The frog and I speak a language understood only by ourselves, where sentences may start in French, end in English and include some words which hover somewhere in between. I’ve adopted some of the frog’s more endearing mistakes because they amused me: faulty plurals (feets, sheeps), creative past tenses (“I’m feeling hanged over”). He also does a very convincing faux Yorkshire accent when he says “fancy a cuppa tea luv?” and slips into it automatically (as do I) when he spends time with my family.

Mother called last night and asked the frog if he had any idea what she could get him for his upcoming birthday. I would give anything to have been a fly on the wall to see her reaction when he said that he could do with a pair of handcuffs*.

Strait-laced mother must have been struggling to process this unexpected/unwelcome revelation about our sex life and his request was met with a protracted embarrassed silence. I was too busy choking with mirth on a sour cream and onion Pringle to put either of them out of their misery.

He meant cuff links*.

Reproduced with permission from Catherine Sanderson´s blog Petite Anglaise. Catherine is about to publish a book about her adventures living in Paris.

*note for non-native english speakers:
handcuffs - the police use them to fasten your hands together
cuff links - decorative device used to fasten shirt sleeves

It’s a question he’d had dozens of times: Why on earth would you move from sunny friendly Sydney to cold dreary London?? Are you insane?
But finally, he had an answer.

Their meeting was uneventful, a casual hello at church one evening. Not long after however, Gezza was thoroughly missing his aussie barbecues (”barbies”) and decided to host one, and even though he hadn’t invited Alice, a mutual friend told her to come along. Alice thought she’d better check whether that was ok, so asked him and of course received a positive response.
And so appropriately, the pair had their first proper conversation over a bbq. The problem was, Alice was a vegetarian… how the heck was that going to work with an aussie bbq?

She arrived with her vegetarian sausages, “Would you like me to use a different pair of tongs?” Gezza asked, jokingly, trying to show his good aussie sense of humour. “Yes please” came the reply from an oblivious Alice, thinking to herself, “what a thoughtful, sensitive guy!”. Gezza swallowed his surprise and went inside in search of an extra pair of tongs. It was obvious that these two were made for each other.

So they got married and are still living in cold dreary London… (what happened there?)

Is your friend / husband / wife or partner from another country? Send your story to info@pocketcultures.com

Lydia writes: I had known my (now) husband Carlo for a few months when we were invited by friends to a celebration dinner. It would be a smart event, and I asked Carlo what he was planning to wear. “I have a maroon velvet suit which will be perfect” he answered. Well, in England where I grew up “maroon velvet” suits have not been in fashion since sometime during the 1970s, but since we had not known each other for very long, and after all the Italians are supposed to know something about style, I politely said nothing.  

However there was no need to have worried. On the evening itself Carlo turned up wearing a very nice dark brown corduroy suit. He had translated the Italian for brown corduroy (velluto marrone) into the nearest equivalent English words, thus causing my confusion. Now I am learning Italian, and making up many more funny expressions of my own!

Ok, well we had to start somewhere! But we´d love to hear from you for future posts.

Are you married to / dating someone who comes from a different country? What was the most surprising, funny, even uncomfortable event linked to your different backgrounds? Did you grow up worlds apart, or are your cultures pretty similar? If you don´t have a foreign partner, you could still contribute if you have ever had a friend of a different nationality.

Anyway, back to the post. Where better to start than the great Michael Caine. He fell in love with his wife Shakira after seeing her on the tv, in a coffee advertisement. As the advertisement was set in Brazil, he assumed she was Brazilian and he managed to persuade his friend to go to Brazil with him so he could meet the girl he wanted to marry…

…Luckily he thought to check with the company making the commercial before leaving, Shakira was Indian (born in Guyana) and lived only one mile away from his house in London! He called her the next day and the two have been together ever since.