Adopting French ways.....

[londoneye]

Pimpernel, I loved it.    Because most of it is so true!

And Patf, I have seen my neighbour change clothes at least 8 times in one day now.   Yes, I can be a little nosy at times, but I started to be fascinated by this endless change of clothing and last summer I felt compelled to count one day.    I swear she even changed to answer the door once.   Then a couple of times to go out, then a couple of times to come back and do something in the garden.   Then once before she had her dinner (it was summer ok, I wasn't looking through the window !), and then changed back again to gardening clothes when the neighbours popped in for some topsoil, and then changed back again when they had left !!  Myself and OH were mesmerised.   I still don't do that.

Like a lot of you, I confused friends in England when I was over there recently (and myself at times !) by lurching forward to the second kiss, and finding that the friends had moved away after the first.   How to make yourself look really stupid !

I dip pain au chocolat in coffee, like to have a good chat with the woman in the tabac (who talks quite a lot about les anglais, as if i am not one), no longer have any shame whatsoever when it comes to spying on the neighbours.    No point being discrete around here, if you want a good look, hang over the fence, crane your neck around the corner (mostly at our new pool these days), and if that fails make sure you pull your tractor right up to our fence, with a couple of friends on it, because then you have a really good high view over of said pool.   So, after a few shameless displays like this from the neighbours, I feel almost compelled to join in now.    If they are doing anything remotely interesting - ie moving the cows from one field to another (and yes that does come under interesting in these parts!), I brazenly stand hanging over my front gate, yelling encouragement and watching!

[Frederick]

We now  always take our own big strong bags to the supermarkets in the UK having got used to taking own bags in France .....  we find it better than filling loads of little plastic bags .....

[Hoddy]

I only spend my summers in France, but I think I’m getting on very nicely.

Around the house wear a pinny of the kind my grandma used to wear. If it’s cold I wear a sweater or t-shirt under it. If it’s warm I pretend it’s a sundress. On my feet I wear wellies or flip-flops; again depending on the weather.

Of course I change if I'm going out.

I find myself unable to cook if I don’t have a glass of wine in my hand by 18.40 and dinner has, of course, to be on the table at 19.00 when the church bell rings.

The table is covered with oilcloth, so much more convenient if the birds have been visiting in the afternoon.

I love Frenchbread. I already eat offal in the UK, so eating foie gras and snails has been no great step for me.

I shake hands with or kiss everyone I come into contact with. I love it.

I shrug a lot.

I hadn’t thought about this until Cooperlola mentioned it, but since we came back to England this time I’ve been trying to persuade my OH that we ought to have a wooden floor, at least in the hall.

I won’t be dyeing my hair red.

I cannot manage without tea bags.

Hoddy

[Logan]

Complaining about Les Anglais moving in and taking over, (this place used to be soo.... French), increasing the price of houses, not speaking French, driving around in old bangers with GB plates and working on the black, not paying their dues. Oh and going to the supermarket in my slippers.

[Chancer]

I am now quite accustomed to telling anyone that I come into contact with, whatever they are doing, whether they want to know or not, that "vous n'avez pas le droit".

 A bit like the Harry Enfield character (you dont wanna do that!) but with a subtle gallic difference, I cannot see the hypocracy of myself doing these exact same things!

After all I dont tell people not to do something, just that they dont have the right, which of course does not apply to moi[:D]

[Gluestick]

[quote]Well I stopped washing months ago.[/quote]

And you obviously regularly travel on the London tube!

[quote] I only shave once a week.[/quote]

Training to be a media Celeb, then?

 [quote]I will eat anything that has walked ,crawled slithered or swam.[/quote]

You must love various kebab joints and Kentucky Fried Cat!

[quote] I don't mind stopping for a pee anywhere instead of looking for a public convenience. [/quote] You obviously visit most UK town centres on Friday and Saturday evenings!

[quote] I always wear a zip up boilersuit.[/quote]

Do you work for an instant fit tyre centre?

[quote]  I chew garlic because I like the smell.[/quote] Ah ha! A Londoner then!

[quote] I drive a white van.[/quote] Quite obviously you live in the South East; does it have dangerously fitted bits of gutter downpipe on the top?

[quote] I keep my dog chained to a tree for weeks on end.[/quote]

Probably a Rottweiler or a Pit Bull, that howls all day whilst you are out driving your white van!

[quote] I'll happily hold up people in a hurry while telling the girl at the checkout what I did yesterday.[/quote] How do you distract her from reading Hello and OK and discussing her sex life with the girl on the next checkout?

[quote]  I drive as close to the car in front as possible and risk life and limb to overtake them if they have UK plates. This is even better if I can do it just before I turn off.[/quote]

Are you an Hungarian plumber who regularly commutes on the M25 by any chance?

[quote] If we have guests I'll cut them a piece of cheese with the same knife I used to castrate the pigs five minutes before.[/quote]

Are they tied up- the pigs, not the guests - next to the Rottweiler by any chance?

[quote] When I'm out hunting I like to park my vehicle so that it causes as much obstruction as possible and then glare at anyone who drives past.[/quote]

You probably learned this trick when you were on a job replacing a toilet cistern which only needed a new ballvalve. And left the van so that it blocked in five neighbours, prevented the once a fortnight dustcart from accessing the road, the fire engine which needed to extinguish the fire caused by hooligans playing with fireworks and the old lady's letterbox and the ambulance to take her to hospital then.

[quote] I've had all the indoor plumbing taken out of my house and run all the electrics off of one socket.[/quote]

Hasn't the price of scrap copper done well, recently!

Sorry!

It's nearly the end of the week!

[mint]

Gluey

I can always rely on you to make me smile and I must say you have not disappointed me today!

