Still Learning

ExposeYourBlog !: Contests !

2012-02-08T12:10:00.001+01:00

I’m going to be boring and post this on all of my blogs. As we approach the second birthday of ExposeYourblog!, we’ve re-launched both the surfing and referral contests. All you need to do to win credits surfing is to be amongst the top five surfers of the day. Credits awarded are based on the percentage of blogs surfed, so the more you surf the more you can win – daily and weekly!The referral contest means that you can win credits for referring more members than anyone else daily and weekly. New members must activate their account by surfing and adding their blog.To get links, go to your “Tools” page and click on “My Downline”, scroll down and you’ll find banners and links that you can use to promote ExposeYourBlog!. Or you could write a post about why you enjoy surfing on EYB! and include a link in your post – just like I have.

Don and I are really proud of the blogs on EYB! There are blogs to suit all tastes and you’ll find excellent writing, art and pictures as well as members who interact with each other. We’re building a very special blogging community and hopefully members feel as if ExposeYourBlog! Is being run by real people who care about their members – which is true.

As always Don and I can be contacted via a PM in the forums (don = “Admin”, to contact me “Anji”), via a support ticket or email; forumadmin@exposeyourblog.com . We’d love to hear from you; feedback and ideas are always useful.

Something for the weekend

2012-02-03T16:04:00.003+01:00

As if you hadn't got anything better to do
Brand name parodies and there's more

Rabbi Blue revisited

2012-01-27T16:54:00.002+01:00

I needed a reasonably slim paperback to fit into my bag for waiting room duty. I picked up my copy of 'A Backdoor to Heaven'. My mum must have sent it to me when it came out in paperback in 1985. She knew how much I was missing his 'Thought for the Day' slot on BBC Radio 4.

It turned out to be perfect for waiting rooms; nice bite-size chapters. I think people must have thought me mad when I laughed out loud. I’m so glad I picked it up to read again: I got it when I first read it and I get it even more today. Anyone who has had/is having a struggle with faith should get hold of a copy and read it.

I just looked him up on Wikipedia and he’s in his early 80s. How did that happen?

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie

2012-01-09T12:04:00.001+01:00

I recently found a copy of The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark in a branch of the French Charity shop Emmaüs. It was in English - as it happens they have quite a few books in English.

Inside was a bookmark advertising James Thin Bookshops, a company which seem to have bookshops throughout Scotland. I couldn't help wondering if Caroline had left it lying around somewhere on a visit to France.

I remember that it was dramatised on TV when I was quite young and I remember enjoying watching it, but would I enjoy the book? Well dear reader, I couldn't put it down! I was amused by the vision of life from the point of view of young girls on the edge of puberty. They are troubled by the idea of sex and imagine all sorts of things, especally when they find out that their teacher (who is in her Prime!) had a lover who died during the First World War. The book is only 126 pages long, which is much too short.

Paint

2012-01-03T14:04:00.000+01:00

Another month and another year roll by.

2011-12-31T14:57:00.000+01:00

Wishing you a happy and inspirational new year

Another list and some advice

2011-12-01T11:51:00.001+01:00

1: The friendly receptionist at the doctor's (I arrived an hour early due to bus times and Rob's dental appointment and she fitted me in to a cancellation slot)

2: Christmas is coming!

3: Rob had an extra day off this week

4: That my stiff neck is almost better

5:Cheese on toast for lunch

I was cleaning the shower this morning when this song popped into my head. Good advice for everyone.

This week's grateful list

2011-11-23T10:54:00.001+01:00

I don't really intend to post a list here every week, but as Thanksgiving is coming up, it's a good moment.

1. The continuing mild weather

2.That all of the radiators are working correctly now, non are stuck on very hot or off.

3; That I managed to find a way to buy something that I really wanted

4. When I phone my daughter and future S-I-L they always sound really pleased to hear from me.

5.That every day has a moment that makes me laugh out loud.

To all those who celebrate Thanksgiving I hope that you enjoy your special time with your family and that the turkey cooks okay. Wouldn't the world be a better place if we all stopped to count our blessings from time to time?

How to be happy

2011-11-17T18:08:00.001+01:00

I watched a TV programme about happiness the other evening. It was interesting viewing, complete with psychologist to explain how it all works. Did you realise that if you are happy you live longer?

First define happiness; I can't answer that. I am happy in my life, but I suppose my lifestyle would drive some people nuts. I work from home so I'm alone most days. I love it!

The psychologist said that researchers took a pile of American baseball player cards from the 50s. They sorted them into three piles. Ones that didn't smile, ones that gave a social smile and ones that really smiled with their whole faces. Guess which ones lived the longest?

