Bonjour. Yesterday I had a lovely family time, and it was just great. As Gillian said when she looked at my photos on Facebook, "They just look like people you would know." And that's just it. So often when I meet people I keep thinking I must know them from somewhere. What is the saying, 'We are all brothers under the skin'? Something like that. Anyway, Guy came to pick me up just before lunch. Two points there. 1. Guy is the man I met in the toilet and 2. Being dependent on other people for transporting me around continues to be a frustrating aspect of my time here, for this independent gal. But never mind. Guy and his wife Christianne (not sure of the spelling, and she is known as Kiki) live in Nouaillé Maupertuis, a lovely little village I have visited before quite early on in the piece. There is a very impressive abbey there. Kiki was lovely, and very gracious considering her husband was bringing home his toilet pick-up. (Not really! We practise speaking once a week - he practises English and I practise French.) They were looking after a little grand daughter who belonged to one of their sons, and another son was there with his little girl. Guy was wearing an All Black jersy and Stephane plays rugby, and all in all, they were really interested in everything about New Zealand and asked me lots of questions. It helped that Guy speaks English, but when the surroundings are relaxed it helps me with my French. So communication was no problem. Just before we had lunch Guy got out his guitar and sang French songs. Well, I could have sat there all afternoon and listened to that!! With me feebly sight reading the words we even sang some duets. (I just typed suets. If I keep eating chocolate tarts I will look like a block of suet soon.)So that was truly wonderful. A lovely lunch with traditional things like Raclette. And a bottle of Marlborough Sav Blanc fron Dubai airport duty free. (Craggy Range? Craggy Peak? Not sure. I know it was damned expensive. But it duzzin madda.) After lunch we watched France beat Scotland on the tele and basically by the time everyhing settled down it was 6.00pm and time for me to go home. By the way Hayden, Stephane is a policeman and was interested to hear about you, and says he will get a badge for you - for a 'colleague'! Tht's the thing, they were genuinely interested in things and I was always part of the conversation. Sometimes when I have been out with a group they talk to each other all the time and then someone will periodically say, "Did you understand that?" Well no, I had gone to sleep. But it's different if you are involved, rather than straining on the fringe. So that was yesterday. I think the really nice thing about yesterday was that I just felt like I was part of a family.
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