Auld alliance redux ...

I know. I was supposed to be taking it easy - maybe staying in bed? Having little, nutritious meals brought on a tray? But no ...

Thing is, there were several plans this week. Yesterday's marathon on Arran (leaving here at 6am, returning around 10pm) was clearly out of the question, but ... lunch? 

When I was teaching, I was asked to run the school French Exchange after the demise of the modern languages teacher who'd started it. I said yes because (a)my younger son was benefitting from going on them and (b) I'd enjoyed (most of) it on the previous two visits to Brittany. A lasting friendship with the my French opposite number and the continuing friendship with the staff on this side of the arrangement led to today's visit by a group of French friends, currently holidaying in Scotland, to have lunch with us in Dunoon. 

It was touch and go, after yesterday, whether I'd be up to it, but my Scottish friends seemed to think they'd be happy for me to be there, cough or not, so here we were, in the local pub, eating excellent food and drinking nice wine in the middle of the afternoon, and yours truly dredging up the French and trying to ignore the Italian words that kept popping into my head, feeling strangely the better of it all, avoiding bisous in the interests of not sharing any bugs (J'ai un virus ...) I love the way immersion in a French conversation with people who don't have much English - or indeed have no English at all, so that I had to translate for the waiter - brings it all back with the clarity born of need. And we were hilarious - especially sharing the memories of the Routier in Loudéac, where my colleagues and I stayed, with its bizarre furry bedcovers that we said resembled Wookies...*

I suspect my voice will have dropped even further by the morning, but will cross my fingers, along with other sub-christian gestures, that I'll otherwise be none the worse. And I did sit at the very end of the table ...

*Star Wars reference