My delightfully eccentric mother never ceases to amaze me with her exploits.

My mobile phone vibrated in my pocket just as I was making some important family decisions in the supermarket… Chicken or fish? Mmm! “Katharine” my mother’s voice resounded in my ear... “I have met this lovely French lady on my walk and I want you to speak French to her.”

Her mobile phone was quickly thrust into the hands of the woman from France and we had orders to converse. “Bonjour,” I said “Je ne peux que m’excuser pour ma mère, elle m’a aime parler français à toute opportunité et je crains que vous étiez au bon endroit au mauvais moment.” I was slightly embarrassed and apologetic. The rather game and terribly nice understanding French lady gave her guttural reply “c’est ok, je vais vous passer à votre maman”. I just hope that French lady doesn’t assume all English people are like my mother. She may never return.

You see I came out of university with a French degree. I haven’t used my second language since I derobed on the day I graduated at the Barbican in London. It is not the first time my mother has tried to set me up with a proper French person, she urged me to converse with a terribly handsome French waiter in a restaurant once. That was a stilted conversation.

I did go to school in Toulouse for a while, I lived with a native family. The father worked for British Aerospace, he also had a small pretend helicopter and most weekends attended remote control aircraft conventions, not my number leisure time activity it has to be said.

Mother was smart and “tres petite” and always used to sashay around the kitchen wrapped in a Bedouin type scarf and emitting a strong smell of Chanel No.5. She was a wonderful cook though. That’s all I ever did in France… eat. I do have some fond memories of living there. I was 14-years-old. It was my first experience of a co-ed school and I shall never forget Francois Vigoroux’s lengthy baguette. Every breaktime we would sit in the sunshine and share the loaf, dipping it in French vinaigrette dressing that was literally on tap in the playground.

The only real lasting effect France had on me was a very French haircut (a bob... a la Francaise) and a wardrobe full of NAF-NAF. I’m so over that now. Going back to the subject of my mother, her exploits continued whilst visiting Portsmouth. Having taken a wrong turn she lost her bearings in the centre of the town. She pulled up by the side of a pedestrian and asked him through her window where she needed to go in order to get to her destination. Not clear despite his instructions she simply said “get in”. Not so much as questioning my mother’s orders he got in the passenger door and guided her through the busy town centre traffic.

Perhaps a little naïve to invite a strange man to get into her car, it was quite surprising that he should accept. It’s a role reversal nowadays, she gets a stiff telling off from me. Regularly.