Je ne parle pas le francais

I have a wonderful neighbour – when I say neighbour, I mean about a 20 minute walk down to the river, across the bridge and up the other side. He always reminds me of Keith Richards from the stones, but on a good day (if ever one was possible ) and lives contentedly with his family in retirement, planting corn and occasionally changing the attire of his scarecrow. Thing is, whenever we meet, he always insists on speaking French to me. He knows I’m English but perhaps somewhere along the line thinks it’s a short hop from French to English (indeed perhaps he has a point, because whenever you hear the French speaking English, they are in fact still speaking French). A typical ‘conversation’ between us might then go … (me) Buon Giorno (KR) Bon Jour (me) tut, come stai? (KR) ma femme est a la maison (me) Il tempo e bello (KR) il fait trop chaude aujourd hui.. etc etc rendering any form of meaningful dialogue virtually impossible. And so it was one fine afternoon that I happened to be driving back towards the village when my car spluttered to an inexplicable halt. Despite my ‘efforts’ meaning I tapped the speedometer and rattled the gear stick, it refused to start. Getting out of my car, I peered about but quickly realised that as it was 1 o’clock, the nation had ground to a halt and was collectively occupied with scoffing plates of pasta and bolognaise sauce. Forget the global stock markets, the queues of potential customers, let’s just shut shop and come back later when we’re full. Just as I was about to give up and…. and what…? I spotted a lone figure ambling towards me. God bless him, it was ‘Keith’. I sent up a silent prayer. Here was salvation. No waiting around for bored mechanics to turn up, no frantic phonecalls to explain tardiness, everything was going to be alright. Shaking his hand very enthusiastically, I started toexplain my predicament but got no further than ‘as I was driving down this road…’ when he interrupted me with a wild sweep of the hand ‘les vaches sont malades’. I stopped, confused, and wondered why he had embarked upon a conversation about some cows not feeling particularly well when there were more pressing issues at hand. He continued in a theatrical manner ‘le lait est vert’ explaining that these poor beleaguered cows were producing green milk. Whilst I momentarily sympathised with them, a temporary depression started to descend around me. My initial hopes of a speedy resolution to this matter were rapidly fading and as I struggled to translate with my rusty schooldays French, realised he was now talking about the benefits to health of consuming petits poids. ‘Please, I implored. The car… the car…probleme!!’ pointing frantically in its direction. ‘Ah oui, j’avais un Citroen…non un Renault…’ and he wandered off, physically and mentally, leaving me stranded bringing to mind the frantic castaway waving manically at a ship that carries on and leaves him shipwrecked. If it wasn’t for Alfredo and his tractor that came chugging along 10 minutes later, I would still be there, gazing wistfully down at the village while I waited for the help that would never come.