How to communicate in French without really trying

SO you may be asking yourself now. How does Elizabeth work with a gardener that only speaks French! I know she only knows English. And the little Spanish and Russian she knows won't really help. Well, I am happy to respond to this question you may be asking. First of all, Adrian is very nice, and very well mannered, but not only that, he wants to talk to me too. I was afraid he might be like, I don't want this American girl screwing up my precious gardens. But he's not -- actually I did my best to work hard on Monday, so that he would teach me things. The first day I met him, last Friday, we were just laughing and smiling and I made him demonstrate everything to me. But we wanted to talk more, so he drove to his house on the premises to grab a French-English dictionary. He actually does know un peu (a little) English and I accused him of studying it in school and just not wanting to use it. It's funny when I make fun of him, or try to be sarcastic or make jokes, because I usually have to spend the next ten minutes trying to explain the joke. Like this morning, he was pruning the ancient pear trees in the kitchen garden and he showed me this nest of ants in the leaves he was cutting off. I told him he was slacking. It was very hard to explain, actually I think I gave up in the end.

After I spent around two hours thinning out some of the flower beds behind the walls of the kitchen garden, I decided that I wanted to try to have a conversation with Adrian about his tomatos. I wanted to explain that it would be better if we removed the flowers on the tomato plants and then they would be able to better use their energy in growing, and then later, when they are producing fruits, would produce bigger fruit because the plant would be stronger. Then, I wanted to talk to him about different trellising methods and about different planting methods that I learned in the garden growing up with daddy, when we had our forty tomato plants and he would want to have the best fruits possible! In order to communicate this with Adrian, it involved a lot of hand signals, drawings, and the dictionary. In doing this, I realized that the growing seasons are the same in New York as they are in France. However, the humidity here is much worse. Plants either have to be thinned out or gowned far apart in order to keep them from rotting, getting mildew, or to prevent insect infestations.

It's great working with Adrian, because although we don't verbally speak the same language, we have a similar passion, working outside in the garden, and being obsessive compulsive about how it looks, and knowing botanical names. It's fun. We'll point to things and ask the other what it is. Often, it's me asking qu'est-ce que c'est because either I never learned the animal or tree, or flower or can't remember. I was thinking today, that I really enjoy working with Adrian because he reminds me so much of Daddy. I mean, we both enjoy each other's company, we both struggle to explain things to each other, and we run and show each other things to smell (i.e. the crysanthamum I tried to eat, because it smelled like mint, and I thought it might be tasty...so I ate it, and he laughed and told me it wasn't for eating, and then I made a 'it's disgusting' face, and he laughed again and then ate it too!) or he picks up cool looking catepillars and brings them to me. I brought him a cool looking insect and he's like, oh! you've discovered a new insect (mine you this convo is half french, half english, half...oh wait, we're out of halves). He reminds me of Daddy because he's just pleasant to work with even if we aren't talking. I have to earn his respect and meet his approval to be given more critical tasks. And at the end of it, I want him to be happy with the work I've done, just like Daddy.

Here's a cute story from today:

So when I came back from lunch I found Adrian cutting the grass on one of those small tractor lawn mowers. And after a few minutes of weeding, he called me over, and pointed to the tractor. I was excited, because he wanted to teach me how to use it, and terrified at the same time for fear of killing myself, him, and the plants. I tried to explain to him I was not very good at driving manual, and he's like, it's easy. And then, he had me get on and showed me how to use it! Learning how to cut the grass has never been so exciting as when taught by a French man!!! Ahh! It reminded me of the scenes in the movies where the guy teaches the girl how to hit a tennis ball or shoot a rifle, it was just like that...except this is not a romantic trist, but an 'educating' moment from a guy that's married. Hmm, I've said that a lot, I think I'm trying to convince myself.

Adrian and I posing on the lawn mowers. We both argued to take pictures of the other!

Oh and by the way, Adrian was supposed to come for lunch tomorrow, and Madame d'Esneval just remembered that she's not going to be here. Ha ha, I am going to try to explain to Adrian tomorrow morning that I have to leave for lunch early in order to cook him lunch!!!

Au revoir!