Loving the Lingo

À propos, do you ever get déjà-vu?

Ulysses, father of Maui (pictured), curls up in a ball and licks his genitals. This is his favourite pass-time. Jean-Michel tells me that he once so indulged in this canine activity that his pink piece of pork inflated like a balloon and refused to retract, leaving poor Ulysses to wander around dragging the thing between his legs. Jean-Michel eventually tamed the animal’s beast by soaking it in ice.

Watching Ulysses with awe, amusement and disgust, I am drawn back to the times I had to read self-indulgent pieces of academic writing prescribed by the University. I recall having to endure (usually after a good sleep-in) authors of PhDs babbling on about everyday subjects in an obscure manner, boring me to bits by polluting simple concepts with pompous pointlessness. One of the most laughable ways they did this was by inserting unnecessary French words (in italics) into perfectly ordinary sentences.

Here is a text of French words within our repertoire- a montage designed to reveal that our knowledge vis-à-vis the French language is greater than we think.

Jean is engaged in a tête-à-tête with a femme fatale in the kind of negligee produced by the great minds of haute-couture. They organised this rendez-vous when they met at the crèche. He could smell her enticing eau de toilette and detected a great joie de vivre in her. They ordered à la carte. After sipping their soup du jour with bourgeois etiquette, they moved on to crème brûlée. During their conversation, she made several faux pas and gaffes that revealed to him that her act was just a façade.

“I’m the crème de la crème of my agency”, she stated with nonchalance.

“You say this like it’s a fait accompli. I thought you’d only just started working there”.

She drew on the last of her cigarette and pressed it into the ashtray.

“Touché... But I hope to be great one day.” She glanced at him coldly. “What do you do Jean?”

He thought for a moment then stood and declared boisterously: “I’m French! This is my raison d'être. Vive la France!” The rest of the clientele burst into applause at this display of patriotism. A lone trumpet sounded in the distance.

“That is so cliché”, she sneered.

This was the coup de grace for Jean. This woman was a fraud and showed no respect.

“I’m leaving”, he spat. “Bon appétit”.

And so on and so forth. Dreadful stuff. Especially when words like façade (/fassad/) are pronounced /fakeid/. French kids use English for the opposite purpose of sounding cool and ‘with it’. Why not, I guess. Let’s cross-pollinate our languages.

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In other news!
We have been pruning cherry trees on a daily basis- apart from the odd insane weather variation.

March is a month of odd climate. We've gone from snow to rain and sun on a couple of mornings. While we prune, the cold wind will howl through the valley then quieten to a warm breeze. In the early morning we walk leisurely on the frozen ground and later are wading our way through sticky clay. Jean-Michel, Hannah and a British chap named Andrew (pictured) are a jolly bunch of companions to work with. Field work is both wearisome and (strangely) intelectually stimulating- giving one time to meditate on whatever subject.

Beware of switching off, dear friend, as you prune cherry trees. The secateurs are pneumatically pressured and will slice your fingers clean off if you do not pay attention. A brief clench on the trigger will cut straight through just about anything. Exciting. Dangerous. This is our life.

Katy (here tending to the goats) is about 5 weeks away from the due date for the birth of our little niece or nephew. She's glowing, as per usual, and has an incredible knack for meeting people and forming friendships. This has been choice for us as we've been able to meet her friends and practice our French with them, as well as eat their food. Huzzah!

We've been going to indoor rock-climbing and will hopefully soon hit some of the nice cliffs around here. I just started going to rugby, and though the level is low it should be fun.
Ok, enough for now. Please send us news!
Toodleloo.