Tuesday Thoughts from Barry

Life continues to roll along here. We enjoyed fabulous weather last week and as of yet the dreaded and much discussed Mistral Winds have for the most part left us alone. As we get more and more comfortable with our life here, it makes it easier to venture out into the surrounding locales to get a more global perspective of Provence.

Sunday we took the bus to the nearby market town of Isle sur la Sorgue. It was a very enjoyable day for the entire family. Fall has arrived here and the colour of the Plane trees along the canals was beautiful.  Isle sur la Sorgue has a bustling antique and produce market on Thursdays and Sundays. The entire downtown becomes a pedestrian zone with merchants hawking their wares on either side of the street. As we meandered past the various stalls it was easy to dream of outfitting a provencial house with the various antiques. One particular object that caught my eye was a refinished solid wood workbench that would jump out of the pages of a Home and Garden kitchen. The market will certainly be a great place to take visitors. The entire portrait of Isle sur la Sorgue very much fit the view I had of a provencial town prior to our trip to France.

Yesterday I accompanied Lily's class on another outing. This time we headed to a local gymnasium for an hour of gymnastics.  I had a super time feeling quite useful as I manned a station where the children swung on a rope and jumped onto a mat.  My ability to communicate in French was important in this situation as there were safety instructions that I needed to pass onto the children.  One such precaution that I gave out to the children was that they needed to ensure that they let go of the rope completely when they jumped so as to not get rope burns.  Each time a new group came to my station I lined them up and went over the precautions.  Each time I came to the instruction about letting go of the cord all of the students (except for Lily) had quite a puzzled look on their faces.  After the third group I checked with Lily's teacher with regards to my pronounciation of a particular word and suddenly the reason for the puzzled looks became apparent.  I had been instructing them to "lècher" (to lick) the rope as opposed to "lacher" (to let go of) the rope.  Pretty simple mistake but made for a confusing time for the children.  Imagine being 4 years old, a little nervous as you jump from a block, swing through the air and a crazy anglophone yells at you to lick the cord you are holding onto.  I didn't just say it once, sometimes when they hung onto the rope I would yell "lèche! lèche! pas comme ça! lèche!"  As tends to be the case with me, sometimes knowing a little french is worse than knowing none at all.  But on the positive side, Lily's teacher did tell me that my french was improving as the students had had no idea what I was saying on the first field trip to Arles.  At least now they can understand that I am speaking French even if it doesn't make sense!