![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
If you were expecting the civic visit to Royan to be a jolly, and were getting jealous, banish any such thoughts from your mind. It was bloody hard work.
My mother and I travelled with Graham and Juliette, friends of the parents who are heavily involved in the twinning and go every time. On the ferry on Thursday night we had dinner in the self-service restaurant, then Graham and Juliette decided to get an early night while me ma and I wandered round the ship. We paid a quick visit to the duty free shop, where at a table free samples of spirits were on offer. Spotting a little plastic cup on the table, I poured myself a measure of Bailey’s and drank – earning a disconcerted look from a lady shop assistant next to the table. It turned out the free samples weren’t self-service after all; you were meant to ask the lady to pour you one. She also said I’d poured myself rather a generous measure! Thankfully, she wasn’t too miffed.
Before long we came to a bar where two girls were putting on a show, dancing to various rock ’n’ roll classics and numbers from Grease. We got a drink each, watched the rest of their act and saw the first few songs by the house band, who had a very good female saxophonist/backup singer. At midnight we called it a night and headed for the cabins. I only managed to sleep on and off, thanks mostly to my bed being a bit narrow (about a third of the space it should have had was occupied by a fixed long curved cushion!)
We all had breakfast about half an hour before we pulled into St Malo, then made the six-hour drive south. The heat and sheer long distance made it a bit uncomfortable in the car during the second quarter of the journey, and we could only have the windows open for limited amounts of time because Juliette’s legs got cold, but I was fine after we’d stopped in a little village and all had a walkabout. At 1.30, around two-thirds of the way there, we stopped for lunch in Marans, at a little restaurant off the main road called La Porte Verte. It was a quaint place, with that old feeling – simple décor, doors painted off-white with old-style metal knobs and locks, old-fashioned little print pictures on the walls. The food was OK. When we’d arrived we’d been the only customers there; as we left at the end of our meal the place was full. Outside was a busy canal, with a row of flagpoles flying the flags of most of the EU countries. I spotted the British flag was missing; Juliette wondered whether that was a deliberate snub, but as we drove away down the main road we saw the British, French and German flags on the other side of the main road.
At 4 pm we arrived at the home of Graham and Juliette’s hosts, a 77-year-old wine expert called Guy and his English wife Vicky. We sat around for a little while having a cup of coffee and making general chat about the plans for the days ahead, Vicky showed us some photos of their children and their partners, then their youngest son Craig came downstairs and showed us some joke short films he’d made. For the next half hour we all sat watching a DVD of a choral concert on the beach last summer, in which Vicky and another son, Keith, had sung and Craig had played the piano. Finally, Guy took us all down to his wine tasting room and showed us his awards, his collection of varnished wooden wine plaques (they completely covered all the walls) and tennis trophies won by himself and his daughter Marjorie, who was once South Western France tennis champion and played at Roland Garros. She’s now married to a (French) footballer called David, who was released by Swansea City last summer and is looking for a new club… We didn’t get offered a taste of any wine.
We left Graham and Juliette to settle in while Vicky gave us a lift to the home of our own hosts, François, a surgeon, and Marie, a local councillor. They were really pleasant and friendly. After showing us to our rooms they welcomed us with a cup of coffee. My mother speaks only a few words of French, so that introductory chat saw me take on the burden of my main role for the rest of the trip : interpreter.
Although I got an A in A-level French and can get by in everyday situations in France, four days of being called on to translate for several of our town’s civic delegation flagged up quite a few gaps in my French vocabulary. Every time, though, after a short pause I’d think of something in French that approximated to what I was being asked to convey.
After coffee François showed us round the garden, then invited me to check my e-mail. We briefly met their son Alex, who was out most of the time and kept himself to himself when he was in, then we had a break of about an hour to wash, change and relax before setting off for that evening’s meal at a Moroccan restaurant. That was the first and last break we were to get all trip.
Marie drove us out to the restaurant, which was a huge Middle East-style tent. All 100-odd delegates from both towns were sat around three huge tables. I was sat next to Rosemary, an ex-mayoress of our town who always participates in the twinning, and we had quite a good conversation all evening. The couscous and the vegetables were first-class, and accompanied by a very pleasant Moroccan wine. Dessert was tinned fruit salad, and like Justine from BB4 “I fucking do not like tinned fruit”, but I managed to eat about half. When the waiter came round to collect the finished dishes he actually looked at me and said in English “You don’t like it?” I replied in French that I’d had generous helpings of starter and main course, so “ça suffit.” That satisfied him, though I really thought he should have been content to just ask whether I’d had enough.
When we got back it was almost midnight but François and Marie insisted we have a nightcap with them. We all had quite a pleasant chat; my translating skills were stretched to the full again, though our hosts did try a few sentences of English. They asked whether we preferred full English breakfast or continental – we chose continental – and were kind enough to suggest 9 am for breakfast next morning, giving us a much needed lie in.
