Bonzo Dog
Well-known member
Just got this from my friend Robert. He is a totally straight guy, so I have no doubt as to it's truth. Read and enjoy. 
My mate and his wife have just bought an old Manor House in France.
The chap that rents the small house next door (that they don't own) is a bit of a petrol head, and has several cars, all fairly tidy.
My pal e-mailed us this story, which is true, but you might have some difficulty believing it...
My pal doesn't speak much French...
I have changed the names to protect everybody.
It was about three weeks ago as Betsy's brother-in-law, James, and I were knocking in some fence posts at the rear of the property, when a lady in a Mercedes pulled up and explained something in French. With my reasonable grasp of spoken French I instantly hadn't got a clue what she was talking about, except that I caught the word voiture. Presuming that one of our neighbour's ten or so cars was blocking the road I replied , ''Dans le blanc maison.'' This however had no effect on her continued ramblings.
Deciding on what to do next I said, ''Je regardez.'' This was followed by , ''Oui'', from the lady as she pointed frantically down the road.
Walking down towards Pierre's house I could see that none of his cars were blocking the road, however, about 75 yards further on I could see Pierre's Jaguar had overshot the junction at the bottom and was in the ditch on the far side of the road with a crowd of concerned people standing around it, their cars now blocking the road to traffic in any direction.
Realising that Pierre was on a suspended prison sentence and not allowed to drive, my first concern was to get the car off the road before the gendarmes arrived. Hurrying down to the scene of the accident I saw one of the older observers walking towards me up the road. It was an old lady wobbling precariously on her high heels, wearing a long velvet skirt, silvery blouse and a matching black velvet top with sequins, holding a clutch bag. When I got within fifteen yards I realised it was in fact Pierre, who was also applied bright red lipstick, mascara and eye shadow. Not wanting to cause embarrassment I walked straight passed and pretended not to recognise him.
Once I got to the crowd of onlookers I took a moment to assess the situation. The Jaguar was suspended from underneath by a mound of earth, two wheels were on the road, one on the earth bank, the other in mid-air. Explaining to one of those standing around wondering what to do next ( probably to call the local Gendarmerie) I explained, ' J'ai un camion au Manoir' and disappeared off to get James and the van.
After explaining to James, in about 30 seconds, this bizarre situation, we got the van out of the barn, a rope from the garage, and headed down to the scene of the incident only to find all the bystanders had now moved on.. After hooking up the van to the rear of the Jaguar, I asked James to sit in the car, take the handbrake off, and as it was automatic, move it from park to neutral, only to find there was no key in it and it was locked in park.
With no other option I ran up the road to find Pierre, who because of his unsteadiness on high heels had, by this time, only managed to reach the front door of his house.
Again in an attempt to let him hold onto any vestige of dignity I did not refer to him by his name but simply said, ''Le clef pour le Jaguar.'' Half turning around and without looking at me his hand held out the key. I hurried down the road back to the car where I found James trying to convince the postman, in his yellow van, that the Jaguar had rolled down the road all by itself ! The postman, a very pleasant man aged around 40, looked at me with a smile and said , ''D?accord''. He knew what had happened, but not the circumstances.
A good tug with the diesel powered transit, a slight smell of a straining clutch, and Pierre was freed from his potential prison sentence as the Jaguar sprung free from the vegetation. Two minutes later we had the car parked outside Pierre's house. I handed back the key to an awaiting and rather concerned Pierre, and said, ''le Jaguar c'est bon.'' Pierre spouted forth numerous gratitudes for helping him out, before James and I departed to get a well earned cup of coffee, and to ponder over what had just happened. It was as we were enjoying our moments respite that James realised he had left his hat in Pierre's Jaguar, so nipped back to recover it. As Pierre was handing James back his 'chapeau' ,who should pull up but the postman in his yellow van. Pierre at this point covered his face with the clutch bag he was carrying saying, ''mais non, la postie, la postie !'' The postmen standing there trying to keep a straight face at what he could see before him, a simple, 'bonjour' was all he uttered before getting back into his van and driving off.
The similarity between Toad of Toad Hall and Pierre was not lost on us; having about ten cars, being banned from driving by the courts, a suspended sentence hanging over him, dressing up as a woman and cannot control his passion for cars !
If you think this is the end of my story and the conclusion of a rather unusual day you would be sorely mistaken. I'm sure your thinking it can't get any better than that...................read on !
After lunch, James, Diane and their two children headed out for the afternoon. I busied myself levelling out some of the fence posts and Betsy went to a farm, a short distance away, to get some eggs.
A short while later Betsy arrived back, with a slight look of panic on her face, to tell me that Pierre's Porsche was on the fairly narrow main road about 300 yards away, there is no one in it and the windows are open. To make matters worse one of the highways' vans has turned up, their representative concerned that the way the Porsche had been abandoned could be, 'dangereux'. Betsy in her quick thinking had asked the highways man not to radio Gendarmerie and that we would move it immediately.
