Actually, not kissing – but I thought that perhaps we’d grab your attention quickly!  It’s “bising”.  That’s Alexish for the bisous that are exchanged in France much as hand shakes are elsewhere in the world.

Graham & I have just returned to Les Terraces for the summer.  We took our normal route: Tortola-Sint Maarten-Paris by air and then Paris-Bordeaux-Sainte-Foy-La-Grande via TGV & TER.  We caught the 07:40 TGV from Charles de Gaulle.  En route we encountered several SCNF employees, both male and female, and when they met for the first time for the day there was the inevitable exchange of either bisous – women-men/women-women and handshakes (men-men).  You’re right.  There’s nothing unusual in this behaviour: we’re in France, after all.

Yesterday we headed down to the Orange store at La Cavaille, just outside Bergerac, to exchange our Livebox as it has been a bit flakey for the last few months.  We stood in line awaiting our turn.  While we did so a member of the staff came in to commence his shift.  He headed to his desk, booted up his computer, got his stuff from his drawer and then set about greeting his colleagues.  Don’t ask me why, but somewhere in the back of my head I started timing this operation.  It took him 5 minutes to bise/shake hands before he took his place and commenced serving the next person in line.  By which time we were already being helped and my thoughts had moved on.

However, today was market day here in Sainte-Foy.  I did my usual run around relatively early, although this morning’s rain meant that the market was quieter than expected.  Having completed the weekly shop Graham and I repaired to the pub for our habitual people-watching session.  Aline greeted us with our daily bisous and “Ça va?”  and I idly began to wonder how much of the average French person’s life is taken up with “bising” each year.  I estimated that, here in Sainte-Foy at least, people work with about 6 colleagues.  The Orange episode leads me to believe that a 5-minute daily “hello” routine is probably about average.  That means that most French people spend 26 hours a year just greeting their co-workers.  Add to that your out of work socialising and you can probably double it, easily.  That’s 52 hours a year (not including weekends) of kissing your colleagues/friends!

In the BVI,the UK and the US its rare for people to even grunt a hello or shake hands with their day-to-day contacts, let alone kiss.  What a difference.  Actually, vive la difference!  I’m signed up for a lot more kissing!