Archive for August 26th, 2008

Parlez vous Franglais?

Grandad August 26th, 2008

There are so many niggling arrangements that have to be made before heading over to the Continent.

One problem at least has been solved with the introduction of the Euro.  Now I know when I am being ripped off because I know what I should be paying.

There are still messy things though that have to be arranged.

They say that a passport is handy.  That is no problem because I have dozens.

I have to have a red warning triangle for the car.  Again, that’s no problem.  I still have the old one that is held together with Sellotape from twenty six years ago when I first went.

A new requirement is that I have a DayGlo jacket.  I have one of those that I use when I’m pretending to be a speed trap.  Great fun.

At some stage I’m supposed to fit Beam Benders to the car.  These are the yokes that change my dipped headlights so they dip to the right instead of the left.  I don’t know if I’ll bother with that, as the lights don’t work anyway.

Yesterday I realised I had forgotten two items.

The first was my car insurance.  That was no problem.  I just rang the insurance company and I have to collect the extended certificate today.

The second was a little more problematic.  I had to phone the place where we are going to stay.

I phoned them.

At this point, I must explain that I can speak French quite well.  I can read it too.  My only problem is that I can’t understand it when someone else is speaking.

When the woman answered the phone, I explained who I was and that I would be arriving at some stage on Saturday, and could she have the key ready.  So far, so good.

She then made a long speech and I didn’t understand a word of it.

I chickened at that stage and explained that my French was crap, and asked if she could speak English.

She replied [I think] that my French was excellent, and she wasn’t falling for that one.

We had a long and pleasant conversation that lasted for about half an hour.  I joked with her and she laughed a lot.  She said a lot of things in reply, and I haven’t a fucking clue what she said.

The upshot of the call was that everything is arranged.  She is going to have everything ready for us and will be there to meet us on Saturday.

I also have a funny feeling that I have agreed to marry her daughter on Wednesday week.

This could be an interesting holiday.