Red Nose Day, Grand-pères et les pompiers

A few memorable incidents from the past week:

Words and phrases invented by schoolchildren
'funning' (= to have fun) eg: We were funning on holiday.
'curly flower' = cauliflower

These were accompanied by a suggestion for a rainy day to 'watch TV on the dog'. Poor dog! Apparently they meant to watch a programme about dogs. Hmm...


Red Nose Day
This doesn't seem to exist in France, so I had great fun explaining the concept to one of my older classes with photocopies of a beaming Lenny Henry and various red nose designs.
The task: 'Come up with your own themed day for charity. Explain it and decide on an event to help raise money'.
The results:

Group 1: Stop Smoking Day.
Me: So what's the aim?
Group: Everyone stops smoking for a day.
Me: Okay...what about people who don't smoke?
Group: *hesitation* They should stop smoking.
Me: *tactful pause and choose acceptance* And which charity is it for?
Group: Smokers.
Me: You mean smokers who get lung cancer?
Group: Smokers don't spend money on smoking for a day so they have more money. Me: I see....

Group 2: Condom day
The aim: every school pupil must go to school wearing as many condoms as possible attached to their clothes.
The event: a competition to see who can blow a condom into the biggest balloon.
The charity: anything that helps fight AIDs.
I was so relieved that they'd actually got a charity, I rather glossed over the technicalities. I'm sure it would be a real hit in the primary schools...

Group 3: Baby day
Me: Okay, girls, this sounds like a nice day. What's the aim?
Girls: Everyone pays money to dress like a baby and the money goes to baby charities.
Me: Well, that's a good idea; I think that could work. What's your event?
Girls: A stand in the town hall selling babies.
Me: Oh, I see...hold on, you mean selling baby clothes and toys?
Girls: No, selling babies.
Me: Ah.

You can imagine the rest of the lesson!

St Patrick's Day
For no particularly obvious reason, apart from an excuse to drink a lot, France seems to be really into St. Patrick's Day. We headed to the most popular Irish bar in town and bumped into some other assistants and their friends. We had a shouted conversation over the enthusiastic Irish band playing outside.
French bloke: So, do you go out much with French people?
Me: I climb with French people, but I don't go out much in the evening with them.
French bloke: Quoi? (Pardon?)
Me: La plupart de mes amis francais sont grimpeurs et ils ne sortent pas beaucoup le soir. (Most of my French friends are climbers and they don't go out much in the evening)
French bloke: Tes amis sont tous grand-pères?! (Your friends are all grandads?!)

Silly French words sounding the same (albeit shouted over very loud music!). So now I seem to have given the impression that my social group is mainly OAPs, who, quite typically, don't have much of a nightlife.
Arse.

Les Pompiers
Saturday night a few evenings ago saw me bopping away at an Irish folk/rock concert in a nearby town, completely with comedy Irish-French accents.
I arrive home in a fuzz of accordian echoes, feet still a-tapping but completely exhausted and ready to crawl into bed.

There's a fire engine in the road. I'm far too tired to pay much attention and decide to postpone the drama.
I open the door and start walking upstairs to my floor. 'Bonsoir!' A male voice greets me. 'B'soir', I mutter back, not even mustering the energy to look at whichever housemate is saying hi. 'Bonsoir', 'Bonsoir madame'. The greetings continue. I look up. There are 3 French firemen in my house, all smiling at me and greeting me in a rather gentlemanly fashion. One even takes his helmet off.
WOW. Pretty much every girl's fantasy, and they're really not bad looking at all. I take a second to appreciate my good luck before reality dawns and I realise that they're probably not here as a nice Saturday night surprise for me, but perhaps for something a tad more serious.

A tad more serious turns out to mean a gas leak in the road outside our house. The road is blockaded off, my housemate is told she can't enter the house for the next few hours (although there seems to be no concern for everyone still in the house), and the fire engine is joined by several more. At precisely 3:10am the drilling of the road starts. This whole kerfuffle continues for the next couple of evenings and all my curtain-twitching, blue flashing lights dramas are fulfilled.