So English...

One of the best things about being English in France, and by the same coin I imagine one of the best things about being French in England, is that France and England are just similar enough that you don't feel completely at sea, and just different enough that you feel like you are in a foreign country. A classic example: tea versus coffee. It's easy to find tea here, but drinking more than one cup every two or three days, especially if -quelle horreur- you add milk, is an instant giveaway. (I'm reading Agatha Christie in French at the moment: the first sentence is "C'était à Miss Somers de faire le thé." A paragraph later the lucky Miss Somers has managed to boil the water for the tea, two and half pages later "Votre thé, monsieur Fortescue", NINE pages later and the tea seems to be more important than any of the characters in the book- "C'est vous qui avez prepare le thé de Mr. Fortescue ... Et le thé, d'où venait-il? ... un thé de Chine special ... "etc. etc.. Talk about lost in translation.) Of course, it helps that a few years back the English pinched a whole lot of words from the French (only the good ones mind) and now the French are getting their revenge by stealing some back (though not evocative or quintessentially English words like "pitter-patter" or "hodge-podge", but words like "stop" (making the strange verb "stopper") and "looking" (as in "re-looking", for a make-over), as well as the more obvious ones like "internet" or "le weekend". So, seeing as I can't think of a good way to end this post, I'll sign off now, go and drink my cup of tea, read my Agatha Christie, and contemplate whether I can bring myself to eat the bowl of frog's legs currently sitting in my fridge (more of which another time)...