Saturday morning brought our first French breakfast. There was no danger of our going hungry! We got a huge bowl of corn flakes each, a gigantic cup of coffee, orange juice and an endless flow of croissants and toast (with English Oxford Marmalade – not bought for our benefit, François and Marie like it). After that we drove out to meet up with many of the party at a historic lighthouse about an hour away, and climbed all the way up its 300-odd steps before we all had a guided tour (with me pressed into service as translator again).
We all went on to a restaurant for lunch, then were taken out to the local golf club and all spent the afternoon practicing our putting and being shown how to drive by the club coach. Once I’d got my stand and relaxed swing right, I was driving the ball 70-80 metres.
On the way back to François and Marie’s they took me ma and I on a visit to the town hall (where a wedding was in progress out the back). When we got in, my mother gave me the English text she’d written for her speech at that night’s Civic Dinner, I wrote it out in French for her and we spent the next half hour rehearsing. Then it was time to get our best togs and civic badges on and get ready to go.
We shared a table with François and Marie, Rosemary and a couple of others of the French party whom we’d got talking to at the earlier events. All the French made a fuss of my mother – ‘Madame le Maire’ – and my fondness for olives became a major talking point of our table! The main course was sea bass. I’m not a great fish enthusiast (except the fried kind that comes with chips) but it was pleasant enough. Someone mentioned that I’m a history graduate, so one chap at our table, one of Royan’s senior councillors, asked if I knew about the time England’s government was French-speaking. I did – he was impressed that I knew that all our kings from William I to Edward I had French as their mother tongue, and he was quite amazed when I told him the English parliament and law courts conducted their business in Norman French well into the 15th century.
When my mother made her speech she massacred the pronunciation of a lot of the words – forgetting what we’d rehearsed earlier in the evening – and called Royan 'Rouen', which is another French town, but the locals appreciated that she’d bothered to speak French at all. Dixie, one of our councillors, tried to persuade my mother and me to become regular participants in the twinning. We explained that we couldn’t host anyone in the years when our town stages the event (my father wouldn’t have Royannais guests pitching up at our house for five days!) but Dixie was undeterred – he said other hosts could always be found, if we’d just participate in the events. We gave a non-committal reply.
Again we got back to François’ after midnight. He had a special nightcap prepared for us this time – cognac! It was pretty strong stuff; I managed to drink a couple of shots but it was a bit much for my mother, so François gave her a Grand Marnier.
Sunday was the nicest day. We had an unhurried breakfast (sans François, who’d been called to the hospital at 7 am) then Marie drove my mother and me into the town’s main market. We bought some lovely cheese from one of the three cheese stalls (Marie flagged that one up as the best). I used my translation skills to help my mother buy peaches, and couldn’t resist a bag of chocolate-coated peanuts roasted while you wait. One stall had loads of cheap football shirts including a Dutch one, but alas, they only had small sizes, so I settled for an Olympic baseball cap for 10 euro.
The next stall had a selection of attractive watches for 10 euro each. I’d been hoping to replace my existing timepiece since it acquired an ugly crack across the face, but hadn’t expected to be able to afford a new one for months yet. I scanned all the different watches on the stall for what seemed like ages, then decided I needed a digital as it makes keeping my time record at work much easier if I can see the time at a glance, so picked a nifty digital model. Back in the car, as we drove to church for the Civic Mass, once I’d put my civic badge on I set my new watch to the right time and did a quick watch swap.
We had reserved seats in the front row. Three minutes before mass started, Vicky came up to me and asked if I’d read the English version of the Gospel. As that didn’t call for a competent French-speaker, I was a bit surprised she’d chosen me not my mother, but agreed. The service being nearly all in French, I pretty much let it wash over me. I did my reading without a hitch (and got complimented on it by quite a few people after).
As we all walked away from the church to go to the Aperitif Reception in another, little market, I spotted one of our party wearing a Portsmouth football shirt. Who, on an official visit, wears a football shirt to church?? I got talking to the bloke – he was actually a nice guy, just completely fanatical about Pompey – and we discussed football till we arrived at the market.
The official greeting us invited my mother to be first to taste the Pineau (a local drink made of brandy and wine). It was very tasty, and there were bowls of potato snacks and peanuts on the table. Afterwards we had a little diversion when Annie and her husband, Rosemary’s hosts, who were giving us a lift to a restaurant on the beach for late lunch (Marie was going off to see her mother as it was Mother’s Day in France), failed to meet up with her as we left the reception, looked round and didn’t see her anywhere. So they drove us all over Royan looking for her and going apoplectic, until in the end they just drove us to the restaurant – and, as we arrived, saw Rosemary getting out of someone else’s car. Rosemary got some real stick for that.
A nice well-done steak at the beach, then we went on to the Jardin du Monde – a huge garden park with garden plants and trees from all over the world. Somebody spotted a weed in one of the gardens, prompting a couple of our party to talk about weeds they had in their gardens back in England! You come all this way and visit these lovely gardens, and you start talking about your bloody dandelion problem back home!! Rosemary said Father Ted, who was with the travelling party, was having trouble with ‘round elder’. “Oh, that’s horrible,” my mother sympathised… We concluded our visit by getting into groups of five for a little motorboat ride round the park. Having been on the go non-stop for two days, I used the boat trip as an opportunity to lie back, relax and let the world go by.
