Then they went to the campsite next door to use the pool, but it was rather disappointing, coming out very badly by comparison with that excellent spot at La Brande. Changing facilities were limited, well, missing really. One fairly large, fortunately clean, WC where the lock didn’t work! As at La Brande, shoes were to be removed before entering the pool surround, but unlike at La Brande there was nowhere to sit while putting them back on! Still, they did have a laugh at some of the funny English (more later) at the entrance. I don’t think they’ll be going again.

Supper was another repeat of a dish discovered last year – little fillets of red mullet prepared in white wine with garlic and shallots. Then they watched ‘Gremlins’!! (Bright lights? “Trop clair! Trop clair!)

Today it’s been RAINING! They did take me out after lunch to go to a motorhome centre they’d spotted the other day, hoping to replace the shower head for dozy Harry –

Attention! – J’écoute!

Oo! tu parles français maintenant?

 Aussi bien que toi.

Granda skatola^co!

That’s just showing off! And if you want to get back to England, behave yourself.

Rendors-toi …

a shower head for Harry which got damaged in last year’s freeze-up. No luck. “Jamais vu de pareil” ( never seen anything like it). After a bit of a drive around and looking at a beach, they shopped at LeClerc and came ‘home’.

No photos today, so here’s a butterfly:

(One day on Oléron we stopped for tea at a picnic site and there were loads of these basking on the low-growing plants. Does anyone know what it is? The photo here is probably not the butterfly seen on Oleron, that photo seems to have gone missing!)

Linguistic Footnote from HIM: We have, of course, been keeping an eye on weird bits of English which come our way. “Bricks may be placed in the rubbishes with the plastics” – that was last year. Sometimes we amuse ourselves by deliberately speaking bad, heavily accented French; so one morning a bit back I said “Oo sont les pantalons de mon track suit?” (pronouncing all the silent letters). Then we wondered what an online translator would make of that question, so we went to Google Translate.  The actual French is ‘Où est le pantalon de mon jogging ?’ but the translator gave us ‘où sont les pantalons de mon survêtement?’ (= where are the (pairs of) trousers of my outer garment?). Attempts to get a better result using the word ‘bottoms’ only made it worse! ‘Where are my pants?’ was translated as if American, but again with the very basic mistake of using the plural – where are (all my) trousers. ‘Underpants’ became ‘sousvêtement’ which is any undergarment, whereas ‘where are my briefs?’ gave us the French for ‘Where are my memories?’, which has become the quote of the month. The French should be ‘Où est mon slip?’ so just out of curiousity we tried ‘where is my slip?’ just in case some lady ever loses her underskirt in the wash. The French appeared with the equivalent of ‘where is my little piece of paper?’

There is a serious point to this: some people believe that machine translation is the way ahead to save huge sums being spent on language services at, eg, the UN and EU. With results like that, what do you think? As Carol says, that sort of thing could start world war three …

Now, here’s a challenge: that notice outside the swimming pool, three separate sheets, three languages. The English was headed like this:

          SOUND WARNINGS

          (Led (driven) to like in case of )

…. And lower down – this is a safety notice – on hearing three whistles:

          Immediate evacuation.

          Ponds and beaches (ranges)

          (Leave your spot business (affairs) you will get them back at the end of the intervention)

A bottle of wine is offered to whoever comes up with the best (in our view) version of what the English in the italicised lines above SHOULD say (it must come close) and TWO bottles (WOW!) to anyone who can work out the original French  – that’s a real challenge, I couldn’t do it,  – had to look at the top sheet of paper, the one in French.

Closing date for the competetion, 19th November!