Humour Me

As the pandemic continues to mushroom and borders come cautiously down, we wave au revoir to a quiet, socially-distanced life in Toronto and thank our lucky stars as we return to Bellevue, our summertime home in France’s Côte d’Azur.  French Lessons returns – ready or not.

The end of the Côte d’Azur’s scorching canicule marks the close of French Lesson’s 2018 season.  We look back over the summer months and a fast-paced, so-called agenda de ministre, to highlight some of the season’s fun, intriguing, and jaw-dropping stories that didn’t yet make these pages.

What’s a season of French Lessons without a look behind the scenes at home maintenance?  But far from being a tired subject, Bellevue and all her woes bring out the best stories – even if we always seem to find ourselves at the butt-end of the joke.

Patient drivers and dribbling vehicle speeds are hardly hallmarks of the French Riviera’s autoroutes, but the local government does invite some offenders to courses that try to rehabilitate their skills.  French Lessons welcomes back our speed demon friend Rachael – and her quick wit.

One swimsuit isn’t enough for a teenaged girl in the Côte d’Azur.  Following a heroic soul-destroying outing in Antibes to buy Lolo a bikini, my daughter still needs a suit that is a bit, well, bigger for camp in Ontario’s woodlands.  French Lessons continues its search in laid-back Juan-les-Pins.

Jemma, the author of French Lessons, thinks she’s pas mal – not bad – at speaking the French language. But whether from the good locals of her hometown in the Côte d’Azur, or from Philippe (her French-Canadian husband) or Lolo (her fluent teen), she never seems to get much encouragement.

Lolo and I embark on a trip into our Côte d’Azur town to find a couple swimsuits.  It will be a carefree – even a joyful – mother-daughter excursion as we shop for my willowy 13-year old.  All goes well, until my easygoing teen shuts herself into the change cabin.

A dinner party at Bellevue ends badly for one guest when she discovers her car had been towed. French Lessons welcomes our friend Rachael as this summer’s guest contributor with her wrenching-but-hilarious tale about retrieving her car from Antibes’ miserable pound.

You’d think that by now, after nearly 12 years owning the same home in the South of France, we’d have our annual summer return down pat. Bellevue’s air-conditioner would blow steadily. The WIFI would stand at the ready, and the rosé would sit on ice. How silly we are.

Debilitating shoulder pain has brought us into conversation with the area’s – and the world’s – survivors, experts and sympathizers. From magnets to gels, exercises to injections, and a machine called nothing less than LIFE itself, we catalogue – French Lessons-style – an amusing (if painful) series of summer advice.

Bellevue’s air-conditioning is again on the fritz, but this time the repairman doesn’t fire us. Instead, along with an ingenious and swifter-than-merited resolution, he offers French Lessons an unconventional glimpse into the inner workings of the European Union.

As French Lessons returns for another summer season, it welcomes a new member to its family: Yoko. Bringing a puppy across borders isn’t for the faint of heart – but it does bring fresh insight to the quintessentially French approach to the art of bureaucracy.