In the gift shop they had postcards of Royan – I had to get one for Ann - and the kind lady in charge even had stamps valid for postage to the UK. On the drive home, François and Marie, who’d met up with us again in the gardens, pointed out a drive-past postbox to me. The box was on a traffic island in the middle of a busy main road – as you drove past, you opened your car window and just dropped your letter – or in my case postcard – in the slot. They took us for a tour of the sea front and fishing-boat area, then when we got home it was time for my mother and me to work on another speech for her before getting ready again, this time for the Farewell Dinner…
This time we did all the official bit with the speeches and exchange of gifts in the foyer at the very beginning before going through to dinner. My mother absolutely butchered this speech, running sentences into each other and stopping in the wrong places as well as mangling the pronunciation (when I gently mentioned it to her later, she explained that my full stops were too small for her to see). One of the French officials presented me with a gift – a Royan polo shirt.
The first course appeared on the menu as ‘La Marmite du Pecheur’. I joked to my mother and Rosemary that we were having Marmite for starter. It turned out to be seafood pie. After that first course, a compere appeared, said a few words of welcome and brought on a male singer, who had a penchant for covering Elvis! Main course was absolutely DELICIOUS duck. There were huge intervals between the courses, during one of which Chris, one of our councillors, came up to me and tried to twist my arm into committing us to becoming regular participants. I fobbed him off with “I can’t speak for my mother,” though that didn’t stop him keeping trying for a few more minutes – till he went off to browbeat me ma… Rosemary warned us that last time dessert had been served some time after 1 am. This time it wasn’t so bad, we got to the concluding coffee and chocolate nut just after midnight. Even when all the coffees had been drunk the disco was still going strong, but François spotted I was looking knackered so asked me ma and I if we wanted to go home, and we agreed.
We really couldn’t have stayed up much longer than that, as at 8.15 on Monday morning Graham, Juliette, Guy and Vicky came to take us for a drive round the vineyards of St-Emilion. I was still flagging from the three days of non-stop activity and of being interpreter all the time. Thankfully, Guy made the long drive bearable by putting The Beatles 1967-1970 CD on :) We visited three vineyards and had guided tours – and tastings – at them all. Graham insisted my mother and I wear our civic badges when meeting the vineyard owners and managers. The tours were very interesting and the people really nice, especially Mme Vayron, owner of the second vineyard we visited, who gave us a copy of her book and wrote a personal message in it. My speaking French to the locals went down very well with them. Madeleine, owner of the first vineyard, had told Vicky how her ex-husband had evicted her from his vineyard when he divorced her, taken her child from her and kicked her out on the streets; later, when Vicky said we were approaching Madeleine’s ex-husband’s vineyard, my mother joked “Let’s put something nasty through his letter box.” I replied “Let’s sow round elder in his vineyard.” When Juliette asked her what I’d said, my mother repeated it but said ground elder. I checked with me ma; she confirmed it was ground not round. I felt a bit flat, though of course it was nothing compared to the devastation of when I was 14 and Smash Hits’ printed lyrics told me Sophia George wasn’t singing ‘You’re just a flashy curly wurly’.
I really craved a half-hour rest break.
No such luck. Our first repose was at the last vineyard we visited, after our tour, when the six of us sat down with the vineyard-owning family in their barn/dining room for a picnic dinner Vicky had made. The first course, alas, was omelette and I’m pretty egg-phobic, but I couldn’t be rude so bravely ate 90% of mine. I think Vicky noticed I was struggling, as she turned to me and said “I usually serve omelettes, as they’re very good for tasting wine with.” She was fine towards me the whole time. The one thing I found a bit disorienting was that there was no change, or even wiping, of plates between courses. Our second course, quiche, was simply planked on the plates on top of the dribs and drabs left over from the omelette. Next came steak, that the two brothers from the vineyard roasted on the charcoal fire in the barn while we waited. As the brothers served, Juliette asked if she could have a well done piece. I translated ‘well done’ for her – ‘cuit’ – and one brother replied that they were all ‘cuit’. The steak was absolutely superb. On top of that, we had cheese AND a sweet course (chocolate gateau and apricot cake). I was absolutely stuffed. The host family, my mother (with me doing a simultaneous translation) and Graham said some little informal words of thanks, my mother showed all the family her Mayor’s badge, she bought a box of three bottles of their wine and we all said goodbye.
Guy drove us to St-Emilion town. We had a wander round the old church, the tourist office that was in an old building of some kind and an old castle, and went walking round the town. My mother bought a couple of boxes of their famous nuns’ recipe macaroons – said to be the best in the world – then Guy took us all for a glass of champagne in a café.
