Words people use. Things people say.

Just behind our house is an industrial estate. Well, perhaps I should call it a business park these days as there are more offices than industries. When we moved into the house, almost thirty-five years ago, you could see a huge old mill chimney dominating the view. After Phil commented that it was a shame that all you could see was the “bloody great chimney” we always referred to it by that name. It had long been inactive, which makes it sound like a volcano, and eventually the day came when they knocked it down in a controlled explosion. Most of the old textile mill buildings became offices and a smart, new, modern building, completely out of keeping with the area sprang up to accompany it.

The business park seems to have thrived.

In the middle of the business park is a nice little Italian restaurant. We celebrated our granddaughter’s second birthday there. The owners are friendly and the food is not at all bad. They call it “La Rustica”, which is a bit of an exaggeration as, even though the business park is in fairly rustic Saddleworth, there is no way the restaurant could really be called rustic, not from the outside anyway. Inside it’s very nicely decorated and the Italian music is fine.

Over the summer they added an ice-cream fridge, Italian style, of course. And just the other day I noticed that they are calling that addition “Rosa’s Riverside Cafe”, serving gourmet sandwiches, coffee and ice cream. Once again this is a bit of a misnomer. Technically, yes, it is beside a river. If you cross the entrance road to the business park and look down from the spot where they have set up a sort of terrazzo you can see the River Tame rushing along in the gully. So, yes, it’s by a river but hardly the “riverside” that it’s name suggests.

However, I wish them every success. I am often amused by the use of language.

I eavesdropped on someone else’s conversation on the flight from Liverpool to Porto this afternoon. One lady was going on at some length about French French and Canadian French being totally different languages. She reckoned that French people could not understand Canadians speaking French. Which is odd because I can understand both versions of the language. I suppose you need to tune in, as you might to a strong accent in English.

Mind you, we think of English English and American English as the same language. And then we discover that the Americans omit certain negatives which we put in. So where we British “could NOT care less” the Americans “could care less”. And when we say “me neither”, you hear them say “me either”. Crazy transatlantics!

I expect the French feel the same about the Canadians and some of their oddly English-influenced vocabulary.

 I am writing this in Porto airport, filling time in the almost three hour wait for the bus to Vigo. Or “Bigo” as the lady who went on about the French language informed the person she was talking to at length about her plans for the coming week. This involves her going to Vigo for the first time to visit her daughter who is teaching English there. She is going for Carnival week and expects everyone to dress up in carnival clothes as the Spanish really know how to organise a fiesta. I hope she is not disappointed. She will probably enjoy seeing SOME people rushing around in fancy dress planning to bury them sardine though.

It always amuses me to hear the semi-informed going on very authoritatively about places I know.

It was hard to blot out the conversation, which went on all the way from take-off in Liverpool to landing in Porto, but with great strength of will power I resisted the temptation to join in.

 There is a strong possibility, however, that the lady in question might be on the same bus as us to Vigo.