They told us that if you write down 5 things once a week that you are grateful for and get into the habit of doing this, you will start to sleep better and be generally healthier than people who don't. Being in a state of gratitude also protects you from agression.

learn to notice and capture the little things in life. You might think that the happiest people are the ones that win the lottery, they aren't

Five things in my life that I'm grateful for this week

1. The realisation that most of the things they mentioned in the programme about happiness I was already practising.
2. Living in such a beautiful place
3. Closing the shutters the other evening just as the moon was starting to rise. It was a really beautiful site.
4. being able to listen to music while I'm working.
5. My family

Have you got 5 things to be grateful for this week?

Why you should be afraid of Virginia Woolf

2011-11-01T21:30:00.000+01:00

A few months ago I came across a book in a charity shop. I had three reasons to be pleased to find it: Firstly, that it was in English. Secondly, it covered the years 1915 – 1919, around the years of the First World War, a period which interests me a great deal and thirdly, it was the first volume of The Diary of Virginia Woolf.

I didn’t intend to start to read the book straight away as I had others in my ‘to read’ pile already. So I placed it on a shelf with some other books in the bedroom.

A couple of days later I noticed that some books had fallen over, so I straightened them up and thought no more about it. The next day the same happened – and the next. Virginia was always upright next to these books. So, smiling to myself I moved the books around. The following morning I discovered, not only the first books had fallen over but also the new neighbours to Virginia’s diary. Pretty soon no book on the shelves in the bedroom remained upright – except for one. Virginia was always triumphantly upright. In the end I grew tired of this game and left the books as they were.

It wasn’t until I bought some more books; including Earnest Hemmingway’s ‘A Farewell to Arms’ that I decided to tidy up shelves again. I placed the two unread books together.

It seems to have done the trick.

Sleeping with the Enemy

2011-10-30T12:44:00.003+01:00

I’ve had the DVD for several years and watched it several times. Starring Julia Roberts the film is about a young woman, Sara/Laura, abused by her husband who fakes her own drowning to start a new life without him. Of course in her new life she falls in love and lives in fear that her husband will find her again somehow…

I went to a charity shop a few weeks ago. They have a foreign books section and I was delighted to find the book written by Nancy Price, that the film was based on. I couldn’t put it down. It had a lot more depth than the film, helping readers to understand why a lot of women stay with abusive partners. There is also interesting detail; the heroine uses the last of her money to rent a modest apartment, she has no belongings because she’s supposed to have drowned. How can she survive until her new job starts?

If you’ve seen the film and enjoyed it, you’llenjoy the book.

Love and Einstein

2011-10-19T17:34:00.001+02:00

“Gravitation cannot be held responsible for people falling in love.”

I found this quotation in a book. How nice, I thought and went to look for it. It turned out that Einstein indeed wrote it, but not quite:

“Falling in love is not at all the most stupid thing that people do – but gravitation cannot be held responsible for it.”

A Farewell to Arms

2011-10-16T17:32:00.000+02:00

I finished the book today. If you haven’t read it I recommend it. I didn’t like Catherine Barkley. I felt that her character was too wishy washy, there was nothing about her that you could get your teeth into. I seem to remember thinking something similar of the leading lady in ‘For Whom the Bell Tolls’.

Anyway, this post is about a strange and interesting coincidence.In the book, while Frederic Henry is having his wounds tended to, the doctor says ‘You will have nothing to worry about if it doesn’t infect and it rarely does now’. Amongst our purchases at the auction in Limoges this week we picked up a leaflet written for French surgeons in 1914. The leaflet explains how German bullets are smooth and leave clean wounds that do not infect, are easy to deal with and heal well. Allied bullets however, left a lot of damage and danger of infection, etc. as they shattered on impact. How is that for propaganda? Even your wounds healed better if you were on the right side.

Up the Junction

2011-09-23T14:47:00.000+02:00

Back to 1979 we go and a lot of memories. In 1973 I went on my first course in London. As I was underage I stayed at a retired bank employee’s house in Streatham with another girl from Barclays. To get to Teddington every morning, we had to change trains at Clapham Junction. We were both from the sticks and managed not to get too lost. Yesteday, I turned on Radio 4 to a program about how the song Up the Junction came to be written. It’s available to listen to for one week only. Here are the lyrics too.

Is the stuffed dog still on display there?

Wah Wah

2011-09-04T11:56:00.001+02:00

Turn up the volume !! Get out the air guitar (or even a real one if you’ve got one)

George is still my favourite Beatle.

I had a lot of problems getting hold of the boxed set of the Concert for Bangladesh when it came out. A lot of shops didn’t stock it because there was no profit to be made from it – it all went to help the people who badly needed it. US$ 243,418.51 was raised.

Hands up if you’ve still got the boxed set

Mighty Eucalyptus from little seeds grow

2011-08-29T16:13:00.001+02:00

Nearly 20 years ago I bought a packet of seeds from the supermarket; they were Eucalyptus seeds. It seemed ambitious growing a Eucalyptus tree from a tiny seed, I couldn’t afford a baby tree, so I thought I’d give it a go. At first I put the seeds into small pots they I transferred them into bigger posts and later when they were even bigger planted three of them in the garden.

