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Its been something I've been meaning to do for donkeys years, every one has 'learn a language' on their 'to do at some point' list. My language to learn is French. I've had a notion it would be a handy language to get a grip on ever since I started working in wineries.

I did make several sputtering starts at it, but now things are getting more serious. Working on the right side of the world has made a big difference as has working in a trade where it's absence is sorely missed. Our Burgundy contacts speak, unsurprisingly, French and while some have excellent English some have the same grasp on English as I currently do on French.

Having successfully negotiated a weekend in Paris last year when I managed to buy food, tourist tickets etc. I thought I'd made a great start. But thats all it was, a start. The trip to our afore-mentioned Burgundy suppliers at the end of the year proved that getting food was about all I could do. Conversation while eating the food was a different matter all together.

So after a winter of listening to French tapes, I can speak and understand at a basic level. But reading - now that is something else. The 'Teach yourself Beginner's French' grammar book from the local library is going some way to help. Unfortunately, my grasp on grammar itself is rather shaky. The partitive article, the conditional perfect - these are terms I know I learnt once upon a time and promptly forgot them after the end of year exam.

Learning them again in a different language is challenging, especially with the French having gender nouns - the wine is male while the jam is female. But its actually quite fun. And hopefully come the trip again I'll be able to do more than smile and nod......