Bienvenue en France

We had to keep pinching ourselves in those first few weeks – this was not a dream, it wasn’t even a holiday that would be all over in two weeks time – this was now our reality.

I won’t pretend that the reality was all wonderful. My encounter with a snake in the garden shed was somewhat unexpected and interesting. I didn’t pay close enough attention to make a firm species identification I’m afraid but it hissed at me in what appeared to me to be a suitably aggressive manner for me to conclude that we were better off keeping well apart!

Given the fact that we had arrived in the middle of the summer, the weather was also an initial disappointment as the cool temperature and steady rain was far too reminiscent of Cheshire. That said, we realised that in comparison to the torrential downpours and flooding that were affecting the UK at the time, it really wasn’t that bad.

Despite having invested in a really good Rosetta Stone computer based language course and having spent many hours with headphones on engaged in French conversation with the characters on screen, the reality of suddenly trying to converse with real French people speaking quickly and with strong accents was a bit of a shock. I had come to think of myself as reasonably proficient in French but my confidence seemed to desert me as I floundered around for the right word to use, struggled to come up with anything other than the present tense for a verb and managed to make little sense of anything spoken to me.

As the weeks go by, I realise that there is no substitute for time and experience and I now surprise myself with how much I understand. My conversations with our neighbour Nadine used to involve much gesticulation accompanied by drawings and diagrams on scraps of paper! A few weeks on and we converse over a glass of wine in a much more civilised manner, although Nadine remains unstintingly patient with me.

It never ceases to amaze me how many Brits we have met who have made their home in France but still see no reason to learn anything more than rudimentary French. I guess it is a mixture of old colonial attitudes, laziness and their desire to socialize only with like-minded people but to me it just seems like downright arrogance and rudeness which obviates our motivation to live here. If I am to build a life and business in France then I simply must speak the language to a reasonably proficient standard – to that end I have booked lessons with a teacher in Busserolles and I’ll let you know how that goes.

Having signed up to open a bank account with Credit Agricole, we duly received our chequebook and notification that our bankcards were ready to be collected from the local branch in Piegut. Excited by the prospect of having an official French bank card in our pockets, we went the next day thinking we could tie it in with a trip to the weekly market. Given how easy the process of opening the account had been up to this point, we were a bit surprised at what happened when we subsequently presented ourselves at the branch. “Yes monsieur, we have your bank cards here but we cannot give them to you because it is a Wednesday. It is only possible to collect them on a Tuesday or a Saturday morning”.

At that point I began to think of the words and sentence structure required to engage in an emotional yet reason based argument as to the absurd stupidity of such a response. But I didn’t. I reminded myself that this was France and that I had vowed not to waste my energy nor raise my blood pressure in trying to fight the bureaucracy.

So I calmly accepted that that was the way it was to be, there was undoubtedly reason behind this arrangement and I thanked the bank clerk and wished her a good day. What did it matter that I had to come back to such a delightful town in a few days time?

Such a philosophy is highly recommended and it would prove its value time and time again in the weeks to follow.

Piegut is a lovely town with a Wednesday market that stretches from one end of town to the other, attracting people from all over the Perigord Vert. We were delighted to see that there was going to be some kind of festival happening at the end of June, little did we know how unique an event this was going to be for our little local town – I’ll tell you more next time!