It's ben ages since my last post and I've be come accustomed to my life in lights, beautifully backdroped by the old village, accompanied by the slow clap, the raised eyebrow and the plain ominous 'dead eye' syndrome which seems to occur whenever I open my mouth.
Dead eye is the blank look, the 'it's all too much' switch, that stops a person from even trying to understand my words. Of course, Amby will pipe up exactly the same phrase in exactly (so I think) the same accent, and suddenly the skies clear and smiles break out and Amby is congratulated for being so clever.
Despite feeling like the village idiot, or pehaps because of it, I seem to be stopped every day on my walk back home from the school drop off and asked directions to places. It's happened so often that I'm beginning to think there is a conspiracy. What directions can we ask the village idiot today. Of course it often ends in tears (not for me, but the person asking) because as soon as I open my mouth to explain, the poor person gets dead eye, looks around wildly for a way to escape 'the english' and thanks me profusely in the hopes that I won't keep them there all day.
I've had one person drill me about my instructions to the lake of the 7 horses (sept chevaux - I think 7 horses drowned in the lake which is how it got it's name; whether they were pulled out and eaten we will never know). We have two lakes in Luxeuil - the 7 horses and another much smaller lake at the opposite end of the village. "How can I get to the Sept Chevaux lake" they ask, to which I reply - keeping going toute a droite (straight ahead) until you come to the Casino supermarket, direction piscine (pool). "No" they cry frustrated, "we dont want the lake near Auchan" (Auchan is the other supermarket, in the other direction). The more I explained that the lake they wanted was past Casino supermarket the more suspiciously they looked at me. In the end they thanked me politely and left, only to stop immediately across the road and accost some old fella who pointed in EXACTLY the same direction as I had and who told them to go past Casino. It must be the accent. Anyway they were a rather suss looking pair of Europeans on expensive carbon fibre bicycles and professional racing bike clothes. I hope they ended up lost in the forest.
Being the village idiot has it's good points. It's a chance for me to play the fool and explore my silly side. I often toy with giving mauvais (bad) directions, with dumbing down my knowlege of the french language so I give as good a dead eye stare as they do, but in the end it's the silly things that do it for me. Yesterday I took my wonderful daughter to a cafe. Now Amby insists on talking really loudly in english all the time, despite her beautiful accent (no doubt she gets this from her father who also, bizarrely insists on doing the same). I find it quite embarrasing - no matter how much I entreat, the loud english talk remains...Anyway, we ended up talking in english which appeared to miff quite a few patrons; there's nothing like being excluded to make one feel paranoid (ask me, I should know!). This gave the patrons free range to discuss us at length which was rather interesting until we got up to leave and started speaking in french. Ah, the puce expressions on some of the faces made me rather think we had hit a nerve or two. However, one woman was emboldened enough to say in an angry loud whisper to her husband that we were meshan (naughty).
I do have a long way to go in the french language, and the french are notoriously intolerant of other languages being spoken, which allows me to see that most of the places in the world I have visited seem more tolerant in comparison.
Red Tape...
I am running behind on schedule. The plan was to learn and pass the code (driving theory) and then enrol in a french language class to help my constuction of phrases and general pronunciation. Well, Madame 'Paris' has other ideas. I had still as of yesterday, not had my dossier completed. This means I cannot do a test no matter how hard I study. I have begun a silent campaign - I do not set foot in those hallowed (horrible) doors again until my dossier is complete. There is always a unique if slightly bizzare excuse. The questions stem from whether I am really here in France to live, or if I have come back soley for the purpose of being completely ripped off by one of the most expensive forms of learning and passing driving theory code that I have ever encountered. I guess it could be more expensive - in Saudia Arabia I would be forced to have gender reassignment surgery. I have now submitted serveral more proofs of living here and if that fails you may have to start calling me Monsieur Sarrazin.
Of course, to entirely negate this, Ange has enrolled with a different company to get a licence to allow him to tow the large machine from work. He not only got the book on the code included, but he also gets access to lessons ANY TIME of the day, and ONLINE access to tests and lessons as well! So much for my 2:30pm to 18:30pm timeslot, popular with all the gum chewing, smelly, talkative schoolies and no book, no internet jangle. Grrrrr
Of course even the internet is posing problems. It's been on the blink since we got it, and to be honest I wasn't in any frame of mind to ring up some poor technican and explain the problem in my terrible french. Well, that's all changed now. The issue is the telephone line cuts out mid call leaving hapless friends talking to themselves at some length before we all twig that the line has been cut. Then it takes some minutes to regain the dial tone so I can call again. The problem has been 'resolved' several times over, with the result that the last 'resolution' has buggered up the tv and internet as well. Now our internet access package is quite literally on the blink - several times while writing this blog (offline) I have see the little green button on the modem change from green (good) to purple, red and orange before turning green again. We are supposed to have a technician visit us tomorrow, after my last frustrated, sobbing, head banging phone call, and I wait with baited to breath to see if they will actually visit in person or just call us (like they did last time we were promised a visit).
Blog....
anyway, this has been my rather extended version of why I don't call you, skype you, email you, or even blog. SFR have obviously been affected all this time with 'dead eye'.
Silly me - what a village idiot!
RE
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