Ping-ish

It’s been an odd week, sometimes cold sometimes mild, lots of rain then sunshine. The east of France is covered in snow. Rob has been on holiday for a few days then he went back to work for one day for stock taking.

I’ve just been plodding on by in neutral mode. I finished watching The Pillars of the Earth and really enjoyed it. J-M bought me a book of short stories he found somewhere, so I started to read that. Has anyone ever managed to get their head around ‘Ping’ by Samuel Beckett? He wrote it in French first and I must admit that version makes a little more sense. I read that the point was to illustrate that language only makes sense in a cultural context. Discuss….

On the subject of families

Try to imagine having a telephone conversation with someone who doesn’t speak your language and you don’t speak theirs. Now imagine this ‘conversation’ lasting for 17 minutes. One of Rob’s Norwegian cousins phoned the other day. She phones about twice a year and I always seem to be the one who draws the short straw. I’m not completely speechless in Norwegian I can say ‘I don’t speak Norwegian’. Unfortunately, she seems to think that if she speaks to me long enough I’ll be able to understand (a bit like how babies learn). I’m too polite to hang up, after all she is family. Oh well at least I know I’ve got about five and a half months until the next call…