it’s really funny when a French stranger calls a greeting or starts a conversation with me, in a shop … and it turns out to be someone I taught to sing “Heads, shoulders, knees and toes…” in another lifetime… here at our village school… 
that sort of thing has happened on a few occasions… brings a glow…
A friend of mine is a now long retired institutruce, very funny doing a petit tour on the market with her and then going for coffee en terrasse, seeing all these adults suddenly revert to being 7 or 8 “b’jour m’dame, z’allez bien m’dame, oui j’ai été sage m’dame” especially the prosperous businessmen in their respectable overcoats 
Before lockdown in a café a total stranger bearded man waved and grinned at me and came bounding up oh god I thought, village weirdo but no - one of my 3eme pupils from years ago. Ça nous rajeunit pas, tout ça
Hell hath no fury like a shopper scorned 
I remember when my friend, a retired teacher, had to call the sapeurs pompiers for a wasps’ nest and one of them turned out to be a former pupil (again, a village school). Lovely to see the mutual affection.
My late wife was a teacher. She was in hospital following thé the birth of our son. She was 32 and on returning to the maternity ward after having left the delivery room heard a voice from the bed opposite.
« Hello miss » was the voice from the bed opposite as my wife looked up and saw one of her 15 year old pupils holding her newborn baby !!
the kids love it… slowly, softly at first… as they get used to the words… and the funny accent… then getting faster and faster…
then they gain confidence… and they love especially when we do it silently… and then do it as loudly as possible… has everyone in fits of laughter…
Definitely both sexes. People like having a chat. It’s a different pace of life here and I like that. I can see though that if I was in a rush it could be frustrating.
One day we’ll all be old, remember that. One day, as a lonely person with no-one to talk to - the only chance of a conversation, as proof you still exist, is the 5 minutes chatting with the check-out staff. You might be impatient - but just take a deep breath - and then imagine yourself as that old person - because one day…
Even in the UK, stressed out, coping with everything - I always tried to spare a thought for the ‘oldies’ ahead of me in a queue - maybe because my mother was one, and I knew how she felt about her little shopping trips as treats.
It is one of the many delights of France; that a cashier/check-out person will be a friend, a relative of the shopper - it’s a sign of the close-knit communities out here, and which has been lost in most parts of the UK.
Are we, or our time, so much more important than the person chatting in front of us ?
Enjoy it - may not be around much longer.
Maybe Anne, but I think you are being too pessimistic about what old age will mean in the future. This is the last generation that is not au fait with social media. Conversations now go all round the world. My 70+ year old friends have had a whale of a time through lockdown with Zoom, Whatsap, facetime and so on. Children, grandchildren, friends in Canada, New Zealand, Russia, China, Singapore, USA have kept in touch. That will not now go away.
If someone is alone with no-one to talk to in future that will be deliberate choice.
Express till’s are great for just a few items especially if you have frozen foods.
As I said in my post I like people having a chat and the different pace of life. I was also just empathising with those who may be in a rush.
I have helped out a couple of times at our temporary village bakery here in Burgundy and the length of chat thing is definitely not age related.
Deep breaths- it’s okay 
I know how important social contact is for older people. Those five minutes can mean the world.
I discovered accidentally a couple of rugby world cups ago that the cashier at the till I was going through would miss an important game and had no means of recording it so we organised a solution - I got her to give me a memory stick and recorded the match for her, dropping it off afterwards - no doubt very boring for the person behind if there was one, but worth it I thought. I don’t expect a few minutes more in a supermarket are here or there in the grand scheme of things.
Precisely Vero - and well done! I am wondering if JIm actually gets involved with his neighbours and/or community?
Really does make a difference - a smile and a little chat can only be a good thing on both sides.
Also proves you are a human, and part of the human race, not a robot.
Well folks, as I suspected, we’ve sort of gone around the block a few times, starting with bloody Jeremy Vine, through to Head, Shoulders etc, through to old folks at express tills and whatever else I may have just missed from the list…
I am, indeed, very mindful of the fact that many old folks have little if any outside contact and that a visit to the shops is a chance - and very necessary opportunity - to exchange and keep alive. And long may that be the case, but this is definitely not a specifically French issue. This is the same in my local village where my family came from in Tuscany, but equally I have experienced this in places as disparate as China, Brazil and even Niger in West Africa. It. didn’t drive me nuts the way the French seem to relish in being so bloody-minded!!
No, I think, if truth be told (and discovered) that I am probably just becoming a Grumpy Old Man!!
What a sad thing to be, if not occasionally amusing. Not sure how many of you might have seen a BBC TV series called Grumpy Old Men some 20 or so years ago, but if you did, I have no doubt you enjoyed it!
As to the movies - well GOM 1 and 2 have long been amongst my favourite movies, so I guess that speaks volumes in itself.
As they say - if you can’t beat 'em…
Bonne weekend a tous
T’inquiète pas, il y en a plein ici (grumpy old men), faut faire avec, faut s’y faire et ça ira… peut-être !
Bon week-end à toi aussi 
We just do our thing, that’s all.
Bon week-end!
Chatting at the till is just about ok, it’s the blatant blocking of the aisles, 2 trolleys, diagonally opposed that pisses me off. That, and the “thou shall not pass” look…
It isn’t just oldies! We arrived when my baby was only 4 months old, we didn’t know anyone here, said child didn’t sleep for 3 years and was difficult when awake so made it hard to go out and socialise much. I know for me the going to the shop each day onc ethe first winter hit and having a chat with Emilie the owner (who had a same age baby) was a real life line to me.
