Bonjour!

Today is the big day, with our first national broadcast.  When I say “our”, I’m not using the regal plural but I am thinking of all the people who have supported me from the very beginning.  So, we are on Broadcasting House today and I hope you don’t feel I’ve let you down.  As I said in my previous blog entry, I can only get better, but this is assuming we get another chance.

I’ll be distributing flyers and trying to get people to come to a Top Up your French session while you’ll be drinking your third cup of tea with the Sunday papers spread around you Radio 4 in the background. 

I went to see Norman Baker MP yesterday at his surgery in Lewes, Normie as my friend Mayke calls him.  I did not kiss him on both cheeks on her behalf as she had asked me to do but we’re not on those terms (yet!) and actually I don’t think she is either!  She’s a Dutch woman with a big heart, and when she kisses you  you’d think she has a loo plunger adapted to her lips!

So Norman Baker was very receptive and offered to help me with the media and with getting in touch with our MEP Sharon Bowles.   He also said he would write a press release for me.  My natural French arrogance (don’t you like stereotypes?) made me think “well Normie, that’s very nice, but I didn’t wait for you to write a press release that got me to BH and also a “sounds great, what are your sailing dates in the summer” from, wait for this, Simon Calder, yes, the Independent Travel writer! ”  Funnily enough, I still haven’t managed to secure an article in the local papers such as Sussex Express and The Argus.  I accept that reading about a mad French woman trying  to get people to learn foreign languages is not as exciting as “Kitten found in geranium” (Sussex Express), but hey! I’m local (Alfriston) and I can prove it; can the kitten???

Ooops, nearly 7 am and I must get ready for the ferry.  It’s a later start today but I still woke up at 4.30!  I’m meeting my Transmanche contacts and supporters Emmanuelle and Marie in Dieppe for lunch.  First time I have the opportunity to step off the ferry since I’ve started the ferry sessions. 

Best cosmofil greetings

Babette

French road sign

Hello

Do you know what this road sign means?

 I am amazed by the number of British participants to the  ”Top Up Your French On Board” sessions who have no idea about the importance of this French road sign.  This road sign warns drivers that they must give way to the cars coming on their right at the next crossroad.  Even an English couple now settled in France did not know what it meant.  Amazing isn’t it? There must be an angel looking after them.

Obviously feeling concerned, I’m busy laminating more road signs to do my bit for the safety of the Brits in France (and of drivers coming to their right).  Who would have thought cosmofil would one day work alongside the gendarmes (AKA “les poulets”)!

Babette

 Hello

  I am sitting at the captain’s table on the Côte d’Albâtre, on a smooth cruise back from Dieppe (in France) to Newhaven.  Cosmofil is now offering French language sessions on board Transmanche ferries.  During 50 minutes, participants practise their French and learn some useful and practical phrases.  The feedback is fantastic, and it is great to have the support of people from so many different walks of life.  I am very proud of the fact that last week an English builder who has already lived in France for 4 years and still does not speak French, decided to give a good at learning the “lingo” and sat down with a glass of red wine to give him some Dutch courage.  Yesterday, a young man on his way to a youth conference in Ukraine dropped in to learn greetings and basic sentences to use during the two days it would take him to cross France.  The media are intrigued by what I am doing, and probably also amused!  Watch out for the headlines: Mad French woman on a cruise to make us speak French!”  And on a ferry! A place better known for boozing and shovelling the last greasy English breakfast before two weeks of French cuisine.   

We already have had one interview on Southern FM, a local radio. Local newspapers but also the BBC and a well known travel writer have expressed their interest.  Let’s hope no celeb’s heart ache or politician’s misbehaviour comes to distract their attention. 

“Top Up Your French On Board” is a great way to promote the cosmofil message for a different way of travelling based on meeting real people, not just people there to serve us.  It might take time to catch on, but it will happen and we’ll see “Top Up Your foreign Languages on Board” on all International British ferries, and then “Branchez-vous à l’heure italienne” and “ricaricarti in Greco” etc.  And now I can hear you agreeing with the media: “who is this mad woman?”

Babette