Lost in France
Back in the days when my Dad was still active, Dearest and I, along with Eldest and Youngest, accompanied him and my Mam on a fortnight’s holiday in a Gite near Coutance in Normandy. We took two cars, Mam and Dad following Dearest and myself on the long trip down to Portsmouth, onto the ferry and then the 100 or so miles to our destination. A good time was had by all with all the usual Frenchified shenanigans being experienced: good, cheap wines, excellent food and surly Frenchmen. My father didn’t help of course, his absolute refusal to use one word of French certainly did nothing to improve the already well-established Gallic hatred of “les Anglaise”.
There was one guy though – a near neighbour – who was helpful, friendly and courteous. He must’ve been in his late 70s and he probably thought he’d seen and heard all the world could throw at him until that fateful night when two crazy English women appeared at his farmhouse door, miles from anywhere, miming the unmistakeable routine of giving someone a blowjob.
It all started sometime during the second week of the holiday. All six of us had been to Caen and as we were getting in our cars my Dad said he would probably be needing petrol soon. There was a petrol station not far from the Gite, he said he’d fill up there.
I slowed down outside the petrol station – little more than a village shop really, with a few pumps. I watched as an old woman shuffled out to my father, before setting off home.
After half an hour or so Mam and Dad still haven’t appeared. It’s only a five minute drive to the petrol station. Something was wrong.
Sure enough five minutes later my Mother turns up on foot in tears.
“The car’s broke down, your Dad thinks the Frenchwoman’s filled it with diesel.”
Now I know there’s a certain leftover animosity between the English and French and a history of fisticuffs from Agincourt to Napoleon, but filling a hapless tourist’s automobile with the wrong fuel smacks of taking things a tad too far.
We all toddled off to push the dadmoblile home.
Further interrogation of my father (after he’d stopped cursing the entire French race), revealed that he’s pulled up at a pump clearly marked “Gazole” and said “fill her up”. Hmmmmmmmm.
Anyway, the recriminations would have to wait. The important thing was to get the offending crap out of the car. But how? After an hour or so of pissing about with various ideas and devices, we hit upon a solution.
We attached jump leads between the two cars, kept my engine ticking over and my Dad kept turning the ignition key in his. We had detached the fuel supply so every time the ignition was turned a small amount of diesel would be ejaculated. Trouble was we had nothing to put it in and nothing to transfer it from the fuel pump.
We realised we need a large receptacle and, crucially, a tube or hose or somesuch to siphon the gazole into it.
Cue my Mam and Dearest setting forth to other houses in the vicinity hoping against hope that someone had a smattering of English.
‘Twas not to be.
Most of the places they tried were empty – including the nearby owners of our holiday home. Eventually they stumble across the old farmer’s place. After a while he opens the door to find two women gabbling away in a foreign language. He probably guessed it was English but he certainly didn’t understand it.
My mother attempted to use the time-honoured English method of communicating with other races: talking slowly and loudly – as though to a simpleton.
No dice.
Becoming increasing desperate, and liberally sprinkling their speech with “le car est broke” and “le car est kaput”, they eventually donned white-face and began their infamous attempt to make him understand thay they needed a tube or something through which they could siphon. How to mime siphoning? It’s easy. You just position your hands as though holding a tube and start sucking.
Apparently his eyebrows shot a foot off the top of his head. It was few seconds before Dearest and my Mother realised the signals they were sending out and quickly stopped before bursting into laughter. Fortunately the old guy laughed as well (possibly in anticipation – who knows?).
Eventually, with the help of a pen and paper, he understood and accompanied them back to our Gite with a massive bucket and a long hose. Once he saw what we were doing he pissed himself and walked away laughing and muttering indecipherable French interspersed with frequent use of “gazole”.
It took eight hours to empty the tank. Eight fuckin’ hours.
Then I had the unenviable task of acquiring a few litres of “essence avec plomb” in order to get dad’s car back to the petrol place and filling it up correctly.
But that’s another story.
I'm not dead or anything and I'm not banged up as a result of catching the scum referred to in my last post. Ooops, did I say "catching" then? No chance. Not with the archaic, fumbling, creaking 
When I bust my left foot way back in March, I found myself sat in my eyrie fiddling with my instruments (oooh matron). I started arsing around with a "bagpipe" type of melody I concocted whist walking around in the Scottish rain a few years back.
I have been subjected to more than my fair share of fucking whooping and hollering on TV shows recently. Whenever a Z list celeb appears, somebody does something for charidee or a Z list celeb leaves the stage, we hear this cacophony of screaming that makes you fear for the audience's sanity.
Wahey. That didn't take long did it? Subtle hint dropped to Dearest ("I want a lava lamp"), followed by Dearest calling me infantile. Later, in the pub, she attempts to ridicule my lava-ish longings in front of her girly mates. This results in one of the mates saying they have a lamp they have no further need for - having grown up presumably. Well, in my book growing old is mandatory but growing up is optional. I snapped her hand off.
There they were in their finery. Old suits and blazers bedecked with campaign medals from here, there and everywhere. Berets. Badges. Grey hair, grey skin, wrinkles, aches, pains, pins and