Artichoke Paloise

I was just telling Dom in an email about some Norewegians and Swedes who had taught me a drinking song when I was in France for a few months in 1991. I was thinking about a particular Norwegian girl. I had known her for quite a while before I discovered that (although she was in her early twenties) she had already had bad cancer. I remember two things particularly, she had the most frightening spiral scar all the way up her arm ( I think the surgeon had taken all the skin off and then put it back) and she was incredibly kind, cooking us meatballs and generally watching out for everyone. I wonder where she is. I also remember that when I left I said to people, " good bye, I will never see you again". I said that to a Canadian bloke. He was funny, very shy. He didn't smell too good at first as he had had all his clothes stolen in Pisa or somewhere and he had no money to replace them; we only discovered this later. In one of the first lessons, he had been asked a question and was struggling with the answer (you could only speak French in the classes). The teacher was a gorgeous demure woman called Pascale. He stammered away for a while and out of nowhere he came out with "je t'aime". He went bright red and buried his head in his hands; it was a great ice breaker. During the course he improved in confidence and in speaking ablility. In one of the last lessons, with the same beautiful teacher, he got himself stuck on the answer to a question. Like a school kid, before he had a chance to finish his sentence, I piped up with "je t'aime". He waited a perfect second and a half before he shrugged his shoulders, "peut-etre". There was another guy in my class, I would have been 27, this bloke was an 18 year old public school boy who had done a deal with his Dad that if he completed this course his father would pay or him to go skiing later. Andrew was his name, I really liked him despite his jeuvenile pranks. We had all been given comprehension to do from photocopied sheets with a series of pictures. I was minding my own business as Pascale started to come round the class to see how we were getting on. Soon she was helping Andrew who was sitting next to me. I shot a nonchalent glance over in his direction. There, as clear as day, was Andrew's sheet which they were both discussing. The main picture was one of the sun setting over Florence with a couple arm in arm in the foreground admiring the view. Above the couple were the words "Adrian and Pascale".