September, 2011 - Debbie Young's Writing Life

I is for Italy

Posted on September 30, 2011July 18, 2016 by Debbie Young

In her quest to find some English-speaking playmates on our French holiday, Laura has turned us all into licence plate spotters. Learning the country abbreviations on foreign cars is certainly improving her knowledge of European geography and languages. While recognising a car labelled I is Italian is pretty intuitive, identifying a German car from a D or a Swiss from CH is rather more of a challenge.

Until now, whenever we’ve been abroad on holiday, she’s bonded happily with children of any nationality, whatever language they spoke. Aged 3, she spent a happy afternoon playing with a French-speaking Swiss girl on a boat in a Greek harbour. The same year, she received her first kiss was from an adoring Greek boy in Athens, transfixed by her blonde hair and blue eyes. She had a memorable afternoon in a Greek playground with a huge von-Trapp like German-speaking family, ranging in age from about 12 to 2. In their contest to see who could stay the longest on the roundabout, Laura represented the UK admirably – she was joint winner with the 12 year old.

But now she is anxious about not being understood. Sadly, she’s just reached the age at which children on longer absorb a foreign language by osmosis. From now on, if she wants to learn another tongue, she’ll have to work at it. I hope her early friendships with foreigners will persuade her that the hard graft is worthwhile.

In the meantime, learning each country’s name in its own language is a good starting point.

While perusing the car park in La Charite sur Loire, I’m reminded of another interesting difference in languages: the names of car models. It’s hardly an original observation – we all know the urban myth of the new car launched under the brand name of Nova. To its American designers, it sounded like a classic brand in the making, with intimations of novelty, newness and being bang on trend – until the Spanish market rejected it as meaning simply “it doesn’t go”. Not a great strapline for a motor car.

The battered silver car now parked adjacent to our van looks as if it won’t go, but it’s actually branded a “Manager”. This might sound prestigious to the French ear, but to me it just sounds daft – talk about damning with faint praise! I speculate as to whether it’s a mid-range car, the poshest model being the President or Chief Executive. The luxury version would be the Commodity Trader or Banker, while lower down comes the Clerk (make that a Senior Clerk if it’s got air-con). And at entry-level for the first-time car-buyer, there’s always the cheap and economical Tea Lady.

But who am I to criticise? If I dared, I could have a sticker on the back of our camper van saying “My other car is a Ka.” The Ford Ka. That’s got to be the worst named car in the world. Now there’s an argument for Esperanto if ever I heard one.

Personal life

Up the Garden Path

Posted on September 28, 2011July 18, 2016 by Debbie Young

My resolve to tidy my small front garden before the autumn turns into a bigger job than I planned. By the time I’ve pruned the trees, pulled up the weeds, and rescued the periwinkle from the ivy, I’m gazing at a surprisingly large empty space. Next step: to refill it. Next stop: the garden centre.

Three days in a row, I pop into the one in Nailsworth, emerging each time with an armful of pots. One by one, I plant my purchases, choosing each site carefully, as if placing the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. But by the end of day three, there are still some spaces. I resign myself to a fourth shopping trip. This could prove to be an expensive week.

But before I set off next morning, I must stop at Hawkesbury Upton Post Office to buy a stamp. On my way up the path I spot a tray of plants for sale. There’s a pansy in just the shade of purple I want to match my periwinkle. I check the price: just 20p. The garden centre till receipts flash up in my memory. Their prices were ten times higher. I rummage around in the tray in search of further bargains. I find a lovely sage for 35p: perfect for my colour scheme. Dropping some coins in the honesty box, I wonder why I bothered with the garden centre when this humble little tray was just yards from my door. It’s an added bonus that these plants were raised in the village – it means they will thrive in my garden too.

It makes me wonder whether I can source the other item on my garden shopping list so close to home and at a comparable price. I’m after a bench. I know I won’t get much change from £200 at the garden centre. Then I remember a little while ago I drove past some home-made garden seats for sale outside a house in Horton. Before I can be tempted to hit the garden centre, I nip down the hill and discover I can secure two lovely chairs for just £20 a throw.

So no more lining the pockets of garden retailers and chain stores for me: I’m going to be shopping much closer to home in future. Globalisation – who needs it? Give me villagisation any day.

(This post was written for Hawkesbury Parish News, October 2011 issue – now on sale in the Hawkesbury Village Shop and Hawkesbury Upton Post Office!)

