“I’m learning French online,” Miss14 said excitedly when we met up with our friends from New Caledonia.
Marie, who Tracey & I know from our hometown of Gympie, lives on this island paradise with her very sexy sounding French man whose been working on the island nation for many a decade.
So, naturally, when presented with this family with odd accents and a wealth of foreign culture to mine the first thing my kids wanted to know was…
…how to say the eff word in French.
I realise it’s a shallow victory but I was rather pleased they actually used the word ‘eff’ to ask. I’ll take whatever parenting points I can make up at this point.
And then my kids – all of them – practiced using this wonderful new word in sentences until The Sexiest Voice In The World returned with coffee to our table.
“Putain,” grinned our kids.
“Non,” he whispered, eyes darting to his wife. He spread his hands as if to say ‘what the putain?’ and shook his head. “Non.”
“Well, I guess that proves she told us the right word,” said Master12 cheerily to his siblings.
Which meant they could really cut loose when the next day we took to the waters of southern Tasmania to see seals in the wild for the very first time, courtesy of Pennicott Wilderness Journeys.
“Putain!” they yelled as we bumped and plunged wildly and wetly through the swell as we shot into the Southern Ocean. “Putain!”
Before too long we’d arrived at the island.
Wow. So much wow.
Wow for the boat ride. Wow for the dad joke banter of the captain and his crewmate. Wow for the seal colony. Wow for that seal colony smell.
And wow for seeing my kids finally silenced.
Silenced, not in awe of the wonder of nature in front of them so much as the nature of putting your foot in it when you’re a Devereaux.
Even more pleasantly than being suddenly very quiet, they were even looking abashed.
“And where are you guys from?” the captain asked the people sitting directly in front of us after we’d disclosed our Queenslander originals.
“Paris,” they smiled.
Over the couple’s chuckling you could almost hear my kids thinking that other French word they’d learnt the day before, ‘Non!‘
Our First Seal Encounter Caught On Video
If you can’t see this video here’s a link to watch it on YouTube: https://youtu.be/6fuHqVLbc4A
Raising a family on little more than laughs
This post is not sponsored however Petticott Wilderness Tours liked the idea of showing off their tour and Tracey taking photos for them so we got to go for nix
that looks fantastic, I’m hoping to do a family trip to Tassie next year, and this is on my list of things to do