Floating in France - Scenes from a Confused Summer

Just a Trim

2009-08-21T17:38:00.006+02:00

I didn’t even want a bloody haircut – it’s not due for another two months at least. Lisa insisted I check the place out, so that she can go before that dance she keeps on about. Why she thinks I should be the guinea-pig, I have no idea…

And just look at the result! I don’t know what happened – I’d written down all the useful phrases from the Handy French book: ‘Just a trim, please’; ‘I like it long’; ‘No more than half an inch’…

The hairdresser – Sandrine - simply Ignored all that. I would have complained… but I hadn’t looked that up.

And Sandrine was so touchy-feely - I hate that. When someone I don’t even know keeps squeezing my arm and pressing against me it makes me uncomfortable. Specially a woman. And you never know if they expect you to touch them back…

Lisa said she thought it looked Fabulous, and that once you got used to my ears they were quite sexy. Huh! (Actually, CAN ears be sexy)?

Oh lord! I wonder if it's too hot to go out in my woolly caving hat...

Taking a Bow

2009-08-17T19:10:00.007+02:00

I don’t know how last night happened.

'Why don’t we go out this evening, Howard,’ Lisa had said. ‘This real hunk I met at the newsagent told me there’s a bar where they have live music once a week, and it’s like an English pub! You’d enjoy that, Howard…’

‘Maybe,’ I had to admit. ‘Depending on what sort of live music… What’s it called, this place?’

‘The Strangled Parrot,’ she said.

How pleasantly rustic…

It was tiny, dark and steamy, in a back street obviously favoured by dog-lovers; at least it was only ten minutes from the flat. There were several thousand people inside I’d say, but somehow we wedged ourselves at a table up by a wall, and sat while the throng seethed around us and waiters miraculously brought us many drinks. (Must say, I like the waiter idea in a bar – avoids all those unfortunate spillages).

Anyway… The music was a new experience - a Brittany folk band and their Very Big piano accordeon. One minute I was trying hard to drink myself to death on some ridiculous and constant cocktail; then Lisa went off to find the loo and then I saw the Stalker-woman from the café the other day; and THEN I was up on stage - with her and that bloody awful piano accordeon.

After a while I realised that the wind-up gramophone noise really was coming from me… I sort of recognised, “…been a Wild Rover for many a YEEAR, and I’ve hmm hmmm hmmm MONEY on whiskey and beer…” Oh God, why hadn’t I drunk more Red Hot Hammers?… Why was I here? Why wouldn’t this stop?

But it didn’t stop. The Woman was laughing and waving her arms and singing along in this raucously sexy French accent; in fact, everyone was singing along. The whole bar, singing and cheering and waving their glasses, and suddenly I was whisked back to The Bell with Joe and Eddy and everyone, all joining in as loud as we could - ‘I asked her for credit; she answered me NAYYY…’

I think we sang it three times in all; the crowd wanted more, but I needed a beer.

Did I really take a bow and give Stalker-woman a hug? I did. Because for a little while I’d been somewhere I belonged, and it had felt warm and cosy…

Café Society

2009-08-14T21:09:00.004+02:00

Can it really be only the second day? Well for a start, I can see the language is going to be a problem…

This morning, we wandered around town and stopped at a pavement café. In spite of Handy French for Holidays, we ended up with half an inch of tar in one cup, and a gnats-pee teabag dangling in the other. When I politely showed the waitress the entry for “milk please”, I thought she was going to stab me with her pen-weapon. I wonder if you can buy normal tea here.

And then I got stalked when I went into… I mean, is nothing sacred?

The barman had vaguely waved at a door that said Toilettes, and I was standing Mid Pee (behind a VERY inadequate screen, I might add) when who should come in but a Woman! And she had the gall to nod at me!

I recognised her as the woman who’d been staring at me from another pavement table and who Lisa had said must fancy me. That may have been one of her unamusing jokes, I suppose…

Anyway – sharing the toilettes with a woman - what the hell’s the etiquette in this situation? I thought I’d better nod back; then as soon as she’d disappeared (next time, I’m using a bloody cubicle too), I had a fight with the soap dispenser and got out quick.

All Lisa said - between ribald snorts - was, “I told you she fancied you!”

Why?

2009-08-13T17:12:00.005+02:00

I said, quite logically, ‘Why not let Daniel do his thinking… Forget about him for a while’. Suddenly I’m dedicating my summer to babysitting Lisa on her lunatic quest for revenge - revenge on her fiancé and all those who laughed at her when she went back to work without a romantic Paris weekend to boast about.

Oh god - I need my summer break. I have a HUGE amount of preparatory work for the autumn term; summer visit to Mum; SIX field meets of the Caving Club - including a very important digging trip I’ve been looking forward to all year - and… and a million other things.

I don’t think I even like France. My one experience of it is a school day-trip to Boulogne when I was eleven; I got both legs stuck down the same hole in my swimming trunks whilst changing under a tiny towel and the evil gaze of the entire beach.

Why would I go back?