During the first year I didn’t think that they were growing. I started to measure them once a week – and they were!. They all grew for a couple more years until they were coming along nicely. Especially the one which reminded me of a graceful lady in long skirts. In the mid nineties we had a very cold winter. I knew that the trees could withstand up to -15°C, so I wasn’t too worried. Unfortunately, the end of the winter was very windy and all three of my trees looked as if they had died. The graceful lady in long skirts had been the largest and closest to the street so needed cutting down because as the tree rotted the branches would become dangerous.

One of my kind neighbours said that he would cut the tree down, another would cut up the wood and take it away to use (we didn’t have a fire place). When the tree was cut down we discovered a small shoot which looked alive, so we decided to leave it and see what happened.

The small shoot grew from strength to strength and soon became a big tree, much bigger than we imagined it would ever become. This time the tree was definitely male, strong and straight.

These pictures were all taken this spring

The barn

2011-07-10T17:02:00.001+02:00

The first time I saw the old barn that was to serve as our garage I was intrigued by it. Built of limestone a long time ago, the ivy covered walls were beginning to crumble away. Inside; the enormous beams that supported the roof sported the scars of ancient generations of woodworm.

The barn really captured my imagination. Everyone that visited the house that summer was invited to look around my barn and write a short story about it by the beginning of September. What a mistake that was – my inspiration flew out of the window.

Sometimes on a hot day, I would just go into the cool barn and look at the walls. I loved their creamy yellow colour, no stone was the same size or shape and looking closely, I could make out the faint traces of fossils. At the far end was the timber frame of what once had been a doorway. The floor had been concreted years ago and was showing more signs of wear than the ancient walls! Still no inspiration came to me.

I discovered that under the village the remains of a network of tunnels had been found in recent years. Where had the blocked up doorway led to? What kind of lives did the people live who had called the barn their own in the past?

I never did write that short story about the barn. The people who came and went through the now blocked up doorway, carried their secrets away with them.

The Globetrotting Beefeater: Part 2

2011-06-14T18:49:00.002+02:00

Part 1 is here

A few days later the beefeater heard the excited voices of children and was aware of the comfortable envelope being ripped open. He had arrived at his new home. He was placed on the refrigerator alongside a team of football (soccer) shirts and an ocean of fridge poetry.

At first the Beefeater was happy to sit on the fridge door and watch the comings and goings of the family. Sometimes he joined in with the games of football, sometimes he tried to read the poetry to himself. This way learnt some French words, but he didn’t understand all of the poems. He felt lonely despite his busy life. He wished that he had someone to talk too.

Time passed and sometimes our brave Beefeater was forgotten about. He slipped down to the bottom of the fridge, past all of the poetry and onto the floor. He was always found and dusted off before being put back at the top of the fridge. He couldn’t help thinking that no one really cared much about what happened to him…

One afternoon his life was to change forever. he was put back at the top of the fridge and joined by a real princess. She was pink with yellow hair and a golden crown. The Beefeater thought that she was the most beautiful magnet he had ever seen. From that day onwards she always watched him play football and they read poetry together all night long. He never ever felt lonely again.

Happiness or Joy ?

2011-04-22T11:52:00.000+02:00

Happiness appears to be a very popular theme at the moment. Do people feel that they are happy? What is happiness? I’ve always preferred the word Joy. For a start it is the middle name of my little sister. Let’s see….

Happiness:
(Wikipedia says)
“Happiness is a mental state of well-being characterized by positive emotions ranging from contentment to intense joy. A variety of biological, psychological, religious, and philosophical approaches have striven to define happiness and identify its sources.

The science of happiness endeavors to apply the scientific method to answer questions about what "happiness" is, and how we might attain it.”

A science??!

Joy:
(Wikipedia says)
"Joy may refer to:
• Happiness an emotion
• Joy (Given name) people with the given name or surname Joy"

(Cambridge Dictionaries online says that)
"Joy is great happiness."

Dictionary.com says:
"–noun
1.
the emotion of great delight or happiness caused by something exceptionally good or satisfying; keen pleasure; elation: She felt the joy of seeing her son's success.
2.
a source or cause of keen pleasure or delight; something or someone greatly valued or appreciated: Her prose style is a pure joy.
3.
the expression or display of glad feeling; festive gaiety.
4.
a state of happiness or felicity.

–verb (used without object)
5.
to feel joy; be glad; rejoice."

Number 5 is the definition for me. If you had to use another word instead of happiness, which word would you choose?

I hope that your Easter is a joyous one.

Starwalker

2011-04-03T14:38:00.000+02:00

I've always loved Buffy Sainte-Marie and this song especially.

Aim straight, stand tall

The Globetrotting Beefeater: Part I

2011-03-20T12:12:00.002+01:00

This one is a 'true' story....

