Coffee Helps

There’s more good than bad in the world, I decided yesterday, as I stood at some sort of street party with a free drink in one hand and a free burger in the other, laughing and chatting with complete strangers.

Penniless and destitute as I now am (I mean, honestly - I’d even tidied my room before I left to catch the  Métro, carefully gathering up all my spare change and putting it safely into my purse! Gah. Last time I try to be organised.), I chose not to let my unfortunate pickpocket incident spoil the rest of Bastille Day. Walking inquisitively towards the Old Town, I found myself in the middle of some kind of street party, with music, giant flags overhead, and people in funny costumes. I imagine that it was much the same back home a couple of days ago.

I stood shyly back, watching the merriment from a safe distance until a jolly little red-cheeked man at a food table waved a burger at me and insisted that I take it. That was dinner taken care of. As Nelly commented on yesterday’s post, I am much too resourceful to starve. Just stand around looking alone, poor and hungry, and drunk Frenchmen with barbequeues will offer you free food. I suspect that this won’t be the case on normal days, but let’s take this begging thing one day at a time, eh?

As I was eating my burger and thirstily eyeing the non-free cans of Diet Coke, a teenager chasing a younger child barged into me, knocking me into a man and his wife and almost spilling their drinks. I apologised, but it turned out that the teenager and child belonged to them, and they, in turn, apologised to me. Amused, I watched the teenager receive a good, old-fashioned cuff round the ear from his gruff but kindly-looking father, who asked me where I was from. Jaques and his wife, whose name I cannot even attempt to spell, were delighted at the opportunity to talk to an Irish girl about la fête nationale, and did not seem to mind that I clearly only understood about one in every six words they said (as demonstrated quite spectacularly by me replying, “Yes, very much so” to “Where in Lyon have you visited?”). Horrified to hear my tale of woe from earlier in the day, Unspellable Wife slapped Jacques on the arm. “Get the girl a drink!”. I shook my head half-heartedly, but Jacque was already heading for the nearest bar. I expected a Diet Coke; I received A Wonderful Concoction. I have no idea what it was, but after couple more of those, at the insistence of my new French friends, my poverty/imminent starvation no longer seemed that big a deal.

I was at a BBQ, in the sun-drenched streets of Southern France, dancing to live music and drinking cocktails with the natives (one of whom was actually called Jaques!). Sure, I’m a bit skint and I have no idea where my next meal’s coming from. But things could be a lot worse, I’d say…