You never know what you might lose in the Casino

 

As I’ve referred to several times before in this blog, 2^nd September 2016 was the day my world changed thanks to being diagnosed with a “Triple A” (abdominal aortic aneurysm – a phrase I have to Google every time.) For the first two or three years that date always made me feel sad and depressed. Like a reverse birthday. Now, seven years on, I don’t give it much thought.

One of the consequences of what happened was I became disabled. The blood supply to my right leg was interrupted and I had a deep vein thrombosis. The nerves in the right leg became damaged and have never fully recovered. Therefore I am left with limited movement in the right leg. It’s no longer much a of an issue. It was it is.

I now walk with two sticks. Well I should say when I am out and about. Bearing in mind I can’t walk far anyway, outside I use two sticks as it feels safer. I can manage indoors with one stick and this dear reader brings me to the subject of this blog.

We’ve recently been on holiday in France. We were staying in a lovely house on the Normandy coast near the small town of Port Bail.

One evening as I was getting ready for bed, as part of my nightly routine I went to retrieve my walking sticks. You see dear reader at home I get round the house either with one stick, usually (but not always) leaving the spare stick propped up in the hall. However, sometimes I can manage without a stick – think of toddlers learning to walk by moving from one piece of furniture to the other and you get the idea. This then means come bedtime when I need one stick to go upstairs there can be a game of “hunt the other walking stick" if I've not left the spare in the hall.

I got into a similar pattern in France. Therefore, this particular evening heading for bed, I went to retrieve both sticks to take both with me so I knew where they were. But I could only find one. I looked around the house in the places I might have left the other one – the bathroom, the kitchen, on the patio,  - and I couldn’t find it. No problem I must have left it in the car. I remembered helping carrying some shopping from the car that afternoon. I must have left one stick behind so that I had a free hand,

A beautiful late summer morning dawned, and I set off in the car to go the boulangerie to get bread and croissants for breakfast, as you do in France. I opened the car expecting to find the other stick but it wasn’t there. Mysteriuex (or should it be mysterieuse?)

Coming back to the house I realised that I must have left the other stick at the Casino.

Now, before you all clutch your pearls, and have a fit of the vapours at the thought of a Methodist minister being in a Casino, I should explain. The small super market in Port Bail is run by a company called Casino. (I think possibly because it’s a gamble whether you’ll find what you want.) We’d been to the Casino the previous afternoon. I vaguely remembered leaving stick number 2 at the check out propped up as I helped unload the shopping trolley.

To my shame, my French is limited. I didn’t pass O level French. We didn’t speak much with the focus on reading and writing. Consequently I have quite a good vocabulary and can read fairly well. But that’s it. As a result I wasn’t sure of the French for “I think I left my walking stick here yesterday”. Google is our friend and I was told the phrase is “Je pense que j’ai laisse ma canne ici hier”.

On previous visits to the Casino one of the young men on the checkouts spoke pretty good English so of course I was hoping he’d be there when I went back. Non. There was another young chap. Oh well. “Bonjour monsieur. Je pense que j’ai laisse ma canne ici hier” I proclaimed in my best Officer Crabtree French accent. He looked blankly at me. Resisting the urge to explain very loudly in slow English, I tried again. “Je pense que j’ai laisse ma canne ici hier”. Another blank look. Conscious of the queue of bewildered French people behind me, I showed the young man the screen shot of the phrase on my phone. The light dawned. Une epiphanie.

Off he went to hunt for the stick. Firstly searching for it  under a pile of boxes for customers to use for their groceries. Then disappearing into a back office. Both with no luck. Oh well. Comme ci comme ca. “Merci for trying”.

But then. What is this sticking out from a shelf near his checkout? Une canne! Voila! Incroyable!

The young man proudly presents me with the walking stick. Tears swelling in his eyes. The crowd behind me applauding! La Marseillaise playing over the Casino loud speaker system.

I don’t have the heart to tell him – or indeed the French – that this wasn’t my stick. But anyway c’est la vie. Never mind at least I have two sticks. (And the French stick is adjustable like my own. It even looks similar.)

But of course now I feel slightly guilty. What if a French person comes in looking for their stick and I have taken it? Well it is a Casino. It’s the luck of the draw, la chance de tirage au sort as I believe they say.

Two days later my wife is hoovering in the sitting room of the house. She lifts the cover of the sofa and what does she find? My missing stick. Yes dear reader. It wasn’t in the Casino at all. It was hiding beneath the sofa. Sous la canape. (Who knew the French had taken the word we use to describe little tasty bits of food to describe a sofa?)

Now I have three sticks and even more guilt. In my mind I see an old French lady hobbling along la rue using a stale baguette as a stick, accompanied by the music of Jean de Florette.

I must do something. I return to the Casino.

If my French wasn’t up to asking if they’ve found my stick, it certainly isn’t up to explaining “I was here a couple of days ago as I thought I’d lost my stick. You gave me a stick but it wasn’t the right one. Anyway I now have found my stick elsewhere so I am bringing the French stick back.”

I hatch a cunning plan. A ruse du guerre if you will. I will go into the Casino and “accidentally” leave the French stick behind.

I wander in. “Bonjour mesdames et monsieurs” lifting mon chapeau. I casually approach les fruits et legumes section and browse the selection of pommes and pommes de terre, before nonchalantly leaning the French stick up against the counter. I glance around. No one is watching and I wander off, British stick in one hand, French stick left behind and head for the sortie. Mission accomplie.

NB I know some of the French spelling should have accents. But I'm not sure how to access those on my clavier d'ordinateur