French is difficult enough, without having to contend with the expressions

Waiting at the school gate. Idly listening to a couple of mothers talking about the new teacher. He is very very good and suddenly I hear, ‘Les bons professeurs, ça ne court pas les rues.’

What on earth does that mean???.. Teachers running in the streets? How on earth did they get there?

This sentence has been whirling around my head for several days and I really don’t think it can be taken literally so it must be an expression. Thinking about the context in which it was spoken, I wonder, could it mean that good teachers are hard to come by or good teachers are thin on the ground?..

Forced out of my comfort zone

Today we have been busy in La Maison Rouge, making sure everything is in working order before the BIG Spring Clean next month!! When we do this we seem to come away from each gite with a bigger list of jobs than we we started!..

At 12.00 Mark suggest lunch. Fabulous idea. Assumptions are such dangerous things…. In my mind I thought he meant lunch in the Bonne Joues across the road. A gorgeous Auberge, I could almost taste the rabbit terrine with the tiny crunchy gherkins and the wonderfully fresh bread and then I found myself hoping that chicken cooked in cidre would be on the menu.

Bonnes Joes Restaurant Monterrein

We left La Maison Rouge and turned the corner.

‘Where are we going?’ I asked vaguely pointing at the Bonnes Joues that was rapidly beaming a distant dream.

‘The D8, today it is a workers lunch.’

It started well.. Quiche, charcuterie or fish bake to start. The usual bottles of red were on all the tables.

Then it went down hill… ‘Veals head, beef tongue or pork cheek.’

What do you go for?… we both went for the pork cheek and it was actually very very good.. the meat was so so tender and no fat, no gristle just lean tasty meat. Delicious.

Cheese, Tarte Tartin and Expresso… Not bad at all

€26 for us both including wine and coffee..

France, the nation of the cheque book.

When we left for France twelve years ago I very rarely used a cheque book. So rarely it was kept in a box in the bottom of the wardrobe.

In the UK now, cheques must be incredibly rare, if fact, I bet some people don’t even have a cheque book!..

If you crave a bit of nostalgia make your way over across the channel to France… the French love a cheque.

Imagine a busy supermarket, and here I speak from experience, a lot of experience, and the person at the front of the queue pays by cheque. First they fumble around in their bag for the chequebook, they write the cheque, then the cashier asks for their Carte d’identité. The cashier then copies, what seems to be, the WHOLE of the carte d’identité onto the back of the cheque. Then, the NEXT person pays by cheque and so it goes on…

It really is no surprise that cheques are so popular. Cheque books are free…. Debit cards cost about €40 each… so for a joint account you will be paying between €80 and €90 for two debit cards.

Now, I am no banker but SURELY it is cheaper for the banks to process card payments than cheque payments… and it would make to supermarket queues flow a lot quicker…

A hanging Tongue

Avoir la langue bien pendue.

Just love this French Expression for someone that talks a lot. So much nicer than, ‘he talks nineteen to the dozen’…

Keep imaging the most talkative people I know with the tongues hanging down well past their chins !!