I got what rest I could on the two-hour drive back to Royan. We all went back to François and Marie’s for dinner, though as we were enjoying our pre-meal drinks, peanuts and olives in the garden François was called out to the hospital again. The rest of us sat down to a superb meal – Marie had done us proud with her duck and her dish of potatoes, rice and vegetables, accompanied by an excellent pineau. During table talk it showed that my mother’s French was improving, prompting Marie to call her ‘une bonne étudiante,’ though my services were still much in demand. I heard Vicky explain to Marie that she'd chosen me, not my mother, to read the lesson in church as traditionalist Catholics would not have liked a female. During the cheese course Marie made much of my fondness for la fromage! François came back, having saved his patient’s life, just before 11 pm, as we were all drinking coffee. We all talked to him for a little while then Guy and Vicky drove Graham and Juliette back to theirs and François and Marie invited us into their living room for our farewell drink together.
François poured me a cognac again and my mother a Grand Marnier, and for about an hour we talked about French life, the problems faced by France’s Arabs and Britain’s minorities, the condition Anne of Brittany (‘a strong woman’, Marie said approvingly) laid down when she married the French King incorporating her duchy into France – that roads from Brittany into the rest of France must never be toll roads but must be subsidised by the French state – a law still in force today – and France’s and Holland’s prospects at the World Cup. My mother presented them with their gifts – a lavender tea tray, a silver-framed photo of Gosport past and present and a box of Cadbury’s chocolate biscuits – and we all said fond goodnights, complete with the francophone double kiss. Having been on the go non-stop from 8 am to past midnight, once I’d changed into my pyjamas and cleaned my teeth, as soon as I flopped into bed I was out.
I woke up at 6.10, rolled straight back to sleep and woke up again at 7.35, 40 minutes before Graham and Juliette were due to pick us up. At 7.55 my mother knocked my door. I was packing my stuff, so she let me get on with it, though she was anxious for me not to skip breakfast. (I wouldn’t have minded as I still had my chocolate nuts - I’d not yet had a quiet moment in which to eat them). I came downstairs in time for Marie to serve me one croissant, a couple of pieces of toast and a coffee, though Graham turned up 10 minutes early so he had to wait while I finished.
Having had no me time for five days, I spent most of the long haul to Caen listening to my personal stereo. After about an hour we called at a service station and had a cup of coffee. The previous night Graham had been on at us to become twinning regulars; as we came out of the station I turned to my mother and said “I can’t do this every two years.” “I know,” she said.
We stopped at a supermarket and stocked up on French bread, wine, chocolate and biscuits to take home, and baguettes, salad, crisps and stuff for a picnic further along. At the picnic we opened some of my cheese too. Back into the car for two more hours, back on the Walkman for me, then suddenly, as I was idly silently mouthing along to the Carpenters’ Goodbye To Love, Caen’s port of Ouistreham hove into view.
We parked the car in line and got out to the café, where we met the one other couple from our party who were going back by ferry and had a quick chat. On the boat Graham bought us all reclining seats and – like me ma - I snatched some shut-eye for most of the ride. Over dinner, Juliette and I exchanged happy memories of reading the William books, and she confessed that she STILL enjoys listening to Martin Jarvis’ tape recordings of them!
As we sailed in towards Portsmouth, my mother rushed out to take a photo of the Spinnaker Tower as we approached it and I switched on my mobile. There were two messages from Daniel, both dating from the 27th. He, Katie Bee and Digby had decided to launch their firework on that day; both messages were attempts to contact me to invite me to the launch. I phoned Daniel; after a false start when my phone decided to switch itself off, I made sustained contact with him and apologised for only just having got his message. I explained that my phone is a crappy model that doesn’t work outside the UK. He told me the launch had been an enormous success and that they’d all been to look at Katie’s paving stone – it’s still there, intact. We promised to meet up in the near future and said goodbye, bang on time as the call was going out for passengers to rejoin their cars.
We arrived home at 11 pm. My father came out to help us all unload the car, then I had a relaxing cup of coffee and opened my post. I had a summons for jury service from 26 July. Fine, except on Monday 31 July I’ll be travelling back from the gathering of the clan in Wales. I did have the option to be excused as I’ve done jury service less than two years ago, but that was an anti-climax – I was only kept there four days and never got to try a case – so I really wanted to do it. I wondered about dropping out of the Welsh trip, but my mother made it clear she’d be devastated if I didn’t go. Plus, thinking about it, if my jury duty went the full two weeks it’d interfere with the shifts I’ve agreed to cover for Rachel as part of the Great Swap. As I got ready for bed I looked at the form again and saw you can ask for your jury service to be postponed. So I filled out the form, asking for postponement until after 21 August on the grounds that I had a holiday booked and was needed to cover shifts at work. Phew.
And this morning it was back to work. It was a little heavy going at first, but a bar of French chocolate saw me through :) At coffee break, Lesley confessed to being hooked on BB7, so she filled me in on everything I’d missed. She was a little put out that I was a Lisa fan – “She never stops swearing!” – but we settled down to a good old BB chinwag, while Paula admitted she was following Celebrity X Factor instead…
In The News this evening there was a little piece on the Gosport Carnival in a couple of weeks' time. It said that my mother is going to open it - no, she jolly well isn't; she'll be on holiday in Cyprus then. Of more interest to me was the name of the Carnival Queen - she's the much younger sister of a girl I had a serious crush on in sixth form college...
