Thursday 17 May 2012

What ?

Sonata:

Husband and I met in Spain where he , having arrived from Holland via Belgium and the Congo , had a book shop in one of those "I remember when it used to be a little fishing village " places . We stayed another twenty years and , since I spoke no Dutch , Husband's English was erratic and the world outside our front door was Spanish speaking , we developed a sort of "home language " .... basically bits of all three with French added .
Then we moved to Holland , the children left home .... the elder two to England and the youngest eventually to Amsterdam ... and he and I are the only ones now who tend to revert to EuroBabble .

This evening , my ballpoint pen having exploded , bits flying everywhere , I was hunting under the table for the spring and having no luck seeing it on the grey carpet . Husband came in and asked "What are you looking for under there ? " " The spring ... the spring from this boli "( boli , short for boligrafo , which is the Spanish for ball point ) . " The spring from your body ? "
After forty years together , I'm not taking this personally .

But the other day Elder Grandson , talking about his baby brother to Smitonius , said "He's fine but sometimes , when he cries , it's difficult to work out just what he wants . When he starts talking , I wonder what language he'll speak ? "
Let's hope it's one we're all fairly familiar with .


9 comments:

Friko said...

Eurobable, of course, what else.

I hop you found your spring, I'd hat to think of you unsprung.

Friko said...

no no no, what's wrong with your comment box.
I'm so busy deciphering your robot speak that I can't get my own words right.

Although hop and spring with a hat on, not bad, not bad. . . . . Almost as good as Eurobabble.

Rattling On said...

At least you hadn't lost your Bolly! When we came back from Russia I found that I had trouble remembering the English words for things not often brought up in conversation but asked for a lot in shops. Cheese, for example. There's only so much brain space...

molly said...

But it's so much fun dabbling in all those different languages. By comparison America is positively boring!

And I do hope you find your spring. Maybe it rolled under a mat at the yoga studio? [I'm nothing if not tenacious!]

I love Friko's suggestion that you hop into Spring with your hat on.....

Tania said...

I swear, blokes who speak EuroBabble get just as many girls as those nice Irish-accented ones. And 'twould be nice if I could locate a little leg-spring under the table. I seem to have developed an aged and dodgy knee...

The Cranky Crone, she lives alone! said...

I used to have Swedish people living with me mant moons ago, the adults could speak English somewhat, better than I could speak swedish I night add, the children only spoke Swedish, I learnt to understand their language pretty fast, but we all ended up speaking what we called Swinglish, much fun and games were had by all........to play with words and other languages is a gift not many get a chance to do!
I became unsprung last night and posted a very strange post last night!

gemma @ loz and dinny said...

I love a cheeky eurobabble. I'm also quite well versed in eurobabble sign language which seems to be well received in Italy! I find I've lost some spring in the bits under the table... C'est la vie!

Ginnie said...

Love this story! So sweet and funny.

Liz Hinds said...

Did either of you speak Spanish?!

GrandDaughter seems intent on using her own complex sign language in preference to spoken words. So we get some fascinating mimes. I tell her the word is easier but she persists.