Excuse me?

This morning we’d nipped into Bar-sur Seine to pick up a few groceries. As I was manoeuvring to park, a white van with a few people seated in the back, started to reverse out of a parking space in front of me. Now it has to be said that generally drivers ignore reversing lights in France and tend to drive right past you. I did the decent thing and held back to let him pull out, but he was not making a great job of it, so I started to reverse to give him a bit more room. For some reason, probably because he was making such a hash of it, he started gesticulating and shouting at me. Not to be intimidated, I simply leaned out of the car window and, in my best English accent, said, “Excuse me?”. He was stunned, and stared blankly at me. I then asked “Do you need help?”. I think this threw him into complete chaos, and he couldn’t quite recover. He looked straight ahead and quietly and calmly drove off.

Sometimes it works in your favour to just be yourself!