Neufchatel en Bray

Friday 27^th May

Neufchatel en Bray. Cooking French.

It was a bit cloudy this morning. Luckily I have come on holiday with the cleaning lady who took the opportunity to visit the camp laundry, where for 4 euros you get an hours gossip with the other cleaning ladies (and some cleaning men, apparently), while the clothes are washed for you.

I took myself off to Neufchatel, 500 metres along the velo track, and practised my French on the indigents. I am now learning cooking French. Tarragon is estragon and Dill is aneth, pronounced Annette, as the careless froggies usually forget to pronounce the final consonant (unless it is a c, r, f or l). The lingo is not directly translatable; if you point at a box of juicy looking peaches and want to say “I’d like a couple of those bad boys please”, a request for “mal garcons” is quite likely to be misunderstood.

I had great fun asking the butcher to dice the steak for the beef borguinnone: ”coupe comme ci s’il vous plait”……with appropriate hand movements. I think he thought I was having a fit.

We cycled 20 km down the avenue verte in the afternoon, the health giving effects of which were somewhat negated by the aforementioned cleaning lady demanding a stop for white wine on the return leg.