Okay. Here’s a test. What word best describes the Cote d’Azur for the moment? Sunny? Nope, wrong. It’s Drooping. Unbelievably May continues with its unsettled weather and rain, more rain and rain again is our constant companion. Mind you, to be fair there are variations: light showers, torrential downpours and whiz bang thundery rain. What we don’t get, ever, is drizzle. When it rains here - it rains.

And so, for the moment, everything is drooping from the weight of this constant and prolonged rain. Plants, flowers, grass, even us human beings. It is as if the sorrow of this weather has affected everyone on the French Riviera. Nothing can beat swinging open French wooden shutters to the blaze of a hot Mediterranean sun in the morning. It just makes the day. Now, shutters open and its drooping shoulders all round.

The good side is that it makes me want to stay indoors and curl up with a good book. While I continue to enjoy Mary Blume’s ‘Cote d’Azur: Inventing the French Riviera’, three new books have landed on my desk. The first one is MFK Fisher’s ‘Two Towns In Provence’, the second is Patrick Howarth’s ‘When The Riviera Was Ours’, and the last one is Maureen Emerson’s forthcoming book ‘Escape to Provence’. Rather naughtily I have delved into all three and I must say that they all look really enticing.

Oddly enough, you’d think by now I’d be reading French books rather than English ones. While I can read and understand French perfectly, I simply can’t immerse myself as totally as I can when reading in my own language. I’ve even tried a number of ways to do so and found one that seemed to work. I first buy the English book and then its French translation (or French book with English translation). I read the English book first so that I know what the story line is and create all the necessary images in my head. I then read the French version underlining any new words I’ve not seen before. Sadly, this method takes forever as I look up any unknown French words while this ’stop-start’ tends to make me forget the story’s thread.

Mind you, though I may prefer to read in English - I do count in French in my head and even sometimes dream in French too. Go figure.

Having said that, it’s therefore an interesting fact to see that a friend’s daughter of ours, Sarah and now aged 15, is still perfectly bi-lingual, even after leaving France and living in the UK for the past five years. She is presently staying with us and making a sentimental visit to see all her ex-school friends this week. When she speaks English there is absolutely no denying she’s English. And yet, as soon as she flips into French - you would swear she’s French. This is an absolute gift. My brother, who lived in France for nigh on twenty years, spoke French with a dreadful English accent you could cut with a knife. My belief is that you need to start learning French as a toddler (as was Sarah’s case) and, more importantly, live in France and enter its school system as early as possible. Sadly, most kids balk at the idea (as I did back in the misty days of my youth).

Yet, more importantly still, is to make the effort to speak French while living here. It is without doubt a beautiful language and gentle on the ears. And while I may not have a ‘penchant’ for reading French, I do enjoy everything else this beautiful country has to offer. Vive La France - even on miserable dark rainy days!

Today was another one of those embarrassing discoveries when we again voiced our inevitable mantra Why Didn’t We Do This Years Ago? Yes folks, after seven years of living here on the French Riviera I finally made it to the Iles de Lerins. Well, Ile Ste Marguerite anyway. And what an unexpected pleasure. With me came Nigel of course and two of our dogs, Bertie and Freddy plus Jill from the English Book Centre in Valbonne and her dog Scruffy. Like us, Jill had not visited the island before and so upon hearing our plan for this Sunday, asked if she could accompany us.

Departing Cannes, a short 25 minute motor boat ride brought us to the island. Once there we decided to visit the fort first, famous for having incarcerated the Man in the Iron Mask and then make our way round the island’s perimeter to Pointe du Vengeur where we would stop for our picnic. We were all uncertain about what we would find but I’m delighted to say that the island surpassed our expectations. The May issue of AMB will have my article relating to today’s excursion plus loads of photos but suffice to say that, if you’ve never been, it really is well worth a visit if you’re like us and enjoy both walking and nature. Anyway we’d loved it, as did the dogs - for most of the time off the lead - and though we walked for about four hours (plus extra time visiting the fort and then a break for lunch) we found that we’d only covered half the island.

When we first came off the motor launch and, later, as we walked around the island it was difficult not to notice a fair number of mauve stinger jellyfish pulsating in the waters. I think they are Pelagia noctiluca which have become a bane around the Mediterranean over the past few years and seem to be on the increase with swarms arriving in summer time just when the tourist season is in full swing. From all accounts it seems their presence is due to a decrease in predators, saltier waters due to low rainfall and warmer Mediterranean waters.

Mind you, when compared to the Nomura’s jellyfish found off the coast of Japan, they are mere tiddlers. Those monsters can grow as much as 6 feet (2 meters) in diameter and weigh up to 450 pounds (220 kilogram). While I might just tolerate meeting up with one of these mauve jellies when out snorkling, there is no way I’d be a happy bunny with one of those big boys. I must hasten to also add that this is not one of my photos taken while scuba diving but one I found on the internet while researching the name of the mauve jelly chaps.

Most mornings Nigel and I listen to BBC Radio 4, he always very intently and I somewhat with half an ear as I’m more in tune working on Happy Lappy responding to emails. But this morning my attention was riveted when Edward Stourton interviewed Jacques Myard, the French minister from Nicolas Sarkozy’s UMP Party, concerning his immense shock and subsequent bitter complaint over the choice of English in this year’s French entry in the Eurovision Song Contest taking place on Saturday, May 24 in Belgrade.

Indeed, it seems he is not the only one from Sarkozy’s cabinet to feel appalled. Francois-Michel Gonnot is to launch an official complaint in the French Parliament this afternoon with a question to Christine Albanel, minister of Culture while also pointing out his dissatisfaction on his blog under the title Shame on France 3.

Talking to Edward Stourton, Myard voiced his concern how the French language was under serious threat in the face of English imperialism and that by publicizing the French song in English was yet another nail in the coffin. He explained how he had just heard that the European Commission were dropping the French and German translation of statistics in favour of English only. For Myard, language is the heart of a nation’s culture and a tool for its economy. What, he wondered, will be the result if we are speaking constantly English - would foreign students still come to our country to pick up the language when even the French don’t use it?

As a byline it is interesting to note that from 1956 until 1965, no rule existed restricting the languages in which the Eurovision songs could be sung. But in 1966 a rule was imposed stating that songs must be performed in one of the official languages of the country participating. This restriction continued until 1973 when it was then lifted, only to revert back in 1977. In 1999 it was changed once again to allow freedom of language.

Though Myard has a good point it is also significant to mention that between one third and two thirds of all English words have a French origin. For the 300 years after the Norman Conquest in 1066, the kings of England spoke only French and during this time, a large number of French words were assimilated into Old English and resulted into Middle English. During the 17th-19th centuries, French was the lingua franca of the European elite. Monarchs such as Frederick the Great of Prussia and Catherine the Great of Russia could speak and write in French. Russian nobility used French for everyday communication.

While there may be 328 million worldwide native speakers of the English language, there are nonetheless a massive 77 million native French speakers. And though there is a mind-boggling 495 million who speak English as an additional language, 50 million people use French as theirs. More interestingly, there are 16 million French people who speak English as their second language. Even more mind boggling: there are around 400,000 people of French nationality living in the UK, most of them in London while there is a British population of just over 100,000 living full time in France.

While English is the first foreign language in education in all EU Member States, French is nearly always the second.

And so, while I understand Myard’s disappointment that his country has chosen English to represent their country’s song, I can only applaud Sebastien Tellier for his gutsy determination because, and let’s face it, which English singer can you think of that would sing in French for the United Kingdom on such a night? No, I can’t think of one either . . .