Mouth open, foot in!

Never one to miss an opportunity to make a complete prat of myself, I made the most of the chance I was given today.

DS had a schoolfriend over for the day, a really nice kid from a nice family with a mother who wears fashionable clothes, doesn't have aubergine hair and has probably never line danced in her life. In other words, my sort of girl.

Said kid is a whizz at basketball and already plays for the under 15s French national team and sadly for DS, will be leaving at the end of term to take up one of only 5 places at a specialist sports college. Poor DS, every friend he makes leaves the area, some even the country!

Philippe, the papa who I've only met twice, came to pick Friend up so I invited him out onto the balcony while his DS got his things together.

I'd spent several hours trying to mend our parasol which was now lying in bits around the balcony. He politely enquired as to whether I would manage to mend it.

Ever keen to show off my grasp of the French language, and argot (slang) in particular, I used a phrase oft repeated by my neighbour.

The fact that the two boys, who had by now joined us, guffawed and ran into the garden laughing like drains, and the father's gave me a slightly shocked look and raised an eyebrow should have alerted me to the fact that I'd made a faux pas.

We bid our adieus and I rushed to check out my expression in my dictionary, worried about what I might have said.

Well, what I meant to say in response to his question about whether I could mend the parasol was 'No, it's had it' but what I actually said was 'no, it's completely f***ed'.

Ah, well, there endeth another friendship before it's even started!