This was our first experience with the locals.
Mark and Doug were walking to the bread shop early and they noticed a whole group of gypsies had moved in on the side of the street out the front of the house.
Three caravans, 12 horses (they pull the vans), 8 dogs and one cute little piggy. Only spotted him once, makes you wonder. They did look a tad dodgy.
So Helen rang the owners of the property and they asked us to tell the police just so they could keep an eye on things.
No prob! Mark and Doug dropped Helen and me into the local gendarmery and we told them the story.
We thought we were going great guns but the police were giggling and looked a bit confused. One actually had a coughing fit and left the room.
So Helen rang her friends who speak fluent French and they explained the situation, the police said we could go and thanked us. Actually it was more like they asked us to leave with shooing motions.
We were feeling very smug about out language skills. Mark picked us up and said 'there must be a story in that' We explained that we had handled it perfectly and the police were lovely. Then we related what we had said.
Unfortunately the word for horse in French is not hippo, Doug told us it was. Our pronounciation of gitan (gypsy) translated to 'smoking'.
So we figured out what we basically said was there are 12 smoking hippos in our street, hauling 3 caravans. Straight out of 'ello 'ello. Can you believe what the police must have thought?
Wait for further installments.
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