Next week

Next week is the end of the French holiday season, for the French and largely the Dutch that is. There will still be a number of UK holidaymakers visiting this bit of France but they generally will be the more mature folk with no accompanying kids. It will be nice to return to a more peaceful and less busy environment overall. Car parks will not be so exciting as during peak periods they resemble oversized dodgem rides at the fair, it will be easier to get a table at a favourite restaurant without having to book a week ahead. The supermarket checkout queues will have shrunk too.

I've been quietly observing the behaviour of several nationalities over the summer, mainly French, Dutch and English. Other people visit here in summer, Belgian and German, but in very small numbers.

Take lunchtimes for example. The French are renowned for lunch breaks of two to three hours daily, even at weekends. Usually they will return home for lunch with the family and in many homes that is the principal meal of the day. Those en vacances will retreat to a restaurant for the duration. The Dutch usually are self-sufficient with ample supplies of victuals for either a picnic or a meal at their holiday place, often a tent. Oddly lunch is taken by them around 3.30pm and can mast a prodigiously long time due to the vast quantity of food consumed. The English seem to ignore set times for lunch, some wander around eating and drinking on the hoof, others will arrive at an eatery some time well after one o'clock and wonder why there are either no tables empty or are surprised that lunch service has virtually finished.

Children. Most French kids are well behaved when in public whether in a café/bar or restaurant; the beach, shops, wherever. In fact they can go almost unnoticed but are not ignored by family joining politely in conversation. The Dutch seldom eat out and when they do it is a sight to behold as the fork forms an almost continuous coneyor belt like motion from plate to mouth shifting what we consider large amounts of food n a short time. Their children are generally noisy, many local people find their behaviour intrusive an disrespectful. English offsprung generally lack table manners and constantly endeavour to interrupt conversation with demands for all manner of things.

Queues in shops - the French like to take their time and chat with the checkout operator and any friends that happen to be nearby. The dutch shop en famille with the almost obligatory three children, at least one wearing an orange garment. Mum stands at the checkout with two or three items in a trolley so you join what seems to be a quick queue. Not so, the rest of the family will raiding different shelves in the shop and shouting from one end to the other about prospective purchases. The English, especially those who are unfamiliar with French products, meander around, leave trollies unattended in the middle of aisles, and gather around in a group ti discuss the item or shelf in question.

Having said all of this it is but a sweeping generalisation and probably not representative of the true situation. It is a bit like people and noisy cars or motorbikes, only the loud ones are noticed, probably one in ten, the remaining 'normal' vehicles passing unnoticed!

Yes holiday time here may occasionally be a little frustrating but that is only for less than two months a year. The remaining ten months are ours to enjoy in what is truly a wonderful place that we are more than fortunate to have found and to live there!