Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Sean looked around. 'Where is she?' He had not come in contact with the castle's internal
phone system. Through the great curved sewage pipe jutting out over the oven I told Ellie
I was on my way. This natural telephone between upstairs and downstairs allowed commu-
nication between levels in the massive building. It was like being on a submarine.
Laurence served a cauliflower and apple salad that was the essence of freshness.
'How do you say it in French?' asked Neal.
'Pommes et chou-fleur,'
replied Laurence. Neal repeated it several times.
Then we asked for translations of the words that we had heard from Pierre that week.
'You know Pierre picked up all that bad language in Marseille. It's the capital of the ex-
pletive. He always goes back to his Marseille accent when he swears.'
'I think these swear words are especially effective when you add
"espèce de"
(stupid) to
the front of the word,' said Pierre. 'When you see an idiot on the road you roll down your
window and yell
"espèce de gros con!"
Big *%$! species!'
'I'llrememberthatnexttimeIamontheroad,'saidNeal,tryingthenameoutseveraltimes
as I held my hand over the talking pipe so our girls weren't exposed to the lesson.
Neal tried out his new words.
'Chou-fleur, pomme, gros, con…'
'Watch out you don't get mixed up.' Pierre made the motion of rolling down his car win-
dow.
'Espèce de gros chou-fleur!'