Family, Travel

Bubble Mum

Posted on September 21, 2011July 18, 2016 by Debbie Young

How to occupy a child on a long journey: teach it to do something a little bit naughty. It will be completely captivated for however long it takes. Example #1: blowing bubbles with bubble gum.

Laura often surprises me with a new ambition, and the latest is to learn to blow bubbles with bubble gum. I suspect it is inspired by watching Sky television: in her favourite show, iCarly, resident bad girl Sam is an expert gum blower.

For most of Laura’s friends, bubble gum is a banned sweet and she’s never tried it before. But she has good strong teeth and I decide it won’t harm her to fulfil her goal at least once in her childhood. I therefore invest two euros in a hypermarket grab bag of bubble gum and cunningly produce it just when we’re getting to the “Are we nearly there yet?” stage of a three hour drive during our French summer holiday. Laura is enchanted.

For the next half hour, I sit alongside her on the sofa of our camper van, training her in this not so gentle art. It must be at least 30 years since I last blew a bubble gum bubble. But sinking my teeth into the solid pink rectangle, I realise that it’s like riding a bike: once learned, it’s a skill you never forget.

I demonstrate how to soften it up, stretch it with your tongue and catch it with your top and bottom teeth before slowly, gently blowing into the middle. The resulting pink globe emerges to a look of disbelieving rapture on my daughter’s face. Can this really be Mummy doing this? It’s a special mother and daughter bonding moment.

I’m about to screw up the wrapper and put it in the bin when I discover a hidden bonus: inside each paper is a temporary stick-on tattoo. I demonstrate this on my arm (precipitating odd looks in the patisserie later). Appropriately my tattoo spells out the legend “Bubble Team”. We investigate other wrappers, branding Laura with French slogans such as “completement mabulle” and “ce dechire“. With the help of a pocket dictionary, we translate these tattoos loosely as “completely bonkers” and “it’s ripping”. If this doesn’t gain me Cool Mummy points, I don’t know what will.

Still chewing, I return to my seat at the front of the van, leaving Laura to refine her bubble blowing technique unobserved. By chance, my husband has put an Eagles album on to play. It’s a Proustian moment: the heady cocktail of gum and Hotel California transports me back to my teenage years at an international school, where many of my friends were American.

For the next few kilometres, I’m gazing out of the window idly blowing bubbles. It’s not the Loire Valley that I’m seeing, but the smiling faces of those fine gum-blowing gals. I think about the parties, the dances, the in-jokes we shared; the teachers, the lessons, our pride on graduation day.

And then I remember another small detail about the art of gum-blowing: never blow a bubble into an oncoming wind. Sticky-faced, I furtively close my window, hoping that Laura wasn’t watching.

Travel

A Lay-by By Any Other Name

Posted on September 11, 2011March 9, 2013 by Debbie Young

Heading south from Fontainebleau on the N7, we settle into the mindset required to endure a long drive before we will allow ourselves to stop for the night. We sit in companionable silence, which is welcome after the non-stop background music in Disneyland the day before. Laura, exhausted by her 12-hour day there, dozes behind us.

We’ve chosen the non-motorway route for most of our French tour, not only to avoid the cost of the peage (toll road) that is the faster option to Provence. We actively enjoy driving through the quiet towns and sleepy villages that punctuate long rural roads. Passing through farmland and forest, we occasionally exchange observations about little oddities that we spot along the way. But when Laura awakes to demand a toilet stop, a longer discussion begins.

“Why are those two girls just sitting by the side of the road?” asks Gordon as we pull into one of the many convenient lay-bys.

I frown.

“Hitch-hikers, I expect.”

Knowing Gordon, he’ll want to pick them up. He’s a soft touch for hitch-hikers, having used hitch-hiking as his main means of transport in his teens. I realise that for two girls who are not much more than teenagers themselves, a family in a camper van will be preferable to a lorry. Comfy seats, lots of space, a cute child to play with and probably the offer of tea and biscuits somewhere along the way. We’ve rescued similar pairs of passengers from torrential rain when touring Scotland and I resign myself to a noisier journey from here on.

But to my surprise, the two girls barely glance in our direction. Instead, they gaze dully at the oncoming traffic. I feel rejected.

“Probably on the game,” I remark, meaning to be funny, but in a sour grapes tone of voice.

Then a small French car pulls up in front of us, driven by a lone man. Is their driver going to offer them a lift? The car obscures my view of the girls. As our van is English, Gordon has a clearer view of the kerb from the driver’s seat.