Once upon a time there was a Beefeater. He was very smart indeed in his royal red uniform and on his back was a magnet. He lived on a shelf in a shop in London with lots of other Beefeaters waiting to be bought by tourists from all over the world.

One morning the Beefeater was sitting on the shelf watching the tourists looking around the shop, when all of a sudden he was picked up by a very nice lady from South Africa. The beefeater didn’t mind too much because he had several other Beefeaters for company when he was put into a paper bag. The Beefeater and his companions waited patiently in the dark wondering what would happen next.

They knew that they were being moved around because they had quite a bumpy ride and other things were put on top of their bag so they felt quite squashed. Then they were left in the quiet for a couple of days. They could hear the nice lady from South Africa from time to time coming and going but she didn’t seem to pay them much attention…

All of a sudden the Beefeaters felt their bag being moved around and they were placed in quite a soft place which smelt very pleasant. And then they felt the bumping of being carried around yet again. A few hours later the Beefeater felt a very strange sensation in his tummy and heard a very loud noise. Again, he didn’t mind too much because he had the other Beefeaters for company and they were very comfortable despite being squashed. After what seemed a long time the Beefeater felt the strange sensation in his tummy again and all went quiet.

The bumpy ride started again and then stopped. The Beefeaters whispered amongst themselves, they wondered what would happen next.

The beefeater didn’t know it, but it was after a couple of days that the nice lady from South Africa unpacked that particular suitcase. She wanted to send the presents she had bought in London to her friends that lived all over the world. When she came at last to our beefeater she picked him up and said:
“Parlez-vous francais?”

What could she mean? She popped him into a padded envelope which was very comfortable indeed. The Beefeater set off on his second journey in an airplane, but this time he was on his own. He felt cozy and safe, so he didn’t mind too much....

Punch February 9th, 1884

2011-02-09T21:00:00.000+01:00

Miss Cribbleton (questioning Old Sailor with a view to « copy » for her thrilling Novel in the Mayfair Magazine); “ Dear me ! What a dreadful shipwreck! And how did you feel when the billows were breaking over you?”
Old Salt. “Wet, Marm – very wet!”

Punch January 5, 1884

2011-01-21T18:07:00.000+01:00

I still see the people I know in the village who gave me a pile of books a few years ago. This week there was a knock at the door and I was presented with Punch’s Almanac for 1884. A collection of the Punches published in that year. It’s in very good condition, even though the cover and spine have been repaired. I thought I’d share it with you from time to time. I’ve always loved Punch. When I was at school I was in a class where the teacher supplied us with copies if Punch to read during the registration period. In those days Richard Nixon and Spiro Agnew were frequent victims of the satirists pen.

Today we have two ladies discussing church:

“My Husband is Vicar of St. Boniface – but I don’t attend his Church”
“Indeed! How is that?”
“The fact is, I – I don’t approve of Married Clergymen!”

Gerry Rafferty 1947 - 2011

2011-01-05T08:18:00.000+01:00

I was dozing off in bed last night and Rob was listening to the news on the radio. All of a sudden the familiar saxophone from Baker Street was playing. It could only mean one thing. I knew that he had health problems due to heavy drinking, but his death was still a shock. I expect a lot of us in the blogging world will be writing about him today. His songs were so romantic and beautiful.

In the early 80s I was driving through London with a boyfriend and as we turned into Baker Street, the song of the same name started playing on the radio – what a conincedence! Having said that I thought I’d post my very favourite; Home and Dry

Glass Diamonds

2010-12-16T20:59:00.001+01:00

(This is a short story - see tags)

When I was small I was always fascinated by the decorations on my Grandmother’s Christmas tree. If I was a good girl, I was allowed to watch her putting the baubles and stars on the tree just before the Christmas holidays. As I got older I helped her too. Every year as we decorated the tree my Grandmother would tell me the stories behind the special ornaments. One ornament was especially pretty, a line of glass diamonds on a chain. It caught the light beautifully as the lights on the tree shone on it. The story went that her Grandmother was given the necklace be her employer to thank her for her loyalty when she left her service because she couldn’t afford to pay her wages anymore. The story was they had come to England together in 1919 from Russia. My Grandmother wasn’t sure how true this story was, though she did remember that her Grandmother had a foreign accent when she spoke and that most of the family thought that she was off her head, because as she grew older she’d retreated into a fantasy world of palaces and balls and goodness knows what. The pretty necklace had served as a Christmas decoration when times were hard and was passed on through the generations. I remember my mother bringing the necklace out wrapped carefully in tissue paper the first Christmas after her mother died.

This Christmas it was my turn. My daughter came round to help me, though it wasn’t easy for her with her huge bump in front – another girl to continue the tradition in the future! So as I told her the story over again we wondered if the latest edition could hear from where she was and whether she would be there before Christmas day or not.

