Hammond - Just Enough French

First published in Australia in 2002 by

New Holland Publishers (Australia) Pty Ltd

Sydney Auckland London Cape Town

www.newholland.com.au

1/66 Gibbes Street Chatswood NSW 2067 Australia

218 Lake Road Northcote Auckland New Zealand

86 Edgware Road London W2 2EA United Kingdom

80 McKenzie Street Cape Town 8001 South Africa

Updated edition printed in 2005

Copyright 2002 text: Sally Hammond

Copyright 2002 photographs: Gordon Hammond

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publishers and copyright holders.

National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication Data:

ISBN 1741104084.
e-ISBN 9781921655579.

Prrrp-fut Prrrrrrrrrp-fut. Prrrrrp-fut-t-t !

Weve been trying to start our shiny red rental car for fifteen minutes now and all we get is: prrrp-fut, prrrrrrrrrp-futta splutter where there should be an enthusiastic roar of anticipation for the day ahead. After all, were only a bus ride from Paris and the airport. Its too soon to abandon our plans.

Monsieur Picard, our host, hoists a hefty length of heavy-duty rope from the depths of his garage.

I will tow you to the start, he says. Or maybe we will see the Avis man. (He pronounces it Ah-vees.)

Monsieur Picard appears certain of successits obvious hes had this problem beforeand suddenly I feel a small surge of confidence too. He lugs the rope over, backs his own car up to ours, executes a few expert knots, and with a flourish the two cars are connected. Slowly ours is dragged off around the corner, my husband Gordon at the wheel, to try to jolt it into ignition. The car, it seems, is blushing scarlet (as are we) with the shame of it.

As I wait, I fill in the time by stamping my feet. I say its because of the chilly morning air, and maybe it is, but theres a little impatience too. Weve already said all our au revoir s, and the other chambre dhte (bed and breakfast) gueststhe ones wed left swapping tales in French around the table last night, and who we beat to the table this morningare only just pouring their first coffee, just crunching into that first buttery croissant. No way will I involve them in thisbetter to shiver in the thin sunlight and count the pigeons whirring around the village clocktower.

When the chimes, nine of them, send a new bunch of birds spurting off, along come the cars again as if on demand, ours still firmly wedded to M. Picards bright blue Citron.

We will call ze Ah-vees, announces M. Picard, determined to rid us and his front lawn of our baffling problem. He disappears into the house.

Inside the kitchen we can just see Madame Picard, a billow in the shadows and our first sight of the unseen force that had sent dish after irresistible dish to our table last night. She had still been sleeping at breakfast timeas mimed by M. Picard, his hands pillowing his headwhen we asked to meet her. Id rummaged through her livre de recettes , a carefully compiled, homemade book of her own recipes which was for sale on the sideboard, but sadly they were in French and a bit beyond my menu-only vocabulary. Still, Id been able to track down those delicious stuffed potatoes wed enjoyed at dinner. Yes, as I thought: eggs, cheese and potatoes and un peu de sel et de poivre frais (a touch of salt and freshly ground pepper) mixed together, then added to the potato shells before a final flash in the oven and a triumphant sprint to the table so that they arrived piping hot, still crackling and sighing.

M. Picard comes back, relief on his face, waving our key and pressing the automatic unlock, muddling his words in his haste. Laughing.

It is simple, he says, you must unlock like so! He waves the keys with their automatic sensor in a dramatic arc at the patient Renault. And then you start it. Straight way. Like zees. He is taking supreme delight in the situationa man who has solved the riddle of the universe. Or at least the last clue in the newspaper cryptic crossword. And that wretched car, of course, rumbles into life the moment he turns the key in the ignition.

But you you open ze door, you sit, he accuses. (Hes right, wed sat there studying our route for the morning.) You try to startbut the car, it will not. It is simple. It sinks you ave become your own cars robb-err. You must start itstraight way. Like zees. And he plunges the air again with a fistful of imaginary keys.

As M. Picard rolls up the rope, you can see the story winding in with it. Next time its pulled out, the tale will be something like this:Last time, I had ze Oztralians ere. They tried to steal zeir own car! Pff!

Quickly we jump inno time for explanations or profuse regretsour thanks and goodbyes entwining with merci s and au revoir s and melting into the steam from the exhaust as we finally wave our extravagant thanks.

Best to get going at once, we reckon, before this car starts to doubt our motives again.

We should go to France this year, I announced to Gordon at breakfast one morning. Gordon, the long-suffering, (mostly) cheerful aider and abetter of even my craziest ventures, merely nodded. Just like that, over the Weetbix and Cornflakes.

For a month this time, I added, pushing my luck, encouraged when the response wasnt totally negative. Try to really see a bit of it. Travel around.

Did he splutter? Or was it just a cornflake going down the wrong way?

To be sure, we werent after adventure travel. More like enlightenment, I guess, but without the incense and beads. Otherwise I suppose we would have had our sights set on an audience with the Dalai Lama, or a trek through the Andes.

After all, spending a month in France is not a huge decision if your home is in London, or even Birmingham. Its just a short paddle away, over a strip of water that people occasionally swim across. These days a quick train trip has you in ParisEast End to Eiffel Towerin three hours. But theres no train, and definitely no swimming, to France from Australia.

From certain parts of Britain you can even see the coast of France and, depending on your politics, its haze shouts sun-drenched retirement, or economic rivalry. Australia, of course, basks alone in a mlange of southern oceans, approached most closely from the north by the haphazardly placed island stepping stones of South-East Asia, but you cant just run to the beach and shade your eyes and say, See, over thereJava! Or Papua New Guinea. Or anywhere else for that matter.

Perhaps that accounts for Australias accused insularity. Perhaps that is why world weather news in the northern hemisphere forgetfully drops us off the edge of the planet. So that now wraps up CNN World Weather, booms the TV host after giving minute details for the US, Europe, Africa and South America. Have we, and all of Asia for that matter, washed away overnight? Perhaps thats why France sounded so exotic on that rainy morning in Sydney.