ça se bouscule aux portillons

Today was lovely. I got to spend time with my dearest Amandine who I hadn't seen since last summer. We ate phô and macarons from Ladurée, shopped, talked and laughed and (forgive me) gossiped - almost entirely in French.

Now, my language skills have gotten better and better as time has gone on, but sometimes my brain works faster than my mouth and I end up stammering and stuttering and sounding like a fool. The words tend to "se bousculer aux portillons" - bump into each other on the way out the gate, making for often highly entertaining linguistic mishaps, like these:

On the new film The King's Speech (an admittedly ironic subject for a slip of the tongue), I explained that Albert was the "chef de la natation" instead of the "chef de la nation" - the head of swimming instead of the head of the country.

Talking about an exotic gelato I tasted in Hong Kong, I claimed that I had "la glace à la viande" instead of "la glace à la lavande" - meat ice cream instead of lavender.

As we were going through the box of mini-macarons, I picked up an acid green one and said it was "à la pomme de terre" instead of "à la pomme verte" - potato instead of Granny Smith apple.

Isn't language fun?