He said he wanted a rest so he elected to celebrate with family soirees. In fairness, if you know Andrew you will appreciate he is a bit of a party animal and perhaps as he hits 50, he has decided he has worn himself out, although I doubt this very much. He informs me that when I turn 50 we can celebrate then. As I have been lying to him about my age ( and others) since we met I will not get to celebrate with him till I decide to come out. This is very true as even on our wedding day at the church, whilst signing the register, he remarked my date of birth was incorrect. Of course, I shrugged it off and said we could correct it later. I know starting married life in a lie is not the best policy, but I had come too far to go back. It's not like I was pretending to be 21!!! For those that know my true age if they repeat it out loud I will have to kill you. I don't know why I became so ageist and I know due to my constant fibbing I will miss out on the year of 50 and associated celebrating, but it is my bed and I chose to lie in it.
So anyhoo enough about my Walter Mittyesque behaviour and more about the husband. We decided that we hardly see each other and the answer to that was to buy a house in France. A sort of enforced togetherness after we get on the boat, with little distractions of work. I say enforced but I consider my self very lucky.
Now, of course, having a house in France means that I have to brush up on my French and Andrew needs to start learning it, but enough about his attempt at French later. There was a time where I was semi-fluent and quite confident to attempt most conversations although I have fallen foul at my confidence in my ability. Like most people my age ( whatever that is), I had to live in a French child's house and attend school. I hated it but not as much as my lovely friend Adele who arrived at school every day with 2 fried eggs in her string school bag. She hated eggs but her French family thought that English children liked fried eggs for breakfast. At least I got hot chocolate and cake for breakfast, which is every child's dream. This opportunity to live and go to school in France translated to me thinking I was fluent, so fluent that when I applied for a staff nurse job in ED, I apparently noted I could speak French. What I actually meant to say was I had "O" Level French. Unfortunately what I didn't realise was this meant I was entered into the hospital database as an interpreter. Nicola if you are reading this I apologise to reducing the expertise of the interpreting profession.I had been in post for a couple of years and hadn't realised that I was a nominated French interpreter until I was asked to consent someone for a hip replacement! Now readers I fully understand my code of conduct and identified swiftly this was not in my remit and couldn't possibly do this. However, the surgeon insisted I come and help with something so I arrived on the ward reinforcing I didn't know the French for" hip replacement" never mind "complications of surgery". When faced with the patient I could only say La jambe gauche and point to the leg. I then explained that I could only ask about je suis and pain and du vin. Fortunately, the patient laughed and I did visit them a few times for conversational chats but stayed clear of medical French!
Having said this I have realised I still have the ability to communicate and managed to buy a sofa and arrange delivery. Now to Andrew. When I first met Andrew online he once said something in French to me. Many Jersey folk can speak French, so when I asked him if he could he typed. What I didn't realise was he was using google translate and actually speaks little French. This has become very apparent whilst at the house. He has started speaking a form of Franglais whilst gesticulating at objects and when he is not speaking Franglais he is saying English words in an accent that can only be heard in the programme "Ello Ello". A perfect example of this is taking a cauliflower to be weighed, placing it on the scale pointing at it and saying "Cauli... floooerrrr", not once, but repeatedly to the grocer. He isn't even slightly embarrassed, not even the time he was picking up croissants from the baker and instead of saying closed on Tuesday, he says "He is a woman on a Tuesday". He feels that that closed-ferme and woman-femme is too subtle to differentiate.
When I ask him to attend French lessons with me, he tells me doesn't need to and will learn French talking to the French people. I am not sure he will make any French friends, and expect when we are there in 2 weeks the village will of started a vigil for him. This is because of his last interaction with our lovely French neighbour instead of saying he was living at the French house for eight days, he got jumbled up with his words and informed him that he had 8 days to live!
He is happy pointing randomly at things saying "combien and Ou est" and I know when he learns the word pamplemousse he will use it incorrectly but at least he is happy.
So that's me, a little update of possible or not possible interest.
choufleur
