Yeaaaay!  We’re home!  We’ve been home for 2 weeks.  Don’t ask me where the time has gone, as I haven’t a clue.  Neither has G.  We had promised ourselves a couple of weeks off to recover from our own version of what the Queen so aptly termed an “annus horribilis”, but that hasn’t happened …. the 2 weeks off, I mean.  Our return has been as busy as ever, preparing for renters, working out what needs to be maintained/upgraded/replaced and making a plan for doing so, and so on.  We’ve enjoyed a couple of Saturday mornings people-watching at the market and catching up with news from Sainte-Foy’s market stall-holders and other acquaintances.

My personal high-point thus far was being invited to take a run down to have an ‘after service’ natter and glass of wine with Kate at La Table Rouge on Easter Monday.  Originally it was to have been a ‘girls’ session’ but, just as I was leaving to drive down to Cancadoual, Kate rang and said that her husband, Fabian, and her friend Kate’s husband, Francois, had arrived and asked if I’d like to bring Graham too.  That was a no-brainer …. I turned the car around and stopped outside the house, giving Graham no opportunity to say ‘No, I’ll just have a quiet kip in front of the TV, Darling,’ (he’s a bit shy).

So half an hour later we arrived at Kate’s little fiefdom.  The last remaining lunch clients looked a bit askance at us as we arrived so late, but that was fine.  We knew what we were doing, even if they didn’t.  It was lovely to be greeted as family – or very close to it.  And this, finally, brings me around to the title for this post.  Fabian, who is half-French, half-English, came to France at the age of 10, or thereabouts.  Charlie, Kate 2’s son, is 22 and he too was brought to France at the age of 10.  Both of them (educated at French universities) confessed to language challenges, bashing their heads over the frustrations of genders and tenses etc, particularly with written French.  Which gives me hope that maybe we’re not doing so badly after all.  Or perhaps the reality is that if people who have advantages that neither Graham nor I will ever have can’t conquer the idiosyncrasies of French how the bejiddly can we ever aspire to?  Worry not – I shall continue to try, doing my best not to butcher the language, but at least failure to conquer French will / might be vindicated by those with better qualifications needing help too.

There is certain hope in the recent arrival of a pair of mating swans on the opposite bank of the Dordogne from Les Terraces.  Demonstrating a depressing lack of originality I’ve nicknamed them “Fred & Ginger”.  We can’t believe that they’re really going to nest on the patch of turf (river) that they’ve carved out as their territory but, so far, they’ve seen off any nosy dogs that have come their way and endured the noise of the team from the Services Techniques department with their strimmers and lawn mowers.  And made peace with another pair of swans and a pair of geese.  We’re looking forward to the arrival of cygnets.  And, in the interim, the horny toads have begun their chorus.  In another month we’ll be able to hear them half way through town too.