It was beginning to appear that keeping Pierre out of jail could prove more difficult than we first thought !
Betsy and I quickly drove back to the scene in our car only to find there was no key in the Porsche. Thinking on my feet I told the highways man I would go and get my van and car trailer to move the vehicle, he seemed happy to wait until it was cleared.
On getting back home, while Betsy waited with the Porsche, I decided to see if Pierre was at home before I went to the trouble of digging out the van and trailer out.
As I approached Pierre's front door I could see the key to the Porsche lying just inside the open front door. Picking the key up I called out, 'Pierre ?' A groan came from the small room at the back. Rushing in I found Pierre, still dressed as a woman, lying on the bathroom floor with a broken toilet seat next to him. He was conscious with his eyes open but making no attempt to move. A quick decision had to be made. Stay with Pierre and get him sorted out or shift his Porsche before the police arrived. Putting a pillow under his head to make him comfortable, I grabbed the key and quickly made my way back to the Porsche where matters had taken a turn for the worse. The highways man had indeed radioed the police who had now turned up in force, two male officers and one female officer !
As I stepped out of our car I was approached by a very stern looking gendarme who demanded, ''le papier pour votre voiture'', as he pointed towards the Porsche !
Totally stunned by this unexpected development I waved my hands in front of me saying, '' Non, non ma voiture, le proprietaire dans la blanc maison, le proprietaire malade ! '' As I pointed back towards the Manoire while displaying the key to the Porsche that I was holding, in the vain hope that they would enquire no further about Pierre having driven the car.
Fortunately for my sake my French had just been enough to save me from being carted off as well !
Pointing at the Porsche with a few English and French words thrown in I offered to drive the Porsche back to Pierre's house. For the highways man and the police this seemed to solve the immediate problem of having the car abandoned on the main road, ''Oui'', was their quick response. As I spun the the starter over the illuminated image of petrol pump on the dash board almost blinded me with it's intensity. ' Oh :cen: king great we are out of fuel as well !' I thought, flopping back in the driver's seat trying to formulate my next move !
The policeman standing around twiddling their thumbs seemed less than impressed.
Jumping out of the Porsche as if this was no problem at all, and giving the gendarmes no time to react, I said ''J'ai gazoline a ma maison.'' My French was now being stretched to the limit of my vocabulary !
With a wave from one of the gendarmes permission was granted.
Arriving back home I hunted out the petrol cans for our lawn mower and strimmer. In total I found little more than a gallon of fuel !
With petrol can and funnel in hand Betsy and I poured the meagre amount of petrol into this 2.8 litre Porsche in the desperate hope it might be enough for the fuel pick up pipe to reach ! Getting back into the car I spun the starter motor over. Nothing !
Pumping the throttle I kept turning the engine over, but deep down I had a sinking feeling this was going to get far worse. Then came our first bit of luck of the day as it fired into life, a roar of the engine that was followed by a spontaneous round of applause from the gendarmes and the highway man !
My forlorn hope was that I would simply drive the Porsche back to Pierre's house and that would be it.
No such luck.
The gendarmes wanted to speak with the owner, who I knew was lying on his bathroom floor, next to a broken toilet seat, dressed as a woman with badly applied make up plastered all over his face !
Not meaning to speak out loud I blurted out, '' Ahhh ! ''
All three gendarmes looked at me in a confused manner.
In an attempt to save them from the shock that awaited them, I explained in the best Franglais I could muster, ''Le proprietaire de voiture dans la maison avec les clothes de la femme.''
This threw a look of confusion across the face of both the male and female gendarmes. I was unsure if it was my stunningly good French or the contents of my concocted sentence that had bamboozled them!
The highways man departed as our convoy of vehicles drove the short distance back to the Manoire, with me following the police van in the Porsche. Parking up outside Pierre's house I walked up to his front door where the three gendarmes were now standing, the police woman shouting, ''Bonjour'' through the open door. Giving them instructions, ''A derriere, a gauche'', I said as I pointed to the bathroom at the rear of the cottage.
As the gendarmes entered Pierre's cottage I decided a sharp exit on my behalf was a good move and so walked off to our property next door.
About a minute passed then one of the gendarmes reappeared. ''Monsieur'', he shouted, '' is it a man or a woman ?'' speaking his first words of English.
''A man'', I replied.
''The clothes of a woman'', he said tugging at his shirt.
My simple reply, ''Oui.''
With a shrug of his shoulders and a smile of bemusement on his face he re-entered Pierre's cottage to inform his colleagues
As Betsy and I sat on out terrace with a strong coffee, relieved to have relinquished any further responsibility for the day's events, an ambulance arrived to take Pierre to hospital. We heard later this was for a Psychiatric assessment !
