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Friday 28 October 2011

Deauville Diary – Week Four


The Gallic misadventures of a Milford village idiot abroad.

Saturday: Another lovely sunny day, blue skies and the only chill in the air was my latent fear of when I would next upset my wife. Went to a charming brocante (antiques market) today, then lunch outside in a street-side café opposite the church. Bought a rather fetching new chair for the lounge. (See picture) On the way back we stopped on the beach to visit what had become our favourite ‘ice cream parlor’. I had my usual two ‘boules’, banane et café, my wife then took both me, and mon ami le ice cream seller, by surprise when she ordered a cone with two boules. Whether she had forgotten her sensible ‘you are what you eat’ head, or she was getting into the holiday spirit, who knows. Our evening meal involved a stroll up the beach to enjoy a French style tapas as we watched the sun go down over the expansive golden sands. Earned plenty of brownie points today, planning how to use them up right now.

Sunday: Watched my adoptive homeland narrowly lose in the Rugby World Cup Final, then was off to ‘Fete de la Coquille’ which is a festival celebrating Coquille St Jaques (Scallops) & fruits de mer, only the French eh! The event in Villers Sur Mer was enormous, with what must have been a couple of hundred stalls selling every food imaginable, people walking a miniature pig on a lead and scores of people wearing traditional dress and the regalia of their own particular food speciality. Got to meet ‘Claude the King of Scallops’, after we bumped into each other and I helped picked up his basket of shellfish delights. We had a nice chat about molluscs and I established that he did not know the Mayor of Deauville, or indeed speak any of my type of French. Crevettes, French bread and a bottle of Saint-Emilion Grand Cru (Just €7!) for tea, delicious, - life is good. (Note to self: Give up smoking, packets are around €7 each and similar to home, could get lots of cases of Saint-Emilion for that.)

Monday: Called into ‘La Mairie’ again to see if I could arrange to meet the mayor today. This time it initially appeared that the receptionist spoke fluent French, however when she misunderstood my request that ‘I would like to talk to the mayor”, thinking I has said; “I would like to stalk the mayor” it became clear her French was not as good I thought. As she looked slightly panicked and was reaching for the phone, I felt like it might be a good time to leave.

Back on the seafront again for our daily evening walk on the beach with the dogs. (In fact the dogs are getting four beach walks a day, I think they are beginning to feel like camels, spending so much time on the sand.) Each early morning and early evening we can see stable lads in trotting racing carriages, and on thoroughbred racehorses from the local stables, training on the beach and running in the shallow lapping sea, quite a sight.

Later we took the dogs for a MacDonald’s. I know, - sacrilege! I do appreciate that the French like to dress their dogs, but I think my wife took it a bit too far this time.

Tuesday: Walking the dogs on the beach yet again, sun is shining and harmony is in the air. As we passed the beach bar we decided to take a seat on the beach veranda for a hot chocolate. “Do you fancy a crepé”; I lovingly asked my wife. “No thanks”; came the reply. Soon moi garcon was delivering our drinks and my ‘Crepé avec buerre caramel’. “That looks nice” my wife said. “Do you want one?”; “No thanks”. Two delicious bites into my crepé and I heard, “Can I have a bite”. Arrrgh!! For such a petite head, my wife has a massive mouth when eating my food. Why is it that when asked the answer is ‘No, I don’t want one”, - and then it is fine to just expect to eat mine! Why not just say “I won’t order one for myself, but I am more than happy to wind you up by eating most of yours - dear”. If I had wanted a fraction of a crepé, I would have ordered exactly that. Perhaps the calories don’t count if you do not order for yourself, or there is some sort of depraved satisfaction is seeing my devastating loss. Either way I end up with half of the crepé I was looking forward to. “I am going to order two next time”; I said. “That’s just greedy”; came the angelic reply.

Became a national hero this afternoon. To explain, I was waiting in the Hyper U Supermarket car park for my wife, (Yes, we were back at the supermarket again), who was now looking for a desperately needed hat and scarf (Yes, I know it was sunny) Anyway, I was approached by a harassed looking man, at first I did not understand what he was saying, then I realise he was talking in English. I should have immediately known he was English, as he & I were the only people wearing shorts in Northern France. It transpired that he had been shopping in the supermarket, leaving his wife and kids in the car. They in turn had put all the car lights on, played with the radio and other gadgets, leaving the battery totally flat. The man was in a foreign land needing a jump start, and your hero came to the rescue. After unsuccessfully searching around for a lot longer than necessary, my wife gave a huff, as only she can, and showed me in exaggerated movements how to open our car bonnet. Once the cars were aligned, we soon had his car fired up. Before he left, I asked him to call the mayor to let him know of my heroic actions. A quick treble French kiss and he was on his way ever grateful to have met such a noble fellow countryman. (When I say ‘French kiss’, I don’t mean ‘French kiss’ as the English know it, I mean ‘French kiss’ in the terms of on the cheeks. Face, that is.)

Wednesday: Went to Honfleur market this morning, ‘Are you sure it is on”; my wife asked. “Of course”; my confident reply. Naturally, it was not on today, so we sat outside a café and had hot chocolate and pastries, so got away with that one, apart from the ‘imbecilé’ comment under her breath of course. Beach busy this afternoon, as quite warm and it seems that it is half term for the kids. Why is it, if French people have a dog it has to fit in a handbag, or even better a small pocket. We would struggle to get our two in a set of extra large Louis Vuitton suitcases. The miniature chiens are really confusing our pair, they are convinced they are cats and just want to eat them. On returning to the seafront from our daily trip to le supermarché, I spotted about 100 people splashing in the sea further along the beach, ‘I get the urge to go and investigate what they are doing” I said. My wife was not so enthused; “I get the urge to insert this baguette where the sun doesn’t shine” she reposted. Charming. Anyway we have curry tonight so nothing can dampen my spirit. The French have of course never heard of Indian food, so we have had to improvise. We bought curry paste & mango chutney with us (learnt this from when we last emigrated), fortunately they do sell chicken breast, and pitta bread make a surprisingly good substitute for naan bread. Hoping for an *encore of another curry later in the week. (*There you go, another one the French don’t have their own word for.)
 
Thursday: Having the physique of Adonis, the voice of an angel and the irresistible charm of his father, Matthew, my son arrived today, along with Kayleigh, his girlfriend, who of course further enhances the brains and beauty of this duo. My wife often comments how alike we are. (Me and Matthew that is, not me & Kayleigh.) On our little afternoon guided tour we visited La Planche, and wandered amongst the beach huts with names of famous films stars on the fences. Deauville holds an annual Film Festival and records the names of featured actors for perpetuity, however I am not sure what film ‘Buzz Aldrin’ starred in. As Kayleigh read the names, a look of horror covered her face a split second after she said; “Why aren’t their names written in French.” “Please don’t put that in your blog”; she pleaded.” “Of course not”; I lied. Lobster again tonight, looks like it is going to be a good week.

Friday: Early start for visit to the D-Day Landing Beaches today. Pegasus Bridge, Juno, Sword, Gold, Omaha Beaches, Arromanches Mulberry Harbour, Long sur Mer Battery and the magnificent and serene American Cemetery. I don’t know how those guys did it, but what I do know is that I believe that every school child should be taken to the D-Day Beaches to get a true understanding of what happened to many from their grandfathers generation.

www.deauville.org/en


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