I still think Round Elder is a better name for a weed than Ground Elder.
My mother and I travelled with Graham and Juliette, friends of the parents who are heavily involved in the twinning and go every time. On the ferry on Thursday night we had dinner in the self-service restaurant, then Graham and Juliette decided to get an early night while me ma and I wandered round the ship. We paid a quick visit to the duty free shop, where at a table free samples of spirits were on offer. Spotting a little plastic cup on the table, I poured myself a measure of Bailey’s and drank – earning a disconcerted look from a lady shop assistant next to the table. It turned out the free samples weren’t self-service after all; you were meant to ask the lady to pour you one. She also said I’d poured myself rather a generous measure! Thankfully, she wasn’t too miffed.
Before long we came to a bar where two girls were putting on a show, dancing to various rock ’n’ roll classics and numbers from Grease. We got a drink each, watched the rest of their act and saw the first few songs by the house band, who had a very good female saxophonist/backup singer. At midnight we called it a night and headed for the cabins. I only managed to sleep on and off, thanks mostly to my bed being a bit narrow (about a third of the space it should have had was occupied by a fixed long curved cushion!)
We all had breakfast about half an hour before we pulled into St Malo, then made the six-hour drive south. The heat and sheer long distance made it a bit uncomfortable in the car during the second quarter of the journey, and we could only have the windows open for limited amounts of time because Juliette’s legs got cold, but I was fine after we’d stopped in a little village and all had a walkabout. At 1.30, around two-thirds of the way there, we stopped for lunch in Marans, at a little restaurant off the main road called La Porte Verte. It was a quaint place, with that old feeling – simple décor, doors painted off-white with old-style metal knobs and locks, old-fashioned little print pictures on the walls. The food was OK. When we’d arrived we’d been the only customers there; as we left at the end of our meal the place was full. Outside was a busy canal, with a row of flagpoles flying the flags of most of the EU countries. I spotted the British flag was missing; Juliette wondered whether that was a deliberate snub, but as we drove away down the main road we saw the British, French and German flags on the other side of the main road.
At 4 pm we arrived at the home of Graham and Juliette’s hosts, a 77-year-old wine expert called Guy and his English wife Vicky. We sat around for a little while having a cup of coffee and making general chat about the plans for the days ahead, Vicky showed us some photos of their children and their partners, then their youngest son Craig came downstairs and showed us some joke short films he’d made. For the next half hour we all sat watching a DVD of a choral concert on the beach last summer, in which Vicky and another son, Keith, had sung and Craig had played the piano. Finally, Guy took us all down to his wine tasting room and showed us his awards, his collection of varnished wooden wine plaques (they completely covered all the walls) and tennis trophies won by himself and his daughter Marjorie, who was once South Western France tennis champion and played at Roland Garros. She’s now married to a (French) footballer called David, who was released by Swansea City last summer and is looking for a new club… We didn’t get offered a taste of any wine.
We left Graham and Juliette to settle in while Vicky gave us a lift to the home of our own hosts, François, a surgeon, and Marie, a local councillor. They were really pleasant and friendly. After showing us to our rooms they welcomed us with a cup of coffee. My mother speaks only a few words of French, so that introductory chat saw me take on the burden of my main role for the rest of the trip : interpreter.
Although I got an A in A-level French and can get by in everyday situations in France, four days of being called on to translate for several of our town’s civic delegation flagged up quite a few gaps in my French vocabulary. Every time, though, after a short pause I’d think of something in French that approximated to what I was being asked to convey.
After coffee François showed us round the garden, then invited me to check my e-mail. We briefly met their son Alex, who was out most of the time and kept himself to himself when he was in, then we had a break of about an hour to wash, change and relax before setting off for that evening’s meal at a Moroccan restaurant. That was the first and last break we were to get all trip.
Marie drove us out to the restaurant, which was a huge Middle East-style tent. All 100-odd delegates from both towns were sat around three huge tables. I was sat next to Rosemary, an ex-mayoress of our town who always participates in the twinning, and we had quite a good conversation all evening. The couscous and the vegetables were first-class, and accompanied by a very pleasant Moroccan wine. Dessert was tinned fruit salad, and like Justine from BB4 “I fucking do not like tinned fruit”, but I managed to eat about half. When the waiter came round to collect the finished dishes he actually looked at me and said in English “You don’t like it?” I replied in French that I’d had generous helpings of starter and main course, so “ça suffit.” That satisfied him, though I really thought he should have been content to just ask whether I’d had enough.
When we got back it was almost midnight but François and Marie insisted we have a nightcap with them. We all had quite a pleasant chat; my translating skills were stretched to the full again, though our hosts did try a few sentences of English. They asked whether we preferred full English breakfast or continental – we chose continental – and were kind enough to suggest 9 am for breakfast next morning, giving us a much needed lie in.
Saturday morning brought our first French breakfast. There was no danger of our going hungry! We got a huge bowl of corn flakes each, a gigantic cup of coffee, orange juice and an endless flow of croissants and toast (with English Oxford Marmalade – not bought for our benefit, François and Marie like it). After that we drove out to meet up with many of the party at a historic lighthouse about an hour away, and climbed all the way up its 300-odd steps before we all had a guided tour (with me pressed into service as translator again).