“No, I think he’s just gone for a pee,” he says, guessing my thoughts.

Laura is back in her seat by now and as we pull out to continue our journey, Gordon glances in his wing mirror.

“There’s only one girl there now.”

We continue in silence, soon passing another of this road’s generous supply of lay-bys. There’s also a girl on her own at this one, but in a small car this time, parked at right angles to the road. She’s sitting in the driving seat, on the left of the car, so that no passing motorist can fail to notice she’s on her own. I’m surprised at this: if I ever have to sit in a lay-by alone, for safety’s sake I do everything to I can to make it seem that I’m accompanied by a man. Moving over to the passenger seat is meant to be the best safety precaution. Potential muggers and rapists will then assume you’re just waiting for your husband to come back from answering a call of nature. Don’t they have any personal safety public information films in this country, I wonder?

By the time we reach the next lay-by, we’re engaged in an earnest census of the population of lone females. Here we spot not one but two white transit vans, each at right angles to the road, and each with a solitary girl in the driver’s seat. In one van, attached to the driver’s head restraint is one of those large inflatable bath pillows that you can get in the shape of a pair of red lips. With a start, I realise this may be a form of code.

“So what do you think?” asks Gordon, as we pass it by.

I hesitate, considering, not wanting to believe what is uppermost in my mind.

“I think my earlier assessment was correct,” I reply slowly. “They’re on the game.”

There’s a moment of synchronised jaw-dropping before I ask in a small voice: “I wonder what the French is for lay-by?”

Travel

The Camper Van Salute

Posted on September 9, 2011March 9, 2013 by Debbie Young

We realise early on in our ownership of a camper van that there is a special action that drivers of such vehicles use to greet each other. Whenever they approach each other on a road, they must slowly raise their right arm, not really in a wave, but more of a casual, off-duty salute.

It’s generally the duty of the driver to offer up the camper van salute. But if the driver is engaged in a particularly tricky manoeuvre, the front seat passenger assumes responsibility. And when both driver and passenger are in a particularly happy frame of mind, as at the start of a new trip, they may throw caution to the winds and both offer this distinctive cheery wave.

When we first latch on to this tradition, we hail our kindred spirits self-consciously, embarrassed if the approaching van driver does not reciprocate. But now we’re old hands at it, if you’ll pardon the pun, we’re expert. And we rank salutees after they’ve passed us. We’re pleased if we get a double response, dismissive if ignored. When abroad, we check out the country sticker after they’ve passed.

“Ah, les Francais,” we murmur sagely, or “Nederlander”, “Italiano”, as appropriate, if their nationality is the key to their response.

This harmless fun adds interest to a long journey. It soon becomes a habit so ingrained that we sometimes forget that we are not in our van. Pottering through Cotswold lanes in my little Ford Ka, I occasionally raise an arm in fellowship to an approaching motorhome towering above me. Even more foolishly, I’ve done it once or twice on my pushbike. In those circumstances, the camper van salute is about as likely to get noticed as a sailing dinghy hailing a cross-channel ferry (and we’ve all heard stories about ocean liners arriving at their destination with dinghies splattered across their bows like summer flies on a car windscreen). But even if the drivers do notice my gaffe, I don’t suppose they mind. We camperers are jolly, sociable types and we’re very forgiving. I’m just slightly on my guard in case I ever do it to Germans: I’d hate them to get the wrong idea.

On my husband’s recent solo jaunt around the Scottish Highlands, (“This van is my passport to the Munros!”), he befriended a German camper van driver. His new German friend, also travelling alone, confided in Gordon that he’d had an unpleasant experience the night before. He’d just stopped for the night in an empty, isolated car park, when a group of boy racers turned up out of the blue. They proceeded to drive menacingly around his camper van at high speed, shrieking and mocking. Eventually they got bored and drove off, leaving him shaken but unharmed.

“I do not know why they do this,” he told Gordon plaintively. “I worry that it is because of my German vehicle sticker. They see that big D on my bumper and they think of what my country did in the war.”

My husband rushes to reassure him.

“Oh no, it won’t be that, I’m sure. We’ve all forgotten about the war a long time ago.”

He wonders why the German is looking less than convinced.

It’s only an hour later, undressing back in our camper van, that Gordon realises he’s wearing a Dad’s Army t-shirt, bought for a snip in Stornoway at a Tesco’s post-Fathers’ Day sale.

So he’d mentioned the war, but this time I don’t think he got away with it.