The coach pulled up in the town square of a rural looking village in Provence, France, and I knew it was time to get off. Here I was, a shy, insecure, frightened twelve-year-old schoolgirl who was about to spend the next ten days living with a French family.
It was all part of a learning and cultural pairing between my school and a school in France, the family I was to stay with was that of my new pen friend Nicole, who is the same age as me.
We had been writing to each other since the start of the academic year. Nicole seemed nice when she wrote to me and we seemed to have similar tastes and interests. But to meet her in person and to live in her house for two weeks would be like totally weird. I'd never been abroad before and here I was alone in rural France. Not knowing if I would like the family I was going to be staying with, and with no chance of escape back to home.
I alighted from the coach and stood looking around me, very shy and nervous, my French at the time was very poor, in fact, my English wasn't that much better. I didn't know how I would cope and make myself understood, which is ironic when I look back, as I now work as an interpreter, fluent in French, German and Russian and can get by in Spanish and Italian. My French has a distinct Provençal accent, which in many ways makes it seem more natural and not as staid and formal.
Waiting for me was a pretty lady, slim and tall with straight dark hair and a warm, open, welcoming face who was waving at me madly. By her side looking as shy and nervous as I felt, was a dark-haired little girl, about my height and again slim like her mother. In fact, she was a younger, smaller version of her. This must be Nicole and her mother come to pick me up and take me to their home.
Nicole's mum greeted me in fluent, but heavily accented English, making me feel a little more at ease, she pushed Nicole towards me and we shook hands as we said hello, both stumbling over the words in each other's language. Both dreadfully shy and self-conscious.
Madam Arnaud, Nicole's mum got us into the car and chatting away merrily drove off. Soon she sensed that things weren't going well between Nicole and me as we were barely speaking. Actually, Nicole was quite sullen. Coming into a little village, Madam Arnaud suddenly pulled the car off the road into a parking space and made both Nicole and I get out. She then took us to a little cafe, sat us down and ordered cakes, pastries and coffee for all three of us. The cakes and pastries were heavenly, the coffee horrible, strong, dark and bitter, just the way I like it now, but not then. Not having to concentrate on driving she eventually managed to get us talking and relaxing more. By the end of the coffee break the ice had melted between me and Nicole, things were more relaxed and friendly.
When we got back into the car I remembered a music tape my dad had made for me of my favourite tunes, I dug it out of my bag and passed it to Nicole who gave it to her mum to put into the cassette player. Suddenly my favourite song, Wonderwall by Oasis was filling the car, and I found out that Nicole loved that song as well as we were both singing along madly with it. That broke the ice even more.
When we arrived at Nicole's home I was met by the glorious smell of cooking; garlic, onions and herbs infused the kitchen. After dumping my bag in my bedroom and throwing my clothes on the bed I went down to the kitchen, which I soon found was the centre of the house and family life. Nicole's mum had prepared us a simple meal of cock-aux-vin, with vegetables and potatoes and lots of crusty French bread. She had tried to keep things as homely and simple as she could and not too strange for a shy little girl in a strange country. The meal was fabulous and I instantly fell in love with simple rustic French cooking.
Nicole and I played about a bit after dinner managing to get by with her limited English and my even more limited French, but it worked and by the time we had to go to bed we were not only exhausted but on the way to becoming firm and life long friends.
A couple of days later we were having a break from running wild and Nicole's mum had provided some cakes, I asked her when she had gone into town to buy them, but to my surprise, she said they were home-made, that she had made them. I wouldn't believe her telling her they were even better than the ones we had had on my first day with them. Nicole insisted that her mum had in-fact made the cakes. So came an impromptu lesson in baking with both Nicole and I helping out. How Nicole and her mum managed to stay so slim with all the delicious cakes and bread I still don't know to this day.
All too soon, the ten days were over and it was time for me to leave. I was devastated as I had become such good friends with Nicole. There were plenty of tears from both of us as we parted, not what you would have expected from the first half-hour of our meeting. Fortunately, it wasn't for too long before we would see each other again as Nicole was scheduled to come and stay with me during the next half term. A school term has never passed so slowly.
So began a friendship that lasted and blossomed throughout our formative teenage years, so much so that outside of formal school exchange visits we would visit each other when we could, to the point where half the summer holidays were spent in France and half in the UK and other shorter ones where we could manage it.
We became such firm friends that we shared all those important growing up milestones with each other. Like when we had our first kiss, the anguish of a first date, the dark side when we got dumped by a boy. Then as we got older and bolder, more intimate events, such as touching a boy or even more daring, letting him touch us, when we lost our virginities.
Surprisingly I was the more advanced than Nicole in all these areas, she seemed to lack confidence where boys were concerned and never seemed to make the first move, always asking me what I had done and letting me take the lead and instruct her. It was always as if she was seeking my approval of what she was going to do.
It wasn't as if she wasn't pretty, she was, much more than pretty. She had grown into a beautiful young woman, with a tall, slim body, endlessly long legs, wavy dark hair and mesmerising green eyes. All the boys at my school and my boyfriends' friends were captivated by her whenever she came to visit me, trying to get me to set them up with her, but Nicole just seemed to be very cool with them, almost treating them with disdain, but very French and cool about things.
The boys were going mental over her. Even the fact that she rejected them made their day. I knew my boyfriend at the time had a crush and fancied her, he only just got away with that, because I couldn't really blame him.
I suppose it was only natural that during my year living in France as part of my Uni course I had an intense, but a brief fling with Nicole's elder brother Jean-Luc, but it was ill-fated and never meant to be, and we never went too far physically. We never slept together, but everything else. I don't think Nicole's mum approved of it, a fact she made very clear and I know my parents weren't too happy when it came to light. Nicole was very offhand about it, I thought she would be happy to see us together, but no!
We supported each other, through happy times and sad, comforting at the end of relationships and encouraging during our years at University. So over the past ten years, we have developed a deep and lasting friendship.
.....