We all went on to a restaurant for lunch, then were taken out to the local golf club and all spent the afternoon practicing our putting and being shown how to drive by the club coach. Once I’d got my stand and relaxed swing right, I was driving the ball 70-80 metres.
On the way back to François and Marie’s they took me ma and I on a visit to the town hall (where a wedding was in progress out the back). When we got in, my mother gave me the English text she’d written for her speech at that night’s Civic Dinner, I wrote it out in French for her and we spent the next half hour rehearsing. Then it was time to get our best togs and civic badges on and get ready to go.
We shared a table with François and Marie, Rosemary and a couple of others of the French party whom we’d got talking to at the earlier events. All the French made a fuss of my mother – ‘Madame le Maire’ – and my fondness for olives became a major talking point of our table! The main course was sea bass. I’m not a great fish enthusiast (except the fried kind that comes with chips) but it was pleasant enough. Someone mentioned that I’m a history graduate, so one chap at our table, one of Royan’s senior councillors, asked if I knew about the time England’s government was French-speaking. I did – he was impressed that I knew that all our kings from William I to Edward I had French as their mother tongue, and he was quite amazed when I told him the English parliament and law courts conducted their business in Norman French well into the 15th century.
When my mother made her speech she massacred the pronunciation of a lot of the words – forgetting what we’d rehearsed earlier in the evening – and called Royan 'Rouen', which is another French town, but the locals appreciated that she’d bothered to speak French at all. Dixie, one of our councillors, tried to persuade my mother and me to become regular participants in the twinning. We explained that we couldn’t host anyone in the years when our town stages the event (my father wouldn’t have Royannais guests pitching up at our house for five days!) but Dixie was undeterred – he said other hosts could always be found, if we’d just participate in the events. We gave a non-committal reply.
Again we got back to François’ after midnight. He had a special nightcap prepared for us this time – cognac! It was pretty strong stuff; I managed to drink a couple of shots but it was a bit much for my mother, so François gave her a Grand Marnier.
Sunday was the nicest day. We had an unhurried breakfast (sans François, who’d been called to the hospital at 7 am) then Marie drove my mother and me into the town’s main market. We bought some lovely cheese from one of the three cheese stalls (Marie flagged that one up as the best). I used my translation skills to help my mother buy peaches, and couldn’t resist a bag of chocolate-coated peanuts roasted while you wait. One stall had loads of cheap football shirts including a Dutch one, but alas, they only had small sizes, so I settled for an Olympic baseball cap for 10 euro.
The next stall had a selection of attractive watches for 10 euro each. I’d been hoping to replace my existing timepiece since it acquired an ugly crack across the face, but hadn’t expected to be able to afford a new one for months yet. I scanned all the different watches on the stall for what seemed like ages, then decided I needed a digital as it makes keeping my time record at work much easier if I can see the time at a glance, so picked a nifty digital model. Back in the car, as we drove to church for the Civic Mass, once I’d put my civic badge on I set my new watch to the right time and did a quick watch swap.
We had reserved seats in the front row. Three minutes before mass started, Vicky came up to me and asked if I’d read the English version of the Gospel. As that didn’t call for a competent French-speaker, I was a bit surprised she’d chosen me not my mother, but agreed. The service being nearly all in French, I pretty much let it wash over me. I did my reading without a hitch (and got complimented on it by quite a few people after).
As we all walked away from the church to go to the Aperitif Reception in another, little market, I spotted one of our party wearing a Portsmouth football shirt. Who, on an official visit, wears a football shirt to church?? I got talking to the bloke – he was actually a nice guy, just completely fanatical about Pompey – and we discussed football till we arrived at the market.
The official greeting us invited my mother to be first to taste the Pineau (a local drink made of brandy and wine). It was very tasty, and there were bowls of potato snacks and peanuts on the table. Afterwards we had a little diversion when Annie and her husband, Rosemary’s hosts, who were giving us a lift to a restaurant on the beach for late lunch (Marie was going off to see her mother as it was Mother’s Day in France), failed to meet up with her as we left the reception, looked round and didn’t see her anywhere. So they drove us all over Royan looking for her and going apoplectic, until in the end they just drove us to the restaurant – and, as we arrived, saw Rosemary getting out of someone else’s car. Rosemary got some real stick for that.
A nice well-done steak at the beach, then we went on to the Jardin du Monde – a huge garden park with garden plants and trees from all over the world. Somebody spotted a weed in one of the gardens, prompting a couple of our party to talk about weeds they had in their gardens back in England! You come all this way and visit these lovely gardens, and you start talking about your bloody dandelion problem back home!! Rosemary said Father Ted, who was with the travelling party, was having trouble with ‘round elder’. “Oh, that’s horrible,” my mother sympathised… We concluded our visit by getting into groups of five for a little motorboat ride round the park. Having been on the go non-stop for two days, I used the boat trip as an opportunity to lie back, relax and let the world go by.
