My ability with French shames me. I can get the gist of written French (well, when I’m reading comics anyway) by spotting the phrases I recognise and extrapolating. And I’m trying to think en Fracais mais, when it is time to say something I just stand there and go “Errrrrr……” until they talk to me in English.

I’ll probably be incapable of stringing an intelligible sentence together until just before I get on the plane.