Monday, July 17, 2006

Holiday Diary


8th July: Overheard at the airport; seconds before we reach the meet-and-greet area.
  • Mummy, do you love Daddy ?
  • [hesitation] Well, no, not in a romantic way, mumble, mumble, I’m pleased that we meet up from time to time and that we can be friends bla, bla, bla.
  • Pre-adolescent boy then runs into the arms of his father while the mother turns her back on them and rearranges the bags on the trolley.
9th July: Reading Scotland on Sunday I wonder when we started using the word "project", as in "Zidane was brought up on a tough housing project in Marseille". What's wrong with scheme? Later, reading Allan Bennett’s Letters Home, I wonder when we stopped using the word precinct, as in "shopping precinct".

10th July: It may only be 15°C here in Scotland, but it’s still broad daylight at 10.30 p.m.

11th July: A quick visit to Sandra’s Bazar to buy some batteries. It’s a tiny glory hole — a jumble of hand-knitted baby garments, compost, birthday cards, bird seed, paraffin, plastic toys, garden implements, coloured pencils, bottles of gas, balloons, jelly moulds, balls of string ….

12th July: On hearing a reporter on Channel 4 news announce that "of course, there are less people on the roads today", I resolve that I will no longer mark this as a grammar mistake in student writing. Il ne faut point être plus royaliste que le roi.

16th July: Back in France to temperatures of 39°C, which is about the temperature Z was running for most of the journey home.

7 comments:

Ms Mac said...

10th July: I love that about Scotland!

Poor Z! Lots of panadol and hugs when he cools down!

Sarah Mackenzie said...

Glad to see that you are back and as I say that I spot a moth, a very drunken moth, stumbling about in my gin and tonic (well, it is still 28 degrees - it's a cooling nightcap). Ah, one of us will be dead by morning, methinks.

Anonymous said...

Sandra's Bazar sounds the place for me.
Shops always bring out the Nostalgia

Lesley said...

Ms Mac: And at the end we actually got the long evenings and wonderful weather!
Took Z to the drs tonight and it turns out it's a throat infection.

Sarah: What has happened to your blogs? They've disappeared from my blog roll.

Deborah: Especially Tesco.

Anonymous said...

What is wrong with housing estate anyway, surely what they meant here .....

I'm still having lots of fun discussing the fors and againsts of the head butt with all the locals ... the cliché du moment seems to be 'ce n'était pas bien pour les enfants' ......

my favourite reply du moment is 'bien fait pour l'Italien' which hope children don't overhear ..... I'd like to have Z and E's opinion on the matter .... !

Lesley said...

BK: I wasn't thinking of Channel 4 in particular but more of native speakers in general as keepers of the Queen's English. It just seems a bit silly correcting these mistakes in student writing when as soon as they set foot in GB they will realise that the majority of L1 speakers make the same mistake.

Deb: Z seems to think that ramming the top of your head into your opponents' chests is part of the game now. I saw him do it to his Scottish cousins several times.

Mrs I: Z better after three days of antibiotics.

Anonymous said...

Well, I'm very pleased with Z's take on the head butt fiasco .......

He could take up golf, however, the only violence on the course seems to be throwing ones putter into the water or kicking your golf bag ..... neither of which happened today, third day of the Open.
Monty ultra scowled yesterday and missed the cut, and Tiger Woods scowled today despite leading by a stroke. And no-one came to blows.

Confinement

Being confined indoors most of the day, just the four of us, is reminding me of the days when my children were wee and most of our weekends ...