I took a long walk though the vineyards today. I picked some pears from a tree I found on the Garrigue[i], collected some laurel leaves, same thyme and a grenadine apple. I ended up in a dead end with a high fence and some farmers were harvesting their grapes on the other side of the fence. Now I had to exercise my almost non existing French.
- Ce possible a passé?, I asked, without knowing if it would make any sense to them. An old farmer with very few teeth and a great smile opened the fence for me and before I knew it I was involved in a conversation about the harvest. I had no idea I knew so many words in French. On the other hand, I understand French better than I speak and my experience from all over the world is that if you just listen and nod at the right place, toss in a few safe phrases now and then, they think you speak the language quite acceptable. Afterwards I realised I spoke some sort of pigeon French, but what the heck; it’s a great victory to be able to communicate at all, isn’t it. I learned that they harvest the grapes manually then it is not room enough to turn the harvester around in the end of the rows. This is mostly the case in the old field with very old vine. They also told me that the quality – meaning sugar of the grapes is very high this year but the quantity is poor. So – look out for 2007 wine from Corbieres in your local shop.
I started to explain who I was, which was totally unnecessary. They knew that we live in the old house of Mr Pistre, that we are from
Being Swedish I am quite lucky as we are custom to foreign languages from non dubbed films and TV and also pronounce our alphabet as most people do in the world. That helps up the pronunciation anyway. I feel pity for the English sometimes that have to learn totally new way of pronouncing the letters wherever they go. I can tell you it is hard enough to have a wife who is fluent in French, German, English and all three Nordic languages and on top of that she manages to communicate in Italian and Spanish. You can imagine how long people bother to listen to my pathetic stuttering in French when they can get to the point much faster by talking to my dear wife. I have to get out more on my own!
Anyway I bought a bottle of propane gas for my grill today and started it up just to test drive it. One of our female French friends calls me Mr Gadget – I can’t understand why.
Tomorrow we will grill some confit de canard, which is the leg of a duck which I prepared in such a way that the meat just falls off the bone – so lovely and tender!! I hope? (Sounds like an old song of Elvis Presley)
[i] Garrigue is the name of the bushy forest areas that are so common in south of