A few days ago I bought a big album postcards at an auction. They are very beautiful and come from all over the world. Some of them are portraits of great ladies – all of them very beautiful in their fine clothes. This morning was my first real opportunity to look through them. There was a postcard which especially caught my eye. It was of a woman called the Countess Valentina Nikolayichna Volokonsky. She is wearing an evening dress and her hair is swept up into a chignon and decorated with an ostrich feather. Around her neck is a diamond necklace which looks very much like the one I used to decorate my Christmas tree a couple of weeks ago! Using the internet, I did some research and discovered that Valentina was an elderly woman when she fled to England with one or two of her servants because of the revolution. It couldn’t be, could it?

Tomorrow I have an appointment with the expert at the same auction house where I bought my postcards.

Previous Christmas stories are here and here

Books, books and more books

2010-11-26T21:28:00.000+01:00

I found this on Dru’s blog. I have read more than 6 (pokes out tongue at BBC). There are even more on this list that I’d like to read…

”The BBC believes most people will have read only 6 of the 100 books listed here.

Instructions:
• Copy this list.
• Bold those books you’ve read in their entirety.
• Italicise the ones you started but didn’t finish or read only an excerpt.
• Tag other book nerds.”

Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen
The Lord of the Rings – JRR Tolkien
Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte
Harry Potter series – JK Rowling
To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee
The King James Bible
Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte
Nineteen Eighty Four (1984) – George Orwell
His Dark Materials – Philip Pullman
Great Expectations – Charles Dickens
Little Women – Louisa M Alcott
Tess of the D’Urbervilles – Thomas Hardy
Catch 22 – Joseph Heller
Complete Works of Shakespeare
Rebecca – Daphne Du Maurier
The Hobbit – JRR Tolkien
Birdsong – Sebastian Faulk
Catcher in the Rye – JD Salinger
The Time Traveler’s Wife – Audrey Niffenegger
Middlemarch – George Eliot
Gone With The Wind – Margaret Mitchell
The Great Gatsby – F. Scott Fitzgerald
War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams
Brideshead Revisited – Evelyn Waugh
Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck
Alice in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll
The Wind in the Willows – Kenneth Grahame
Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy
David Copperfield – Charles Dickens
Chronicles of Narnia – CS Lewis
Emma -Jane Austen
Persuasion – Jane Austen
The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe – CS Lewis
The Kite Runner – Khaled Hosseini
Captain Corelli’s Mandolin – Louis De Bernieres
Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden
Winnie the Pooh – A.A. Milne
Animal Farm – George Orwell
The DaVinci Code – Dan Brown
One Hundred Years of Solitude – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
A Prayer for Owen Meaney – John Irving
The Woman in White – Wilkie Collins
Anne of Green Gables – LM Montgomery
Far From The Madding Crowd – Thomas Hardy
The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood
Lord of the Flies – William Golding
Atonement – Ian McEwan
Life of Pi – Yann Martel
Dune – Frank Herbert
Cold Comfort Farm – Stella Gibbons
Sense and Sensibility – Jane Austen
A Suitable Boy – Vikram Seth
The Shadow of the Wind – Carlos Ruiz Zafon
A Tale Of Two Cities – Charles Dickens
Brave New World – Aldous Huxley
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time – Mark Haddon
Love In The Time Of Cholera – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck
Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov
The Secret History – Donna Tartt
The Lovely Bones – Alice Sebold
Count of Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas
On The Road - Jack Kerouak
Jude the Obscure – Thomas Hardy
Bridget Jones’s Diary – Helen Fielding
Midnight’s Children – Salman Rushdie
Moby Dick – Herman Melville
Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens
Dracula – Bram Stoker
The Secret Garden – Frances Hodgson Burnett
Notes From A Small Island – Bill Bryson
Ulysses – James Joyce
The Inferno – Dante
Swallows and Amazons – Arthur Ransome
Germinal – Emile Zola
Vanity Fair – William Makepeace Thackeray
Possession – AS Byatt
Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens
Cloud Atlas – David Mitchell
The Color Purple – Alice Walker
The Remains of the Day – Kazuo Ishiguro
Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert
A Fine Balance – Rohinton Mistry
Charlotte’s Web – E.B. White
The Five People You Meet In Heaven – Mitch Albom
Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
The Faraway Tree Collection – Enid Blyton?
Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad
The Little Prince – Antoine De Saint-Exupery
The Wasp Factory – Iain Banks
Watership Down – Richard Adams
A Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole
A Town Like Alice – Nevil Shute
The Three Musketeers – Alexandre Dumas
Hamlet – William Shakespeare
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – Roald Dahl
Les Miserables – Victor Hugo

Transgender Day of Remembrance

2010-11-20T16:34:00.000+01:00

Wouldn't it be a good thing if EVERYONE could live their lives to old age?
Please watch this video, it will only take just over three minutesof your time.

