I was taking this photo this evening on my way home from dancing at L’Haricot Rouge in Rennes. The dancing had ebbed a bit and I had been sitting with Nicolas and Matilde and some of their friends playing a hand-slapping game to a song about an elephant balancing on a spiders web (which I learned in French lessons in school many years ago but to a different tune and without the slapping). And then I decided to go. I’d arranged to call someone from home later but still had half an hour, I could have stayed and hung out there. But it frustrates me that I can’t understand the conversation, let alone participate. So I cut my losses and left.
On the way home I stopped to take this pic. Of course I took about a dozen shots in order to get one I like. A couple of drunk guys came up to me and started joking around. They were really friendly and just wanted to talk about football and laugh a bit. We struggled on in a mixture of French and English:- both were needed to get the messages across. But I had not been thinking about the process or the paucity of my comprehension, just enjoying the pleasure of meeting someone new and speaking with them; it happens so rarely these days: perhaps I’m not letting it.
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