to understand, and most of the time everyone is able to communicate. I must admit that my conversational French has come on leaps and bounds over the last couple of years, so much so that all of the French present complimented me on my command of the language but Rene was also kind enough to say that I didn't have much of an accent. Which means that I've lost the "Alo Alo" tang that dogs most English who speak Freench. Of course speaking reasonable French has its drawbacks, one sometimes wonders whether one is invited as a linguistic lubricant or for one's sparkling personality , but with Kieron and Julia I never doubt that I'm invited for my wit and charm, or at least the fact that I'm a bit of a laugh. I'm not 100% sure why, but Kieron has taken to calling me Clousea, he even introduced me to the French as such, I did ask him why but as often happens with Kieron I didn't get very far
The evening was a great success with plenty of laughter, the wine flowed liberally and the finger food was superb. Finally Kieron brought out the Pineau starting with Trevor's then moving on to Rene's, then Pierre's and finishing with his own. They were all pretty good, Rene's got the blue ribbon with most people, after all he has been making it for a long time, and it was made with walnuts, I think my personal favourite was Pierre's just because I preferred the taste, and I think Guy Guerrin my farmer friend makes a better walnut flavoured Pineau. The French left at about 9.30pm and we adjourned to the kitchen/lounge where we had a prawn starter and a chicken curry. Most people were in fact very tired and Trevor and I left not long after eating, it had been a great night, very different, and just the sort of evening that France should be all about.
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