[Gluestick]

Thanks Sweets.

Nearer the weekend my surreal side seems to emerge![:D]

[Frenchie2]

Very funny to read for me, poor Frenchie woman ... [:D][:D][:D]

[pimpernel]

Damn, does this mean that if I'd hung on for a couple more years France would have come to me.[:@] And I wouldn't even have had to learn the language.[:D]

[Clair]

Off at a slight tangent here, but when living in England, I never got used to washing myself with a face cloth... I always used to bring some gants de toilette back from France...

[Nicos]

I'm getting very good at pausing and saying eeeuuuuhhhh several times in each sentence ( only cos my French is pretty grim!![:-))])

[5-element]

[quote user="Clair"]Off at a slight tangent here, but when living in England, I never got used to washing myself with a face cloth... I always used to bring some gants de toilette back from France...
[/quote]

Me too, Clair.  Using a face cloth always felt wrong to me, not as practical as gants de toilette.Just like I didn't like having to abandon the routine use of napkins at the dinner table. And the ways of cutting cheese which seemed to unfait to the last person (who would get nothing but the crust!)

But since I have come back to France, from England I brought back certain habits - like not putting bread directly on the table, using a little side plate. There are many others.

I feel privileged to have been able to take the best out of both worlds.

[Clair]

Bread on a plate, yes I do that too!!

As you say, best of both worlds!

[Gemonimo]

Bread on a plate?  That means more dishes! I was happy to adopt the habits of my french paysan  OH when I met him - same plate from entrée through to the cheese but I couldn't get to grips with turning the soup bowl upside down......... Rustique or what!  And he cleaned his knife with his bread before cutting the cheese.

Jen

[Clair]

Would you still do it at my neighbour's, I wonder ? [Www]

She has a dirty old bucket used to collect food for her rabbits. That bucket is carried daily from the hutches, where it is put down on top of whatever has been scooped out of the hutches, to the kitchen, where it is put on the table ready for the veg peelings. She does clean the table but uses the same sponge that  she cleans the inside of her plastic shoes with... [:'(]

[Gemonimo]

Buerk! But her bunny sauté is probably to die for!  In terms of grossness, we were invited to meet my daughters boyfriends grandmother who was renowned for her home made pâtés, confits, rillettes etc. so I was pretty confident we'd be in for a good meal, and we weren't disappointed.  After the meal I excused myself and slipped off to the loo and discovered,  on the floor next to the lavatory, a basin full of tripes,  pork and heaven only knows what all waiting to be turned into saussages. Knowing her husband had rather bad eyesight, we never accepted another invitation..................!

[Gluestick]

To be absolutely fair, Clair, most of the older generation of British rural people I've met have some similar fairly unpleasant personal habits and ways!

They seem to live cheek-by-jowl with various types of animal's excretions without turning a hair.................

Perhaps it's all the complacence that accompanies familiarity! I have in the past often refused, politely, refreshment, when in truth, I could have guzzled quarts of tea! And as for their paddling through the midden..........................and wellies subquently dropped on kitchen floors.........

We do rather like to exercise a sort of superior "English" attitude to personal hygene and etc; however, the loos in London's mainline stations have invariably been totally disgusting for many years: as they have and are on commuter trains these days.

 

[Clair]

When I mentioned she had used the same sponge to clean her shoes and her table, she said it had done her no harm up to now... she's 82... [;-)]

[Framboise]

OH said he knew an old boy a few years ago who boiled his long johns in the same pan as he cooked his boiled bacon [+o(]   Did he change the water I wonder?

Alarmingly OH said it was probably the best tasting bacon he had ever had............perhaps Persil really is made of parsley?

[Clair]

[quote user="Framboise"] perhaps Persil really is made of parsley?[/quote]

Did you ever doubt it? [:D]

To return to the topic, I have tried to think of which, if any, French habits Mr Clair had adopted since living in France...

The UK household was already pretty much frenchified (Franch papers, French radio, diner at the table, real coffee, pastis for him and Floranis for me...) so there was not much change in the day-to-day routine when we moved to France... He does look at the piles of firewood in the fields and makes appreciative comments though...[blink]

[Framboise]

I admit I admire a good log-pile, probably cos I don't have one yet  [:)] Jealous!!!!  And the more I think about it,  the more tempting those vinyl table covers are becoming...........

OH has taken to eating more snails (which I hate [+o(]),  but we have always eaten at the table en famille since before the children came along and we enjoy a bottle of wine some evenings in front of the telly, so that hasn't changed.    However out in France he does like to watch Only Fools on dvd - neigbours look puzzled at Luvverly Jubbly and the other bit of Francais Del comes up with.   The young lad says "Luvverly Jubbly" in a beautiful french accent!

[Magnolia]

I seem to have adopted the lovely habit of on seeing a foreign number plate, I stop whatever i'm doing and just stare at it until its passed and out of sight. Only the other day, my husband and I were sitting in our garden enjoying a nice pot of good, strong coffee, when a car passed by and neither of us could stop ourselves from putting our cups down and having a really, long look at the passengers. Bizarre but very funny.

 

[Frenchie2]

Now I wonder if I'm really French.. Would my parents have lied to me ? ??

I have at least a shower a day, use deodorant, don't like to have bread crumps on the table, wear no apron........

I feel strange suddenly   [:D][:D][:D][:D][:D][:D]

[Clair]

[quote user="Frenchie2"]

Now I wonder if I'm really French.. Would my parents have lied to me ? ??

I have at least a shower a day, use deodorant, don't like to have bread crumps on the table, wear no apron........

I feel strange suddenly   [:D][:D][:D][:D][:D][:D]

[/quote]

I know what you mean... [blink]