In the gift shop they had postcards of Royan – I had to get one for Ann - and the kind lady in charge even had stamps valid for postage to the UK. On the drive home, François and Marie, who’d met up with us again in the gardens, pointed out a drive-past postbox to me. The box was on a traffic island in the middle of a busy main road – as you drove past, you opened your car window and just dropped your letter – or in my case postcard – in the slot. They took us for a tour of the sea front and fishing-boat area, then when we got home it was time for my mother and me to work on another speech for her before getting ready again, this time for the Farewell Dinner…
This time we did all the official bit with the speeches and exchange of gifts in the foyer at the very beginning before going through to dinner. My mother absolutely butchered this speech, running sentences into each other and stopping in the wrong places as well as mangling the pronunciation (when I gently mentioned it to her later, she explained that my full stops were too small for her to see). One of the French officials presented me with a gift – a Royan polo shirt.
The first course appeared on the menu as ‘La Marmite du Pecheur’. I joked to my mother and Rosemary that we were having Marmite for starter. It turned out to be seafood pie. After that first course, a compere appeared, said a few words of welcome and brought on a male singer, who had a penchant for covering Elvis! Main course was absolutely DELICIOUS duck. There were huge intervals between the courses, during one of which Chris, one of our councillors, came up to me and tried to twist my arm into committing us to becoming regular participants. I fobbed him off with “I can’t speak for my mother,” though that didn’t stop him keeping trying for a few more minutes – till he went off to browbeat me ma… Rosemary warned us that last time dessert had been served some time after 1 am. This time it wasn’t so bad, we got to the concluding coffee and chocolate nut just after midnight. Even when all the coffees had been drunk the disco was still going strong, but François spotted I was looking knackered so asked me ma and I if we wanted to go home, and we agreed.
We really couldn’t have stayed up much longer than that, as at 8.15 on Monday morning Graham, Juliette, Guy and Vicky came to take us for a drive round the vineyards of St-Emilion. I was still flagging from the three days of non-stop activity and of being interpreter all the time. Thankfully, Guy made the long drive bearable by putting The Beatles 1967-1970 CD on :) We visited three vineyards and had guided tours – and tastings – at them all. Graham insisted my mother and I wear our civic badges when meeting the vineyard owners and managers. The tours were very interesting and the people really nice, especially Mme Vayron, owner of the second vineyard we visited, who gave us a copy of her book and wrote a personal message in it. My speaking French to the locals went down very well with them. Madeleine, owner of the first vineyard, had told Vicky how her ex-husband had evicted her from his vineyard when he divorced her, taken her child from her and kicked her out on the streets; later, when Vicky said we were approaching Madeleine’s ex-husband’s vineyard, my mother joked “Let’s put something nasty through his letter box.” I replied “Let’s sow round elder in his vineyard.” When Juliette asked her what I’d said, my mother repeated it but said ground elder. I checked with me ma; she confirmed it was ground not round. I felt a bit flat, though of course it was nothing compared to the devastation of when I was 14 and Smash Hits’ printed lyrics told me Sophia George wasn’t singing ‘You’re just a flashy curly wurly’.
I really craved a half-hour rest break.
No such luck. Our first repose was at the last vineyard we visited, after our tour, when the six of us sat down with the vineyard-owning family in their barn/dining room for a picnic dinner Vicky had made. The first course, alas, was omelette and I’m pretty egg-phobic, but I couldn’t be rude so bravely ate 90% of mine. I think Vicky noticed I was struggling, as she turned to me and said “I usually serve omelettes, as they’re very good for tasting wine with.” She was fine towards me the whole time. The one thing I found a bit disorienting was that there was no change, or even wiping, of plates between courses. Our second course, quiche, was simply planked on the plates on top of the dribs and drabs left over from the omelette. Next came steak, that the two brothers from the vineyard roasted on the charcoal fire in the barn while we waited. As the brothers served, Juliette asked if she could have a well done piece. I translated ‘well done’ for her – ‘cuit’ – and one brother replied that they were all ‘cuit’. The steak was absolutely superb. On top of that, we had cheese AND a sweet course (chocolate gateau and apricot cake). I was absolutely stuffed. The host family, my mother (with me doing a simultaneous translation) and Graham said some little informal words of thanks, my mother showed all the family her Mayor’s badge, she bought a box of three bottles of their wine and we all said goodbye.
Guy drove us to St-Emilion town. We had a wander round the old church, the tourist office that was in an old building of some kind and an old castle, and went walking round the town. My mother bought a couple of boxes of their famous nuns’ recipe macaroons – said to be the best in the world – then Guy took us all for a glass of champagne in a café.
