A Bridge Between Worlds….?

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France, French, Health, kids, Language, Learning, Norway, Norwegian, Tourism

I’m currently working in a campsite here in a very, very hot and sunny France.

Today I had the pleasure of helping out a young Norwegian family.

They came in, looking very flustered, telling me that they needed to to see a doctor, as their eldest daughter – who was the grand old age of two – had a rash that was spreading, and they wanted to take action before it got any worse. I ran a search on the internet, printed out a list of local doctors, and gave them all the relevant info.

“Ah….. yes…..” the mother of the family said, looking at me with despair in her eyes: “But although we speak English – we don’t speak any French”.

Oh. Dear.

Luckily for them however, I’ve been living here a while, so I thought I might be up to the task. Nothing ventured nothing gained, eh?

I rang up the doctor. He answered. He clearly wasn’t a natural-born Francophone.

So here we were. A Norwegian family who didn’t speak French. An Englishman who didn’t speak French well. And a doctor from parts unknown.

Thankfully it all worked out and they managed to get an appointment for just a couple of hours later.

They will let me know if everything is ok with their little one as soon as they can.

Me? I’m just happy that my language skills are better than I expected. Or maybe it’s one of those extreme pressure-type situations, where your brain works at a higher rate than normal.

Now if I could only figure out how to make it work like that all the time…..

Positive Outcomes Of The Corona Virus Lock-down…

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Corona, Coronavirus, Health, Life, Neighbours, News, People, Relationships

 

I saw something quite lovely last night. I’d gone for a run, and as I reached my hour’s limit I headed for home. As I entered the lower end of my street and rounded the corner I was greeted by the sight of four of my neighbours, all stood on their individual doorsteps, well over 2 meters apart, each with a large glass of wine in one of their hands.

They were all in high spirits as they enjoyed their apéro, chatting and laughing away, one of them even gave me an ‘ooh la la’ as I jogged past, and they all bid me a good evening and a how do you do.

Now I know most of the people on my street, and this group is not one I’ve ever encountered out and about, and if you saw them individually you may not put them together. They had a distinctive ‘Breakfast Club’ feel to them, as though they had sought each other out during difficult circumstances, and were forging new relationships.

I’d like to think that when this is all sorted out – whenever that may be – and we can all  emerge, and start to resume some semblance of a normal life again, that there may well be new, lasting friendships, created by this virus. It would be ironic if this thing that is isolating us all, and keeping some of us apart from our nearest and dearest, actually made us reach out to people that were even closer to home, perhaps people that we’ve never talked to, or socialised with before – maybe even people who live right next door. One can but hope, eh?

As A Parent Of Two I Fully Endorse This Method…

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funny, Health, Humour, kids, Parenting, Safety