French national pastimes (1 Viewer)

[bashers]

Don't the French love "standing and watching people do things" with a passion!!

On the last "manoeuvre the 12 metre bus out of a very tight camp-site" event i ran a few days ago, i drew a crowd of over ten people.

Could this young boy (young boy, not in heart, but in respect of most people on the road anyway) squeeze this rig out of the space, round the bend designed for unhitched caravans, miss the end-cap removing granite boulders on the corner without damaging anything.

Luckily I'm getting quite good at this now.

With at least two observers standing at every corner i could almost navigate merely by using they're facial expressions as i can close to, or cleared, obstructions!!
I knew to stop when a French lady screwed her face up and when to go when the french guy smiled!


Now don't mistake the French bystander for one who knows what he is doing.
Whilst boating I've thrown ropes to bystanders who offer to take them but can't tie a knot, and then granny knot it round bollards.
On July 6th, whilst entering the Calais plage aire, i stopped sharp at a pipe obstructing the road with a power cable in it.
A French guy told me that i probably should not go over it and, as there should have only been motor homers in this place, it trusted him and started to look for another route
Just then another motor homer drove over it without even blinking. I rolled my eyes and carried on.

don't get me wrong i love the French, have lived there and am touring it know, so no bashing please!!

 

[superk]

Same the whole world over - you know you'd do it yourself if the tables were turned

You'll get used to it - happened time after time to us we had people videoing us ( and hoping for an incident no doubt) we had people bring chairs so they could look through the windows - and we were in the RV at the time!

On another occasion a Spanish campsite manager asked if he could show our RV to his family - 30 people turned up and had to look at everything then word got around in the village and the breakdown truck arrived with all the village menfolk on the back. We decided then no more viists :Cool:

Enjoy your celebrity status.


Keith

 

[yodeli]

don't get me wrong i love the French, have lived there and am touring it know, so no bashing please!!

OK then .... I won't say a word ...promissed!


Amicalement



Frankie

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[Larrynwin]

Our RV is not huge but several times in France and over here we have had knocks on the door requesting a look round.

 

[Snowbird]

Hi, The funniest thing for me is that they dont seem to understand the concept of the reversing camera.They are amazed when they stop you about 3yards from the obstruction and then you creep back to within 2 inches of it,All good fun though eh.

 

[zaskar]

What always cracked me up was the total lack of reserve of the continentals! There was no hanging back and admiring from a distance with them. It was simply a case of gasps of wonder and shoving thier heads in the door!
ffi' used to have a great problem with this, being a fairly shy/reserved type but it just used to get me chuckling. Far better than Mr Ivebeenacaravanclubmemberfor30yearsandi'veneverseenanythinglikeitinmylifewhatdoyouwanttobuyamotorhomethatbigfor.

I remember once staying on a campsite near Carcasonne in France. As we left in the morning, this guy litterally did a rugby dive through the hedge in front of me, camera in hand shouting Arette, Arette!!!!! All he wanted was a photo! ffi & I sat there behing the huge A class window getting redder and redder!:Blush: I didn't know an RV could stop that quick, nearly ran the daft begger over!

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[bambi 2]

Hi. not just the french! we were parked up in our R.V. recently in America, I was just putting our dinner on the table and a couple opened the door walked in and said what a lovely rig, can we have a look round, my mouth dropped open and then as politely as I could I said NO!! bambi 2

 

[sedge]

In 1971 on t' front in Cattolica in my sis and BIL's VW Devon, we had just slid the door back and stepped out (onto the road obviously!) when a middle-aged geezer literally threw his push bike in the middle of t' horse road and leapt into the van, and started playing with the curtains. Then with a lot of arm waving (we grasped the significance of "I-o Volkswagen - Mi-o Volkswagen" - but little else spoken by him LOL) we gathered that he'd converted his, but couldn't work out how to fix the curtains up, bless him!

Think my BIL is still regretting not getting the chaps address so he could have flogged it him at an inflated price before coming home!!!!!