Last week I went for lunch to a little café up the road called l'Oisive Thé. It's a wool shop. Very colourful with all the yarns hanging on the walls, piles of knitting books and tables covered in patterned cloths. I thought it might be a good place to get into conversation with people. I'm desperate for practise in speaking French in a social situation - the language class providing limited opportunity since the teacher does a lot of the talking and several of the students are real beginners.
I arrived at l'Oisive Thé at lunch time and ordered tea (they have over 50 varieties) and a salad. I was the only person in the café at that point and the owner (American) was on her laptop ordering stock and having a go at her partner (French speaking). She was quite nasty and he was long suffering. At last other people came in and he was too busy to submit to her nagging. A woman of about my age sat down nearby, clearly not French from the way she pointed at the menu without speaking. I started up a conversation with her. Turned out she's from Louisiana and after answering two or three of my polite questions she sank into her tea cup and made eye contact no more. She smiled weakly when she left. I turned to the woman (French) on the other side who was knitting over her cup of tea and commented on the yarn she was using. "Yes" she said and smiled politely and showed me her profile. After I had eaten my rather flimsy salad and a compensatory piece of chocolate cake which turned out the be rather dry, I left disappointed on several fronts!
So, I thought to myself...I'm OK with my own company during the day, most of the time. But really I need some interaction with people. So after we had finished with the bank and Peter had bought yesterday's Guardian and gone off to work, I hopped on a bus to the rue du Faubourg St. Honoré and presented myself at the British and Commonwealth Women's Association! They were very welcoming and invited me to have lunch (€12) and then I stayed for a talk by a French plastic surgeon about the history of plastic surgery and reconstructive surgery and then borrowed a book from the library and got a membership card. They were a mixed group of women, mainly retired. Some are French married to British men or the other way round. And some are British married to British men who are working in Paris. I spoke to two women who have been here for 40 years. They all love living in Paris but find it very difficult to make French friends. One woman told me that her mother in law is still calling her 'vous' after 45 years of marriage to her son. She had a theory that apartment living, which is the norm in Paris, causes people to withdraw into themselves to preserve their privacy. She said, "I know when my neighbours get up, when they have a shower, when they scrape a chair, when they vacuum the carpet and when they have a row!" She is still on "Bonjour Madame" terms with people she has lived besides for many years. Another woman explained that they bought a house outside Paris but she plans to move in to the city because it is so lonely for her in the suburbs where none of her neighbours talk to her. So, I thought, what was I expecting!
The Association has a floor in an old building with a library, a small reading room, a dining room, an activities room and a kitchen. It's low key and homely and people were very friendly, introducing themselves and chatting. They've all known each other a long time. There's a walking group that goes out every Monday morning, there are visits, talks, lunches and a French conversation group and all sorts of other activities but the walks and the visits and somewhere to drop in for lunch and the French conversation will suit me fine. I've sent out emails asking the organisers for more details.
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