I gotta find peace of mind

2010-11-11T15:01:00.001+01:00

I bought myself a new parka in the sales at La Redoute last week. It’s really snug and warm, designed in Sweden (winks to Anna) with a faux fur piece on the hood. I went to collect it from the baby trading shop (not babies, but baby equipment). The lady in there was listening to some music on her laptop. It sounded really interesting so I asked her what it was. I didn’t understand who she said at first (she was saying the name a la Française). Anyway she showed me the name and was listening on Deezer so I knew I’d find it again.
Lauryn Hill. At first all I could find was rap, but I persevered and found what I wanted. Listen to this; bet you cry too. (though you’ve probably heard it all ready)

I can fly

2010-10-31T16:59:00.000+01:00

When I was three years old my mother was so proud of me that she called my father out into the garden so that we could show him what I could do. I sat cross legged on the ground, back straight with my hands on my knees and slowly took off from the ground Using my hands on my knees to steer, I circled slowly above the heads of my parents. My mother’s face was a picture of happiness, but I could see that my father was very angry. He turned to my mother and yelled “What have you been encouraging her to do this for?”, slapped her across the face and strode off. I landed on the ground and my mother immediately ran to me and took me into her arms to comfort me. I could feel that she was trembling as she held back the tears.

I didn’t want to be the cause of my mother being hurt by my father again, so after that day I practised my flying in secret. With gentle pressure to my knees I could fly to the right or left and pulling my knees up or pushing them down a little I could gain height or descend.

No one else knew about my secret until one sunny afternoon in the woods a few years later. A group of us boys and girls were playing together and, stopping for a rest, one of two of the older children started to boast about what they could do. Things like smoking, climbing trees the fastest, holding their breath the longest and spitting the furthest. I couldn’t resist joining in and before I knew what I was doing I was boasting that I could show them something really special. They probably thought I was mad as I took up my crossed legged position on the ground, then I started to take off. I had expected applause and admiration, but there was a stony silence as I flew around above the group. I was so taken aback that I crashed into a bush and hurt my self. Some of the boys threw stones at me and all of the children ran off. I told my mother that I’d fallen out of a tree when I got home and she saw the state I was in. I’m not sure that she believed me.

No one ever mentioned what they had seen on that day again. No one spoke much to me or included me in their games. I became a loner. I practised my flying in secret places when no one was around.

The best time of year for me is around midsummer. I wake up at dawn and sneak out of the house. I fly over the trees and see the birds in their nests. Sometimes I fly over the village encircling the church spire. I’m careful to keep well away from the herds of cows returning to the farm for early milking. For a few weeks those hours as the day is waking up are precious to me.

One day I hope that I will meet a fellow flyer, I can’t be the only one.

Charlie Chaplin and Richard Herring

2010-10-21T21:20:00.000+02:00

I’ve discovered Richard Herring over the last two weeks. He’s currently presenting a series on Radio 4 about objects we’ve grown to hate, like Hitler moustaches and, this evening, hoodies. Last week he talked about the BNP getting seats in the European parliament because people didn’t bother to vote, like happened in France with Mr Le Penn. He talks a lot of sense and he sent me looking for the speech from the end of The dictator by Charlie Chaplin (so that’s where Hitler got his moustache from). Here is the text.

Self-ascription

2010-10-20T17:01:00.000+02:00

Dom emailed Rob and I simultaneously asking us what the word self-ascription means. I couldn’t find self-ascription, only ascription in the dictionaries and I must admit to not being sure at all as to what self-ascription means. I presume it’s from a psychology paper she’s reading at the moment.

Any ideas?

Daisy

2010-10-06T22:16:00.000+02:00

It all started when I was walking along a corridor. I love to run along the angle between the ceiling and the wall and it’s a good place to sleep. Suddenly whoosh and then darkness.

I don’t know where I am, but it’s very dusty and dark and there are a few of us, more keep coming too. We’re all girls in here, well, males are always shy. You never know when you might strike lucky; Oh, I remember my first male. What a brute he was and he scuttled off pretty sharpish afterwards too. The second was really affectionate, Craig he was called. What a shame I had to …, well you know, afterwards. I’ve still got one of his legs somewhere, if only I could remember where I left it. It was such a pity I ended up here, on that day there was a male around somewhere, I could sense him.

We’ve got enough food and if we ever the need arises the smaller girls will do. What we want is our freedom. The girls and I are organising an escape committee. Every time we organise ourselves and start burrowing outwards there is a loud noise and everything is mixed up again. After that we have to start again; check out any new arrivals, find each other and try to work out where we are.

Must dash, the noise is starting up again….

Forever Autumn

2010-10-03T17:26:00.002+02:00

I was waking up one morning as this song was being played on the radio. It was the first time I heard it and now it always reminds me of that special time half way between sleep and waking.

I hope that your autumn is as beautiful as this one.

Candles and stained glass

2010-09-22T21:51:00.000+02:00

As part of our trip into town this morning, Rob and I went to look around Saint-Sauveur church. For about 10 years the church was closed to the public while it was being restored. It was worth it. It certainly does look much better than I remembered it. We always light a candle if we visit a church or cathedral, thinking of our fathers and relatives who are no longer with us. I also think of the living too, there seems to be need among my blogging friends at the moment.

