Hourra pour les Gymnastes Français

Our two lovely guests

Nos deux invités belle

Our French teacher was at least 850 years old. She was thin, bony, and slightly hunched with a mouth that puckered in disgust each time I destroyed the beautiful French language. I was terrified of her.

In one lesson, she gave us all a story written in French. It was set in Tahiti, and each person in our class took it in turns to translate a couple of sentences out loud to the rest of the class. As my turn loomed I got terrible butterfly pains in my stomach and a sense of impending doom. When she nodded at me, I could hear an intake of breath from the rest of the class. They knew I got nervous, they knew I wasn't great at French, and they didn't want me to be shouted at and made to cry. They were all rooting for me.

I cleared my throat and thought, 'come on, Lisa - everything will be fine...'

I began fairly confidently. The Tahitian tribe were having a meal. I knew all the fruits, and translated them expertly into English. Woohoo! I was doing well. Last on the list of 'le repas traditionnel des tribus', however, was 'Gateau aux noix.' 

I hesitated for a moment. I knew that gateau was cake. But was the hell were noix's?


My teacher stayed very still and quiet. Like a snake. One wrong move, and I knew she'd attack. Fangs, poison, no mercy.


It was then that I had a eureka moment. Noix.... Hmm..... Well, Noir is black. So maybe Noix is the plural of noir. Black cake....Black Gateau......Got it!......Black Forest Gateau!!!!


I blurted it out in relief, waiting for my teacher to say - 'well done, Lisa, marvelous translation...'

But she didn't.

'Black Forest Gateau in TAHITI?' she screeched. 'Black Forest Gateau in TAHITI!' she repeated - just in case someone hadn't heard the first time. Each time she said it, her spit sprayed across the classroom. I could see my classmates visibly shrinking in terror as she delivered me a tirade of abuse and a bucketful of humiliation.

Tears blooped down onto the words of the book - 'gateau noix' laughing up at me.

'It's nut cake,' I heard one of the class swots say....

I'll never forget it. We laugh about it now, my friends and I. 'The Black Forest Gateau in Tahiti incident,' but it definitely made me HATE learning French and hate trying to speak French....despite loving everything about France......

So it was with great trepidation that I accepted the role of 'host' to a couple of French guests within a group of young gymnasts from Paris.

I needn't have worried. We have just spent a wonderful weekend with our guests - a mother and her 7 year old daughter, staying for 3 nights - all organised through a town twinning association and my 7 year old's gymnastics club. We spoke fabulous Franglais, drank beer, did the sights and, of course, spent a day doing  gymnastics - (well, the little ones did the gymnastics bit!)

Un temps merveilleux faire de nouveaux amis et de parler le français sans un enseignant horrible dessus mon épaule .... pas gâteaux aux noix, il suffit de plaisir, de rires et d'amitié ....j'adore le Francais, mais, je remercie Dieu pour Google Translate!

Visiting Newcastle's Quayside

Les Gymnastes de France et Angleterre

My little gymnast. Wish I could do that!

Great friends - despite them not understanding a word that they said!

Cherry, Jill, Liz... - you'd have been proud of me!