The Language 1: Getting my Horses Cut.

N'inquiétez pas, I'm not going to write this post in French. Given my current French level, I'd need a few weeks to stagger through a couple of whole paragraphs. On the other hand I may sprinkle the odd mot here and there, just to give you the idea that I know what I'm talking about.

I went to the hairdresser today for the third time. To tell you the truth, I'm not very good at the conversation bit even in English hairdressers. I run out of things to say after about ten minutes and spend the next hour looking at myself in the mirror, which is not my ideal way to spend an hour these days. Going to a French hairdresser is absolutely terrifying for the same reason squared. Cubed. Tenthed? (Sorry, my Maths is even worse than my French.) Fortunately Madame la Coiffeuse in this village is patient and kind, she speaks slowly and clearly as you need to do with linguistic idiots, and better still, she knows everything and everybody. Today we discussed the weather, it was snowing this morning, raining this afternoon and sunshining this evening, (just like dear old Manchester, n'est pas? Except for the rain, of course.)

After that she asked my opinion of the current unrest in France: the strikes, the unemployment et cetera. I imagine, by now that you're a touch impressed at my understanding, but in fact she actually talked about this topic for five minutes or so, and I picked up a few key words, (grève - strike, chômage - unemployment; manifestation - demonstration) which at least gave me some idea of the subject. What she thinks of the situation, I have no idea, even though she told me, I think, at some length. She could be a raving leftie, or a raving rightie. Not a clue. Which is quite relaxing - if you don't know what people think, if you can't understand the nuances of opinion, politics, religion, ideas, et cetera, you can't categorise people into those you agree with and those you don't. Not only do I not know what she thinks, I haven't a clue what I think, either. Which again is quite relaxing. In response to her question, I gave her a Gallic shrug in the mirror and tried something like 'Peut-être il sera une revolution nouvelle.' She looked a bit alarmed at that, so I shut up. Jokes don't translate well in any language.

The thing about the horses, in case anybody, who is even worse at French than me, was wondering, is that I have now finally learned the difference between chevaux (horses) and cheveux(hairs), having had it painfully dinned into me by my Alliance Française French teacher back in Manchester before we came. Her teaching method was to fall about laughing hysterically whenever I said chevaux instead of cheveux or vice versa. It's a good method. It worked.

The other thing about cheveux is that it's a plural, which seems weird until you realise that actually you do have quite a lot of them, so it's the English that's up the spout.

So - two for the price of one today - cheveux cut and a language lesson. Unfortunately my French still isn't good enough to tell the hairdresser that I'd rather not have my hairs shaped into a firm bouffant style. Back home when I saw myself in the mirror I looked like Margaret Thatcher with just a hint of Nicolas Sarkozy.

Vive la Révolution! Off with their horses!