3. French lessons

I always thought I would leave London at some point and for that reason I had already started to try and learn Spanish. London is definitely not a city to grow old in. I was only equipped with the most meagre of French from my school days which at this point will have been 30 years ago. So off I trot to City Lit to ascertain what class would best suit me. I knew I wasn't a complete beginner or very advanced and said as much to the French Tutor I met there. Her response was to say 'well let's speak french now then, tell me about your summer holiday'. I gulped, bit the bullet and mangled what is supposed to be a beautiful european tongue. I got my tenses wrong and ummed and ahhed through a wincing few minutes. She took my bon mots on the chin and elegantly gave me the name of a class I should join. It must have been the aural equivalent of watching a shire horse attempt a flawless dressage routine.

I joined the class with some trepidation but as there were varying degrees of confidence and knowledge I found I wasn't that bad after all. A lot of my school french did resurface and held me in good stead. Our teacher was just brilliant. She was patient, encouraging and never judgmental. It was three hours every Tuesday with at least a page of written homework every week which thoroughly plunged my brain into gallic exercise. The trouble with not having the spongebob brain of youth is that I find I need to have my sentence ready rather than trusting to making mistakes and engaging in a richly gorgeous flow of banter. But I also think that once we are living there and the flooding therapy begins, there will be no more safety nets and hopefully I will absorb a lot more. In the meantime I have to keep it simmering away like a good pot au feu.

The most important thing for me, and it will be frustrating at first, is being able to be creative and funny in French. I try, but some things don't readily translate from English in French and can seem rather dull and literal in their mundane adaptation rather than the dazzling wit I want them to appear to be. But perserverance is all, which is exactly the same word in French, but with accents.