New home on the web for French Obsession

From now on, all future updates on my French Obsession can be found at my new Wordpress home: http://freshwordswriter.wordpress.com/french-obsession

Look forward to seeing you there.

Alright son?

I have at long last discovered something about living in Scotland that I think has the edge over our Mediterranean partners in the Auld Alliance.

This morning as I walked from my house heading for the coalface I found myself fast approaching a little old lady on the pavement. Like many little old ladies she was taking each step carefully and slowly, helped along by a stick to give her extra stability. Her progress was slow but steady.

In great contrast, my morning routine is typified by being in something of a rush. The often repeated snooze facility on my alarm clock ensures that I am commonly late before I even get out of bed, so the walk is more of a run most mornings – though I’ve never yet resorted to Steve Martin’s advice that skipping is as fast as running but does not make you look like you’re in a hurry; no, it just makes you look like an idiot.

This morning then, as I ate into the distance between myself and the little old lady I first though, crikey, I hope she doesn’t get a fright with me coming up so fast behind her. As the toe of my ancient oxford’s caught on a raised crack in the surface of the pavement though (don’t get me started about the state of our pavements and roads), my thoughts quickly turned to, crikey, I hope I don’t fall on top of her.

Lady luck was on my side though and I neither startled the poor soul, nor crushed her beneath my feeble ten and a half stone frame. Looking at me with her kindly face as I tried to regain my composure she said something that warmed my heart.

“Are you alright son?” she said.

Now just to be clear, while I was pleased that she asked if I was OK, I was over the moon that she called me “son”. I’m 43 years old! I can’t remember the last time someone called me son, though it was probably another old lady I was in danger of falling on top of.

In Scotland we have that rare facility which, like the meadow pipit, is a joy to behold at first hand; that ability to be so flippantly casual in our exchanges, but in a “I really care about whether you fall” way, rather than in the “ha, ha, look at that numpty take a tumble” way.

There is refreshing honesty that at its best measures up well against what can sometimes be the faux politesse of the French. Sure the French are supremely polite, their language demands it; but you can often be left wondering if they really care about whether you fall on your backside or not.

So although on balance I’d rather be sipping pastis and eating olives, it’s important to remember that every nation and community has an upside, however small.