Part of the restoration included the stained glass windows. I love stained glass. They are each opposite a pillar and the sun was shining in through the windows as I turned away from the area where the candles were. The colours and patterns from each window were reflected on the pillars. It was beautiful.

Some local history

2010-09-14T17:35:00.001+02:00

I must write this down before I forget it. Remember the old man I helped one day when he felt ill? His name is Robert and it’s quite a time since we had a talk of any length. Today we started to talk about the war. He was 14 when the Germans arrived and took over the village. He’d just finished school and had been awarded a new bicycle for being a good student. The Germans took all of the good bikes, so he dug a hole on the courtyard behind his house, wrapped up the bike and buried it so they couldn’t find it and take it. When the soldiers went to the beach for a swim (they used to skinny dip apparently), he and his friends used to go down and cut the tyres of the bikes so they would have to walk back to the village. I’m sure that they got up to other tricks too. To get to work at the boatyard Robert had to ride an old bike with hard tyres, sometimes he told me people used hose pipes wrapped around the wheels.

On the day that La Rochelle was liberated he heard the church bells ringing so he sneaked into the village church and rang the bell. The German HQ was only across the road so he disappeared pretty quickly after doing that.

Life was very hard for the villagers. The men were taken away to labour camps and the woman, children and elderly had to manage the best they could. There was hardly any food. As soon as he could, he joined the French Navy. He was in French waters for a year or so, which was a ‘comfortable’ job after the war and then they sent him to Indo China until he finished his five years duty. It was a much harder life and he was ill while he was there. On one of his train journeys from base to base he met the girl who was to become his wife, their first two years consisted of exchanging letters

Coming back to France in the early 50s wasn’t easy as there were no jobs, so he became a gendarme and worked his way up through the ranks to Major – he came back to the village to retire.

That’s what I remember from what he told me.

Art is Truth

2010-09-06T17:24:00.001+02:00

This afternoon I collected my new glasses. The frames are black and inside the right arm is written “Art is Truth”. I didn’t notice it when I was choosing them, but it’s the kind of detail I like.

I haven’t managed to find who or where the quote is from. Is it the same as ‘The camera never lies”?

Something to make you feel good for the weekend

2010-09-03T16:46:00.001+02:00

I went to visit a site to see some great pictures of how a girl got her revenge. Then there was a video at the bottom. It is very slow to load which will give you time to find a huge box of Kleenex before you watch it.

Go here

Okay, so the first was a hoax, but the second wasn't - sorry

Knowing

2010-08-25T12:03:00.001+02:00

Yesterday evening we took some time off and decided to watch a film/movie. Nothing too demanding and nothing that we could fall asleep to, so we chose Knowing (‘Predictions’ in French). A time capsule is buried by school children in 1959 to be opened in 2009. One of the papers buried contains sequences of numbers which of course falls in to the hands of Nicholas Cage who is capable of deciphering them and trying to do something about it. We did stay awake, but we thought that there were a couple of weak points, like the first number just happened to be 9.11 and how did he know that the car that crashed was the one that she (The leading lady) had stolen? Other than that a good film if you’re looking for something not too challenging on the brain cells.

Rob and I had a conversation this morning. In all of these kind of films at the announcement of impending doom, everyone starts running around looting. Do you think that’s what you’d be doing if you knew that the earth was going to blow up within the next few hours?

Me on the radio

2010-08-07T16:43:00.003+02:00

With the help of Dom, who fixed me up with a skype account on her beautiful little computer, I made my debut as a radio interviewee this afternoon. This will hopefully be the first of many interviews for Radio ExposeYourblog! of members about their blogs and why they blog. The interview will be repeated several times during the coming week. Don is also pleased to have obtained even more music for everyone to listen to. If you have requests, ideas or would like to be interviewed yourself, visit the forum and click on the Radio ExposeYourBlog! Section.

You don’t need to be logged in to listen, just choose a link:

WinAmp/iTunes
Windows Media
Real Player
All others

I write like...

2010-08-07T14:52:00.001+02:00

I found this on Micah Charlson’s blog, I thought the result was pretty good!

I write like
James Joyce

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

I tried it with several different pieces that I’ve written and got several answers, this was the one that came up twice.

Life throws a curve ball

2010-07-13T20:45:00.000+02:00

I don’t know if I’ve been conspicuous by my absence in the last couple of weeks. We’re nearly at the end of a tunnel. Hopefully life will be back to normal in a week or so. I haven’t commented much as I couldn’t concentrate on anything too complicated for a while, though I have been visiting and reading.

This has been helping me everyday

Which chick flic ?

