“English Apart” is the name of the English language school set up by my brother-in-law Glyn and his Welsh friend Emlyn; the school in Brest (Brittany, where we spent last weekend) is a great hit with students and the employers who send them there to improve their English.

Having arrived at Roscoff early on Friday morning we – Chris, Bobbie (our youngest daughter), Martin (her boyfriend) and me – drove straight to English Apart to see Glyn. Almost immediately, Glyn enlisted our services as English folk (although, strictly speaking, I’m an Australian and Martin is Polish, not that the students would have noticed). Firstly, he introduced us to the group of students downstairs – the beginners, as we were to find out.

“‘Allo, my name…is…Sherry,” said a swarthy man of about forty eight as he held out his hand to shake mine.

“Hello Sherry!” I answered enthusiastically in an attempt to hide my surprise.

Sherry, who needed a shave, looked a tad bewildered.

“Tcherry,” he tried again.

“Oh… Cherry?” it was my turn to look confused, “What a pretty name!”

Cherry smiled.

“In England Cherry is a girl’s name,” I said slowly and in a French accent so that Cherry would understand me better.

At that moment Glyn interjected:

“He’s not called Cherry, his name is Terry, and he’s a hotel receptionist!”

“Oh,” I looked at the dark-skinned, balding receptionist with the five o’clock shadow from the day before, “sorry, but I thought you said Cherry, not Terry.”

“I ham Tcherry, no Sherry,” he laughed at the misunderstanding and nodded his head profusely.

While the going was good I made my getaway and moved on down the line to a group of three young women who were to be my students, or rather, they chose me to answer their list of questions. Already the others had been pairing off for questions and answers at tables in different parts of the large room; I was the last to get cracking and I had the biggest group.The nervous blonde introduced herself as “Kerry”.

“Kerry?” I asked to make sure I had got it right this time.

“Ker…ry,” she faltered a little.

“That’s funny,” I said, “your name rhymes with Terry!”

She looked blank.

“You know, a rhyme – a poem, a verse? Like William Shakespeare – Terry and Kerry?”

“Ah Shakespeare!” she seemed to grasp my point but I thought it unwise to pursue the matter any longer.

Then I met a shy girl with a barely audible voice; her name was “Sea Lion” or Celine as Cindy, the bright one, pointed out. Cindy asked most of the questions.

“‘Ave you hever been to Paris?” she read from her exercise book.

“Oh yes, I love Paris. I have been to Paris many times, the first time I went with a boyfriend, not Chris; that was before I was married,” I spoke incredibly slowly to ensure their comprehension.

Obviously, I tried to make my answers as interesting as possible – gesticulations helped. “I live in Dawlish by the sea (wave motions) and a railway line (choo, choo – arms making circles); “I was born in Australia” (hop like a kangaroo) – strange, they didn’t know that kangaroos come from Australia; “I am an artist” (move arm up and down with imaginary brush) – I think they think I’m a painter and decorator.

There were some vaguely embarrassing silences while I waited for either a response to my answer or the next question. My French accent, which came out quite naturally, seemed to be of some help; occasionally I noted a spark of understanding in a pair of eyes – a momentary relief from the blank expressions – and I felt something akin to the satisfaction of being a good teacher. My mind wandered ahead – I fancied that I might be offered a part-time job at English Apart.

The clever-clogs chaps upstairs were so advanced that I asked them the questions.

“How could I impress a French person with my knowledge of French?” I asked.

“Comment t’appelles-tu?” suggested David.

“That’s way too easy. Who would be impressed with that? Isn’t there something else you can think of?”

“Que pense-tu de politics Français?(What do you think of French politics?)” David looked at Vincent for confirmation.

Several minutes later I was still memorising my sentence to impress when Glyn appeared upstairs and commended me on my great teaching ability.

“Cindy, Celine and Caroline just told me that you’d been to Paris before with your previous  husband,” Glyn laughed.

“Who’s Caroline?” I queried.

“Kerry,” he quipped.

And over the phone that evening, when trying to impress a certain Portuguese friend with my increased knowledge of French (since last time) I asked:

“Que pense-tu de politics Francoise?”

Joking apart, and to be frank (or Francoise), it doesn’t look like I shall be offered that teaching post at English Apart.

Quite early on in the four month long saga of our ailing boiler Geoff may well have regretted his rash promise to guarantee his work for a year; he seemed loath to return, sometimes we were angry, sometimes we were embarrassed; sometimes, hoping for a miracle, we left it for a while rather than make that call to our frustrated heating engineer. But, hats off to Geoff for keeping his word and for not attempting to extract any more money from us (a mention of the price of a particular new part fell on deaf ears and since then he has been stoical).

Periodically, upon turning on a hot tap, we have endured the sounds of a fog horn (sometimes like that of a small fishing vessel, but mostly like the Queen Mary!) – short bursts, long bursts and staccato – or we’ve been startled by explosive pops, sometimes frightening blasts (inside and outside), followed by the smell of gas; then we were back to the fog horns and, finally, nothing – no pop, no ignition, no comforting purr and definitely no hot water, let alone central heating. And it is getting cold now.

Geoff came around when we got back from Lorna’s funeral yesterday.

“You hate us and our boiler – don’t you?” I joshed.

“I should have just bought you a new boiler,” he joshed back.

After all this time and so many visits Geoff feels more like a friend than a boiler repair man; and, as I discovered through our countless conversations, he is so much more than that. Our former art student heating engineer is also a photographer, art historian, art collector, world traveller, ex-husband, father, boyfriend and an excellent cook – to list just a few of his achievements.

