Oh no, the French!

After almost six years of complete anglophilia, the past few days I've been turning my eyes slightly south. Oh, what a delightfully perverted expression. All it means though it that I've been experiencing an increasing infatuation with all things French. Like, if you ever saw the brilliant film "All or nothing", when Timothy Spall is driving some crazy French woman to some art gallery? Well, I kind look like her at the moment. Mainly due to my glasses which are a bit arty. Also, I've been going round quoting her, saying "'eee's urr... fat like you?" in a real poncy French accent. On a slightly more sane note I've also started readin Le Monde. That was the only French newspaper I could think of. So I looked it up on the internet. I'm still in the stage where I'm reading what it says thinking "God, I know these words!" but not really understanding. But I have learnt the French word for bird flu, so I can definetly see the progress.

I spent almost an hour, well half an hour, something or other, my watch has retired so I've got no sense of time anymore, on the phone with my mother today. The conversation can be cut up in points and listed as follows; 1) Today is - apparently - the day spring starts, 'cause my mother has found flowers, 2) Despite the fact that we are now without doubt entering the warmer season, my mother has a cold, 3) her friend's mother is dying, 4) I always read the obituaries despite the fact that I don't know any of the dead, I proceed to remark that a lot of people born in the 40's are dying at the moment, 5) another of my mother's friends have sold her house, and her brother has moved to Brazil, 6) I talk about what I'm going to write my paper about and my mother claims she's always been interested in that particular subject, 7) she asks me if I've received my tax return papers, I say I have and that I'll be getting quite a lot of money back (yay!), 8) my parents have separate accounts, compared to my husband and myself who have several accounts but they're all joint, 9) my friend's sister (who is also my mother's friend's daughter) is a vegan, and I try to explain to my mother why drinking milk is wrong, 10) my mother has new glasses, 11) I'm going to buy shoes with pictures of cats on them, 12) I suggest my parents go to Amsterdam, 13) my mother asks if I want to go shopping with her on Saturday, I say no, but what about tomorrow? And then we arrange the details of our shopping trip. I forgot to tell her about how yesterday I was humming the Shaft theme tune for about an hour and then turned the telly on and Shaft was just starting. How cool is that.