Salut Copain!
A presto
Invitation accepted, I’m on facebook but never use it! When I lived in the UK I was in Devon and Cornwall where I picked up the accent over the years and adored it. the accent here in the aveyron does teh same to me - it’s so warm and friendly - like your cheshire cat!
Spoke to an old uni friend for the first time in years not long ago, he has a very standard accent and said I know sound like Bernard Laporte which I took as a compliment as he’s ruthènois. HE couldn’t have been very nice if he didn’t like the accent je suis espinté !
Yes - need to go to Italy for a few days (I’m in the middle of an Italian translation, well that’s what I should be doing! - no problem passively understanding but start talking at length… yes I need to go to italy for a while!
a presto
Pauvre ‘Papy’ 
My daughter (Canadian/born in Holland/brought up speaking English/Dutch) married a French b** uh … bloke (divorced now) and, living in Millau, always ranted about that horrible ‘juicy’ accent.
Her son/my grandson, now 14, has the juiciest juicy aveyronais accent possible. Makes me grin like that fat, old Cheshire Cat.
Same here with Italian and Ivriet. One does pick it up quickly, I find, once chatting along for a few hours, non?
Hey … maybe we should become ‘Friends’? Sounds like bloody Facebook, but I’ll propose, okay?
Juicy aveyronnais accent - it certainly is - when my Dad, who speaks very "Parisian’ French, came here last he was rather upset at not being able to understand his year old grand daughter -she’s got the broadest Decazeville accet going!
I have a problem actively speaking Italian now - that’s the problem with languages - use them or lose them !
Ah does, ah does and I, too, miss the juicy Aveyron accent. As far as Spanish and Portuguese are concerned, I adore Portuguese. Knowing both languages was a bit diffficult right at the beginning: I mixed them up
You’ll love Occitan, I think.
I still read and understand Italian sans problème, but have become shy speaking it.
Ah you know exactly what I’m talking about then Ruth, what with time spent in Millau and having studies Occitan. I spent a few months in the Charent-Maritime and missed the accent here a lot + everyone remarked my accent there (aveyronnais not English!)
My third language is Italian - fine for understanding Corsican but not much good with Occitan - I really must get round to learning Spanish/Portuguese one day or even Occitan so I can understand my inlaws and some friends when they speak in patois!
Yes it opens so many doors, the mind and so many possibilities. I nearly settled in Italy, my first love, but am firmly entrenched here in France now. retirement in… we’ll have to wait and see!
You warm the cockles of my heart with your Aveyron/Midi accent, Andrew. Patois is like music to my ears.
Studied Occitan and was happily surprised that, since I speak Portuguese, I had no problem at all with Occitan.
Must admit that I am lucky to be able to speaj several languages. It makes the world so much smaller and brings you close to people in other countries much faster.
I use tu all the time and if who ever I am speaking with cant hack it tuff, lol. They get that I’m English and no one seems to care. Being not so good on the hearing side - complete typical female voice pitch missing- (seriously) I cant tell the difference with any of the subtleties of the French language or for that matter English either. I just dont worry about it, just get stuck in and get there in the end and as for asking for one of those vanilla slice, mille feuille things, knowing I cant pronounce it works wonders for my waist line.
Out of interest do they do, the cant remember what’s its called but in English there is a system where its written as its spoken without all the silent letters etc phoenetics? The thing that always gets me when reading French text is there are so many letters at the ends of words that seem to have no relevance to the spoken language what so ever and are just a waste of ink.
It all depends on how tired I am - full of beans then I have quite a stron southern accent (extremely strong in parts of the aveyron) but when very tired it’s very obvoius that I’m not French but like you not necessarily English either. I speak Italian too, well I don’t get much chance now but when I did I could pass for an italian as I found it so much easier to pronounce than French at the time.
Brouillard and bouilloire were a couple of my bugbears for a while. the vous thing’s sorted but I’ve been known to tutoyer gendarmes and people I didn’t know at first. Mille feuille - no worries there.
and the u -v- ou as in tu and tout, I had a french girlfriend while I was doing my degree who went mad everytime I got it wrong and couldn’t understand why anglophones couldn’t hear and pronounce the difference, so I got that one sorted very early on.
My french OH never speaks English, or only when forced to do so when my family are here so I can’t come up with any chestnuts like ducking biscuits but I like it !
One of the joys now is using local patois/occitan words from time to time… did it at an evening class once to explain the meaning of a word - half the class thought it was brilliant, the other half didn’t have a clue what the patois meant… led to another good discussion about languages !
I’ll keep thinking of those that still pose a problem and come back to you 
à +
PS where abouts are you in the Tarn… the patois’ similar to the aveyron too