I’m so tired. Really tired. How tired? This tired:
We go to an early dinner, which here means 7 pm. A couple at the next table, which is inches from ours and impossible not to eavesdrop on, starts talking.
Me: What is that?
Adam: What?
Me: What language are they speaking?
Adam looks at me a little funny and whispers something.
Me: What are you saying? Is that German?
Adam mutters something again.
Me: I can’t understand you! What are they speaking? Is it German or not?
Adam, speaking up slightly and with a vague hiss: They’re speaking English! It’s British English!
Oohhhh!
We visited our local market this morning; had a picnic of wine, bread, cheese, and pate at the Pont du Gard; and then spent three hours kayaking on the Rhone. At first I kayaked with the boy, in the double kayak, which was nice. But not as nice as it was for Adam as the girl insisted on doing all the rowing herself.
We passed under the aqueduct that we had visited earlier.
Me: Look, isn’t the aqueduct magnificent!
The boy: Huh?
Me: The aqueduct! It’s incredible to row under it.
The boy, as we pass the massive stone structure above us: What’s an aqueduct?
Me: Are you kidding me? The thing we just visited? The structure we climbed up to view? The massive piece of Roman engineering used to move water?
The boy: Oh, AqueDUCT! I thought you said aqueDECK! I didn’t kniw what an aquedeck was. Yeah, yeah. It’s nice.
Me: ???
After a break for water and a swim in the river, we traded kids in the kayak. And as I was about to lean back and relax and let the girl do her thing, the girl announced she was tired and would no longer row. So instead she sang and occasionally dragged her paddle in the water till I’d yell at her to at least hold her oar up.
And now, after a dinner in which the girl discovered chocolate mousse, we are all overly tanned, overly tired, and very happy.
Bon nuit.