I got what rest I could on the two-hour drive back to Royan. We all went back to François and Marie’s for dinner, though as we were enjoying our pre-meal drinks, peanuts and olives in the garden François was called out to the hospital again. The rest of us sat down to a superb meal – Marie had done us proud with her duck and her dish of potatoes, rice and vegetables, accompanied by an excellent pineau. During table talk it showed that my mother’s French was improving, prompting Marie to call her ‘une bonne étudiante,’ though my services were still much in demand. I heard Vicky explain to Marie that she'd chosen me, not my mother, to read the lesson in church as traditionalist Catholics would not have liked a female. During the cheese course Marie made much of my fondness for la fromage! François came back, having saved his patient’s life, just before 11 pm, as we were all drinking coffee. We all talked to him for a little while then Guy and Vicky drove Graham and Juliette back to theirs and François and Marie invited us into their living room for our farewell drink together.
François poured me a cognac again and my mother a Grand Marnier, and for about an hour we talked about French life, the problems faced by France’s Arabs and Britain’s minorities, the condition Anne of Brittany (‘a strong woman’, Marie said approvingly) laid down when she married the French King incorporating her duchy into France – that roads from Brittany into the rest of France must never be toll roads but must be subsidised by the French state – a law still in force today – and France’s and Holland’s prospects at the World Cup. My mother presented them with their gifts – a lavender tea tray, a silver-framed photo of Gosport past and present and a box of Cadbury’s chocolate biscuits – and we all said fond goodnights, complete with the francophone double kiss. Having been on the go non-stop from 8 am to past midnight, once I’d changed into my pyjamas and cleaned my teeth, as soon as I flopped into bed I was out.
I woke up at 6.10, rolled straight back to sleep and woke up again at 7.35, 40 minutes before Graham and Juliette were due to pick us up. At 7.55 my mother knocked my door. I was packing my stuff, so she let me get on with it, though she was anxious for me not to skip breakfast. (I wouldn’t have minded as I still had my chocolate nuts - I’d not yet had a quiet moment in which to eat them). I came downstairs in time for Marie to serve me one croissant, a couple of pieces of toast and a coffee, though Graham turned up 10 minutes early so he had to wait while I finished.
Having had no me time for five days, I spent most of the long haul to Caen listening to my personal stereo. After about an hour we called at a service station and had a cup of coffee. The previous night Graham had been on at us to become twinning regulars; as we came out of the station I turned to my mother and said “I can’t do this every two years.” “I know,” she said.
We stopped at a supermarket and stocked up on French bread, wine, chocolate and biscuits to take home, and baguettes, salad, crisps and stuff for a picnic further along. At the picnic we opened some of my cheese too. Back into the car for two more hours, back on the Walkman for me, then suddenly, as I was idly silently mouthing along to the Carpenters’ Goodbye To Love, Caen’s port of Ouistreham hove into view.
We parked the car in line and got out to the café, where we met the one other couple from our party who were going back by ferry and had a quick chat. On the boat Graham bought us all reclining seats and – like me ma - I snatched some shut-eye for most of the ride. Over dinner, Juliette and I exchanged happy memories of reading the William books, and she confessed that she STILL enjoys listening to Martin Jarvis’ tape recordings of them!
As we sailed in towards Portsmouth, my mother rushed out to take a photo of the Spinnaker Tower as we approached it and I switched on my mobile. There were two messages from Daniel, both dating from the 27th. He, Katie Bee and Digby had decided to launch their firework on that day; both messages were attempts to contact me to invite me to the launch. I phoned Daniel; after a false start when my phone decided to switch itself off, I made sustained contact with him and apologised for only just having got his message. I explained that my phone is a crappy model that doesn’t work outside the UK. He told me the launch had been an enormous success and that they’d all been to look at Katie’s paving stone – it’s still there, intact. We promised to meet up in the near future and said goodbye, bang on time as the call was going out for passengers to rejoin their cars.
We arrived home at 11 pm. My father came out to help us all unload the car, then I had a relaxing cup of coffee and opened my post. I had a summons for jury service from 26 July. Fine, except on Monday 31 July I’ll be travelling back from the gathering of the clan in Wales. I did have the option to be excused as I’ve done jury service less than two years ago, but that was an anti-climax – I was only kept there four days and never got to try a case – so I really wanted to do it. I wondered about dropping out of the Welsh trip, but my mother made it clear she’d be devastated if I didn’t go. Plus, thinking about it, if my jury duty went the full two weeks it’d interfere with the shifts I’ve agreed to cover for Rachel as part of the Great Swap. As I got ready for bed I looked at the form again and saw you can ask for your jury service to be postponed. So I filled out the form, asking for postponement until after 21 August on the grounds that I had a holiday booked and was needed to cover shifts at work. Phew.
And this morning it was back to work. It was a little heavy going at first, but a bar of French chocolate saw me through :) At coffee break, Lesley confessed to being hooked on BB7, so she filled me in on everything I’d missed. She was a little put out that I was a Lisa fan – “She never stops swearing!” – but we settled down to a good old BB chinwag, while Paula admitted she was following Celebrity X Factor instead…
In The News this evening there was a little piece on the Gosport Carnival in a couple of weeks' time. It said that my mother is going to open it - no, she jolly well isn't; she'll be on holiday in Cyprus then. Of more interest to me was the name of the Carnival Queen - she's the much younger sister of a girl I had a serious crush on in sixth form college...
I still think Round Elder is a better name for a weed than Ground Elder.