My mate and his wife have just bought an old Manor House in France.
The chap that rents the small house next door (that they don't own) is a bit of a petrol head, and has several cars, all fairly tidy.
My pal e-mailed us this story, which is true, but you might have some difficulty believing it...
My pal doesn't speak much French...
I have changed the names to protect everybody.
It was about three weeks ago as Betsy's brother-in-law, James, and I were knocking in some fence posts at the rear of the property, when a lady in a Mercedes pulled up and explained something in French. With my reasonable grasp of spoken French I instantly hadn't got a clue what she was talking about, except that I caught the word voiture. Presuming that one of our neighbour's ten or so cars was blocking the road I replied , ''Dans le blanc maison.'' This however had no effect on her continued ramblings.
Deciding on what to do next I said, ''Je regardez.'' This was followed by , ''Oui'', from the lady as she pointed frantically down the road.
Walking down towards Pierre's house I could see that none of his cars were blocking the road, however, about 75 yards further on I could see Pierre's Jaguar had overshot the junction at the bottom and was in the ditch on the far side of the road with a crowd of concerned people standing around it, their cars now blocking the road to traffic in any direction.
Realising that Pierre was on a suspended prison sentence and not allowed to drive, my first concern was to get the car off the road before the gendarmes arrived. Hurrying down to the scene of the accident I saw one of the older observers walking towards me up the road. It was an old lady wobbling precariously on her high heels, wearing a long velvet skirt, silvery blouse and a matching black velvet top with sequins, holding a clutch bag. When I got within fifteen yards I realised it was in fact Pierre, who was also applied bright red lipstick, mascara and eye shadow. Not wanting to cause embarrassment I walked straight passed and pretended not to recognise him.
Once I got to the crowd of onlookers I took a moment to assess the situation. The Jaguar was suspended from underneath by a mound of earth, two wheels were on the road, one on the earth bank, the other in mid-air. Explaining to one of those standing around wondering what to do next ( probably to call the local Gendarmerie) I explained, ' J'ai un camion au Manoir' and disappeared off to get James and the van.
After explaining to James, in about 30 seconds, this bizarre situation, we got the van out of the barn, a rope from the garage, and headed down to the scene of the incident only to find all the bystanders had now moved on.. After hooking up the van to the rear of the Jaguar, I asked James to sit in the car, take the handbrake off, and as it was automatic, move it from park to neutral, only to find there was no key in it and it was locked in park.
With no other option I ran up the road to find Pierre, who because of his unsteadiness on high heels had, by this time, only managed to reach the front door of his house.
Again in an attempt to let him hold onto any vestige of dignity I did not refer to him by his name but simply said, ''Le clef pour le Jaguar.'' Half turning around and without looking at me his hand held out the key. I hurried down the road back to the car where I found James trying to convince the postman, in his yellow van, that the Jaguar had rolled down the road all by itself ! The postman, a very pleasant man aged around 40, looked at me with a smile and said , ''D?accord''. He knew what had happened, but not the circumstances.
A good tug with the diesel powered transit, a slight smell of a straining clutch, and Pierre was freed from his potential prison sentence as the Jaguar sprung free from the vegetation. Two minutes later we had the car parked outside Pierre's house. I handed back the key to an awaiting and rather concerned Pierre, and said, ''le Jaguar c'est bon.'' Pierre spouted forth numerous gratitudes for helping him out, before James and I departed to get a well earned cup of coffee, and to ponder over what had just happened. It was as we were enjoying our moments respite that James realised he had left his hat in Pierre's Jaguar, so nipped back to recover it. As Pierre was handing James back his 'chapeau' ,who should pull up but the postman in his yellow van. Pierre at this point covered his face with the clutch bag he was carrying saying, ''mais non, la postie, la postie !'' The postmen standing there trying to keep a straight face at what he could see before him, a simple, 'bonjour' was all he uttered before getting back into his van and driving off.
The similarity between Toad of Toad Hall and Pierre was not lost on us; having about ten cars, being banned from driving by the courts, a suspended sentence hanging over him, dressing up as a woman and cannot control his passion for cars !
If you think this is the end of my story and the conclusion of a rather unusual day you would be sorely mistaken. I'm sure your thinking it can't get any better than that...................read on !
After lunch, James, Diane and their two children headed out for the afternoon. I busied myself levelling out some of the fence posts and Betsy went to a farm, a short distance away, to get some eggs.
A short while later Betsy arrived back, with a slight look of panic on her face, to tell me that Pierre's Porsche was on the fairly narrow main road about 300 yards away, there is no one in it and the windows are open. To make matters worse one of the highways' vans has turned up, their representative concerned that the way the Porsche had been abandoned could be, 'dangereux'. Betsy in her quick thinking had asked the highways man not to radio Gendarmerie and that we would move it immediately.
