In the Stairwell

I'm currently in Antwerp - the first time I've set foot on the continent since 2019, and that was only to change planes. I'm in a hotel near city's impressive basilica of a railway station, with an anchovy-laden pizza decocting quietly in my stomach. It's only a brief visit, though, to give a lecture; tomorrow, back to Birmingham and thence Bristol.

It's really embarrassing a) how little I find I'm able to use French (I never had Flemish) and b) how little it matters, everyone else being fluent in English. I seem to have the kind of brain that can only hold one foreign language at a time, and of course that's currently Japanese. I thought I was doing okay when I arrived at the hotel and introduced myself as Catherine Butler in a half-decent accent, but then heard myself add involuntarily, "desu" - a real confidence knocker.

Actually, most of the French I need is hidden somewhere in my head, but to get at it I need to heave the Japanese out of the way, and more often than not a residual layer of German too - and by then the moment's passed. A few seconds too late, I remember what it was I wanted to say, but now it's no more than a case of l'esprit d'escalier.

The irony isn't lost on me.