Cleanliness is next to godliness, I'm told

Extreme old age, post-triple-surgery and a blindspot regarding domestic skills have conspired to prove I cannot - alone - attend to VR, my unwell wife of 65 years. Carers are filling in the gaps.

Virtually all are women, working long long hours for (I suspect) low pay. They are uniformed, brisk, adaptable to the peculiarities of our house and -  despite regulations to prevent coercion - expert at getting VR to do what she believes she cannot do. And won't do for me.

Did I say "brisk"?

Carer: You going out?
RR: Just to pick up The Guardian.
Carer: In that shirt?
RR: Wha...?
Carer: It's not clean.

Meekly I changed the shirt I'd worn for no more than a week. And laughed delightedly all the way to the filling station. VR's the patient and is treated with sympathy. I'm the inefficient dogsbody with impossibly low standards of personal hygiene. But I believe  commitment to a cause outweighs politeness.

Ou sont les neiges d'antan?

The photo was taken by daughter Occasional Speeder. She captioned it: "What a place."

I seem at peace with the world, ignorant of the ill-health that lay ahead for V and me. There are hints I am in France; the village of Montypeyroux to be exact, sitting outside a restaurant which we reserved for occasions when we felt deserved a treat. 

At the time the prospect of a last visit to France was far from my mind. It has now occcurred (actually, a year ago) and I am left to ponder. What was it that took me back year after year?

I'd like to say it was the language but that's not strictly true. Rather it was the use of language and to that end I took weekly lessons continuously from mid-1973 to late 2017. Read about fifty French novels. Followed radio transmissions from France Inter. Wrestled with the ultra-demanding slangy prose of L'Equipe, a daily newspaper devoted to sport. Some people say they loved French but I'm not among them. It's a real bastard of a language and there were great holes in my knowledge of everyday conversation.

But what I did know endowed me with the enormous gift of confidence. I relished all opportunities to wade in and grab French attention. The point being I overcame my lack of idiom by planning what I had to say and coming up with the unexpected. The punchline reserved for the final sentence. My rewards consisted of watching facial  reactions change: at first alarm, then attention, then the suppression of laughter. For to have laughed out loud would have been to admit that I had shown dominion over them. A Brit? Jamais.

One other thing: the huge middle of France is high level, under-populated and known as the Massif Central. It tickles my fancy turning an adjective into a noun. Also, the two words call out to you