Another sunny day and had a text chat with Wendy about doing a linen inventory soon and about handing over the whole studio to me, which will earn me more money – hooray!
We walked up to the top road to get some milk and a poulet roti. Huw went into Casino while I waited and I was quite surprised when he returned empty handed; there was no milk in Casino! We were further gobsmacked to see that our poulet roti man wasn’t there either! Because we hadn’t been to Le Phare last night I’d arranged to see Andy in the bar so that he could explain what I need to do about the letters I keep getting. I was really hoping he was going to tell me that I didn’t need to do anything, but that wasn’t the case. Every month even while I’m not earning I have to complete a declaration of earnings and return it saying zero until I get work. I also have to employ an official translator to translate my birth certificate. As you know I love all things French except their red bloody tape. The Casino in the old town was closed so I asked Seb if he had any milk we could buy but he didn’t have enough to spare. So we went home with no poulet and no milk so we just have to hope that our guests don’t want coffee. I prepared all the snacks we bought yesterday onto our best Tunisian plates while Huw prepared the vin chaud and made the table look very pretty and festive.
At 5.03 the doorbell rang and we happily welcomed in Audre and Olivier. How can they be so punctual and French at the same time? Olivier had kindly brought one of his own vinyls for Huw and Audre brought some very pretty macaroons for me – so thoughtful.
I found this rather naff explanation about why giving macaroons is a French thing…
I (this is the macaroon talking!) have become the most coveted cookie in France, particularly in Paris. I am a bit of a trendy item for people to serve, the favourite sweet of children, the ideal breakfast treat, the beloved cookie of Parisian tea salons, the fashionable gift to give, and the ideal cookie for holidays such as Valentine’s Day and Mother’s Day, and finally, without sounding pretentious, I am a bit of a Star.
They didn’t bring wine so I guess it’s the done thing here to take a gift rather than a bottle; we’re learning something every day.
I gave them the choice of beer, pink champagne, vin rouge or vin chaud and was amazed when Olivier asked for a cup of English tea! Huw told the story of the lack of milk in Villefranche this morning and he said he was happy to drink it black.
We had a lovely evening and there were no awkward silences and both Huw and I tried to speak now and again and they were really encouraging. They didn’t eat very much so maybe our choice of snacks was probably a bit off but we live and learn. This isn’t the best photo but…
We asked a lot of questions about the French language and they were really helpful and admitted
that English is easier to learn at the beginning. The best bit was when they explained that a
mother-in-law is the same word for a step-mother; both are called belle-mère (beautiful mother)
and the same goes for step-father, step-brother, sister and so on. So Olivier has two blood brothers
who are just ‘brothers’ frères and he has a step brother who is called beau-frère
(beautiful/handsome brother.) As Huw says the more we learn about French the harder it gets!
When they left at around 9pm Audre said that I should meet her sister-in-law (belle-sœur)
tomorrow if she can arrange it because she thinks we’d get on very well. All in all I think it was a
successfull evening and we both fell asleep in front of the TV.
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