It was beginning to appear that keeping Pierre out of jail could prove more difficult than we first thought !
Betsy and I quickly drove back to the scene in our car only to find there was no key in the Porsche. Thinking on my feet I told the highways man I would go and get my van and car trailer to move the vehicle, he seemed happy to wait until it was cleared.
On getting back home, while Betsy waited with the Porsche, I decided to see if Pierre was at home before I went to the trouble of digging out the van and trailer out.
As I approached Pierre's front door I could see the key to the Porsche lying just inside the open front door. Picking the key up I called out, 'Pierre ?' A groan came from the small room at the back. Rushing in I found Pierre, still dressed as a woman, lying on the bathroom floor with a broken toilet seat next to him. He was conscious with his eyes open but making no attempt to move. A quick decision had to be made. Stay with Pierre and get him sorted out or shift his Porsche before the police arrived. Putting a pillow under his head to make him comfortable, I grabbed the key and quickly made my way back to the Porsche where matters had taken a turn for the worse. The highways man had indeed radioed the police who had now turned up in force, two male officers and one female officer !
As I stepped out of our car I was approached by a very stern looking gendarme who demanded, ''le papier pour votre voiture'', as he pointed towards the Porsche !
Totally stunned by this unexpected development I waved my hands in front of me saying, '' Non, non ma voiture, le proprietaire dans la blanc maison, le proprietaire malade ! '' As I pointed back towards the Manoire while displaying the key to the Porsche that I was holding, in the vain hope that they would enquire no further about Pierre having driven the car.
Fortunately for my sake my French had just been enough to save me from being carted off as well !
Pointing at the Porsche with a few English and French words thrown in I offered to drive the Porsche back to Pierre's house. For the highways man and the police this seemed to solve the immediate problem of having the car abandoned on the main road, ''Oui'', was their quick response. As I spun the the starter over the illuminated image of petrol pump on the dash board almost blinded me with it's intensity. ' Oh :cen: king great we are out of fuel as well !' I thought, flopping back in the driver's seat trying to formulate my next move !
The policeman standing around twiddling their thumbs seemed less than impressed.
Jumping out of the Porsche as if this was no problem at all, and giving the gendarmes no time to react, I said ''J'ai gazoline a ma maison.'' My French was now being stretched to the limit of my vocabulary !
With a wave from one of the gendarmes permission was granted.
Arriving back home I hunted out the petrol cans for our lawn mower and strimmer. In total I found little more than a gallon of fuel !
With petrol can and funnel in hand Betsy and I poured the meagre amount of petrol into this 2.8 litre Porsche in the desperate hope it might be enough for the fuel pick up pipe to reach ! Getting back into the car I spun the starter motor over. Nothing !
Pumping the throttle I kept turning the engine over, but deep down I had a sinking feeling this was going to get far worse. Then came our first bit of luck of the day as it fired into life, a roar of the engine that was followed by a spontaneous round of applause from the gendarmes and the highway man !
My forlorn hope was that I would simply drive the Porsche back to Pierre's house and that would be it.
No such luck.
The gendarmes wanted to speak with the owner, who I knew was lying on his bathroom floor, next to a broken toilet seat, dressed as a woman with badly applied make up plastered all over his face !
Not meaning to speak out loud I blurted out, '' Ahhh ! ''
All three gendarmes looked at me in a confused manner.
In an attempt to save them from the shock that awaited them, I explained in the best Franglais I could muster, ''Le proprietaire de voiture dans la maison avec les clothes de la femme.''
This threw a look of confusion across the face of both the male and female gendarmes. I was unsure if it was my stunningly good French or the contents of my concocted sentence that had bamboozled them!
The highways man departed as our convoy of vehicles drove the short distance back to the Manoire, with me following the police van in the Porsche. Parking up outside Pierre's house I walked up to his front door where the three gendarmes were now standing, the police woman shouting, ''Bonjour'' through the open door. Giving them instructions, ''A derriere, a gauche'', I said as I pointed to the bathroom at the rear of the cottage.
As the gendarmes entered Pierre's cottage I decided a sharp exit on my behalf was a good move and so walked off to our property next door.
About a minute passed then one of the gendarmes reappeared. ''Monsieur'', he shouted, '' is it a man or a woman ?'' speaking his first words of English.
''A man'', I replied.
''The clothes of a woman'', he said tugging at his shirt.
My simple reply, ''Oui.''
With a shrug of his shoulders and a smile of bemusement on his face he re-entered Pierre's cottage to inform his colleagues
As Betsy and I sat on out terrace with a strong coffee, relieved to have relinquished any further responsibility for the day's events, an ambulance arrived to take Pierre to hospital. We heard later this was for a Psychiatric assessment !