Geoff was interested to hear about a funny coincidence at the wake only an hour earlier…

I had remarked that one of Lorna’s neighbours at the gathering bore a striking resemblance to the English comedian Hugh Dennis and a conversation about celebrities ensued (as they do). At last I mentioned the chance meeting I had years ago with the beautiful actress, Jean Simmons (of Spartacus fame) who was considering moving to Dawlish at the time. She had been surprised and delighted to find that someone recognised her – “It doesn’t happen very often nowadays,” she told me. And I felt good because I was the only one in Dawlish, amongst all the throng of people passing by, who realised who was in our midst. Just as I was saying what a lovely lady Jean Simmons had been, an old gentleman, hitherto silent as he sat on the sofa, suddenly became animated and said:

“My family, who were jewellers, lived in Golders Green and Jean Simmons’ father and my father were friends. He could remember when Jean was a little girl. She was lovely.”

Geoff agreed that, indeed, it had been a great coincidence.

“But I have an even more unlikely one…” began Geoff gleefully.

“It happened years ago, when I was still married, and we were in Ceylon. We were visiting a Buddhist temple in the jungle of Candy. I had left my wife half-way up the rickety stairs – she was afraid of heights (I could sympathise) – and I had continued going up; there was a log-jam of people coming down and we all had to stop and shuffle by one another. I heard an apparently Sinhalese lady speaking in perfect English.

‘Are you English?’ I asked.

‘No, but my sister lives in England. Perhaps you know my sister?’ she suggested.

I thought, “Oh yeah, how likely is that going to be’ – I mean, Sally, in the whole of England with a population of sixty million?

‘My sister has a hair-dressing salon in a little seaside town called Dawlish,’ she told me.”

“Not the one in the Strand? Not the one my mum used to go to – and her husband was the parking attendant at Somerfields?” I interjected.

“Yes,” Geoff laughed, “I brought home a letter for her from her sister!”

Geoff was right, I couldn’t outdo that one!

And of the boiler? So far so good. I bet Geoff doesn’t want to see the boiler again until next summer but he’s quite welcome to call in for a cup of tea when he’s passing.

Do you remember the film “Ryan’s Daughter”? If so, do you remember Robert Mitchum wearing long johns in a bedroom scene? (I think he said, “Ah Rosie!”) Chris and I both remember it well but the funny thing is, that when we watched the film together, we were somewhat disappointed to find that the expected scene was missing. We both saw the film in the seventies, independently, of course, (we weren’t together then – I was a small child). We wondered if perhaps a Mary Whitehouse type of person back in the studios had cut the scene to protect future generations of audiences from the sight of a mature Mitchum in long johns? Our film-buff friend and neighbour, Martin, was of no help at all – he couldn’t remember that scene. We are still baffled. If anyone else can recall it we would be pleased and relieved to hear from you. I may be wrong but I think Robert Mitchum’s long johns were red (if that helps).

Anyway, Robert Mitchum’s long johns are only incidental to my story. I really want to tell  you about the chilly weather – it is getting so cold at night now – and my bed attire. Now normally I like to wear as little as possible, without being too alluring, when I go to bed; I hate that feeling of being swathed in pyjamas – they make me feel like a mummy trapped in bandages. I much prefer to wear a nice little vest and a pair of panties, so if there’s a fire I’m ready for action. However, the nights are getting colder, especially so in our bedroom because we sleep on the bottom floor of our house and the central heating doesn’t reach that far.

Dear Chris, he’s so sweet and caring; last Saturday we were shopping at Lidl, the great store that is the same all over Europe and yet it continually surprises one with one-off unusual lines (you never know what extras you’ll find). I was looking at some marvellous gloves designed for use when scraping ice off windscreens, and I was wondering if I would ever use them, when Chris came up to me with something in his hand.

“This is for you,” he said, handing me the stripey item of clothing.

“What is it?” I asked.

“A onesie, to keep you warm at night now that it’s getting chillier,” he seemed pleased that he had found something nice for me.

Last night it was like a fridge downstairs when I went into the bedroom after my shower and my thoughts turned to the grey and white stripey onesie that Chris had given me, and which I hadn’t opened yet. The first thing that I noticed upon pulling it out of the bag was that it was incredibly long and narrow; it was about six-foot long, maybe more, from shoulder to ankle and about one foot wide. Nevertheless I managed to draw up the skinny legs over my own well-formed legs – the material was stretchy – and, believe it or not, the garment fitted a treat… It was almost like a second skin up to the crotch, but being so long, the crotch (which was rather capacious) began half way down my thighs. The arms and torso were perfect and no, in case you’re wondering, the grey and white stripes didn’t make me look like a mummy. On the contrary, I looked like convict who had, mistakenly, been given the long johns of a much taller inmate.

“You look like a convict,” Chris tried to contain his laughter when he came in and found me staring at myself in the mirror.

“Don’t you like it?” I asked.

“I love the convict look,” he answered. (What else could he say?)

He jumped into bed first and I followed.

Pulling back the covers and getting in myself, I turned to Chris and exclaimed:

“Ah Rosie!”

There wasn’t any need to say more – we had both seen Robert Mitchum in that bedroom scene in “Ryan’s Daughter”!

By morning my onsie had taken on my shape, but moreso, and a glance in the full-length mirror informed me that I looked like a big baby wearing a cuddly babygrow.

“You still look like a convict,” Chris laughed.

“An I-con!” I contradicted.

Funnily enough, I slept extraordinarily well in my stripes.