Which may explain why we broke the news at the Café de Flore a semester beforehand, over cafés liégeois and éclairs au chocolat, the blackmailing parent's best friends.

Ah ! we may smile as we walk behind our hostess as she discourses eagerly over her pickles and preserves, and we scent the queer lavender cupboardy smell that hangs about the upstairs rooms, each bed appropriately attired in a ghost-like dust-sheet.

They held a crab feed on the beach.

make a gaffe