2010-06-24T17:33:00.001+02:00

Every summer on Thursday evenings there are Night Watchman’s tours of La Rochelle. Members of the public are taken around the town by the night watchman visiting various venues from different epochs where little scenes from history are acted out. When we went several years ago the tour finished in the bunker built by the Germans as their head quarters in the town. This week it’s Rob’s turn to work during the evening, opening up the St. Nicolas tower for the actors to change in and checking the public’s tickets.

As I’m on my own I’ve decided to watch a DVD which I will choose and no moaning from anyone else. On Monday Unchained Melody was played on the radio station used by the supermarket I was in at the time. I do love that song especially the Righteous Brother’s version used in the film Ghost. There is a Wikipedia page on the song and I’ve discovered that it was born in 1955, which doesn’t surprise me at all as all the best people were born in 1955!! In was written for a film about prison ; ‘Unchained’. I discovered that Bing Crosby sang it too, though it doesn’t quite have the same power as the version used in Ghost.

Ghost is on my list, Diamonds are a Girl’s Best Friend, Forrest Gump, Pretty Woman, North by Northwest or perhaps Spellbound. Which to watch? If I’m not careful Rob will be home before I’ve decided.

To save you from having to look it up.

Peace and solitude

2010-06-14T17:57:00.002+02:00

I found this on the back of a postcard written in 1909:

« Imaginez au pied de l’abbaye au milieu du bois, une rivière qui roule ses eaux torrentueuses parmi les rocs, et dites s’il existe un séjour plus solitaire et plus pittoresque. J’y resterai, je pense, quelques temps »

“Imagine at the foot of the Abbey within the woods, a river that runs with torrentuous waters amongst the rocks, and tell me if there exists anywhere more solitary and more picturesque. I’ll stay I think, for some time.”

This is where they were talking about, the Abbey at La-Pierre-qui-Vire.

New blog exchange

2010-05-31T21:34:00.001+02:00

We’re proud to announce the birth of a new blog exchange being launched tomorrow (Tuesday 1st June). If you’re looking for a blog exchange that has an admin team with real powers to deal with problems and cares for its members look no further than ExploseYourBlog!

BlogExplosion users will probably recognise some of the names behind the scenes. We hope that we can look after you properly from now on. We’re not completely decorated as we would like but the basics are there and we’re looking forward to hearing from you in the forums if you have ideas on what you expect from a blog exchange.

Where the children go

2010-05-28T21:06:00.001+02:00

I think that we can say that Dom has left home for good now. Even when she stops studying in the summer, she’ll be off to Chicago meeting other psychologists and then she’s going off to the UK so that everyone can meet J-M and see how wonderful he is…

A couple of weekends ago they came home for a visit and I heard her say that it seems like she lived here in another life. It got me thinking:

Our children exist. Every moment of their lives still exist. We as children exist somewhere. What happens as they grow up is that they are replaced by an older model. I can prove it. Babies , of course are replaced more rapidly, they have “growth spurts” when they are replaced. If you are a parent do you remember wondering where toys had got to when your children were growing? They took them with them. The replacement didn’t need those toys. Just think about the socks, t-shirts, jeans, pyjamas which suddenly vanished into thin air. Another example is homework – it explains a lot, doesn’t it? Have a think now. What about the beloved teddy bear or soft toy? Where is it? See what I mean.

Next time you hear a mother bemoaning that her son seems to have gown centimetres overnight you’ll know why: He’s been replaced by a bigger one.

I found it!!!

2010-05-26T16:46:00.002+02:00

I put this on my other Still Learning blog years ago and I've been looking for it ever since. The Rights of the Reader by Daniel Pennac. The teacher who taught Christian and Dom to read put the rules up on the school notice board. A very sensible woman.

Seven Black Roses

2010-05-16T17:53:00.002+02:00

A long time ago I used to have a guitar. This is the kind of tune I would have liked to have played....

Goodbye and see you soon

2010-05-09T21:10:00.000+02:00

This evening amongst hugs and goodbyes
Miss yous and love yous,
Waving until the car has gone out of site.
I was suddenly taken back through the years to
the last time.

A peck of a cheek
“Take care of mum for me”
Never a thought that it would be
The last time.

George and fork

2010-05-03T21:06:00.000+02:00

On Saturday evening I watched the first half of a television film about George Sand. It was beautifully done, filmed on location, costumes, Chopin’s music (she lived with him for 10 years) and all the best from a costume drama. It is about George bringing a peasant girl into the house and teaching her to read and write (something that she did do in real life was teach local children to read). Poor George, she had so much to cope with, a nasty daughter , a dreadful money grabbing son-in-law, Chopin, who was pathetic and childish and then bad tempered servants. I don’t know where she found the time to write. I must confess that I was having difficulty with the name of the peasant girl. I though that her name was Fourchette (fork) but in fact it was Fanchette. I haven’t been able to find out if she really existed as searches on Google just bring information about trhe TV Film – and a picture. The first part ended with George dressed as a man dragging Fanchette off to Paris away from the temptation of her son

Fridges

2010-04-29T22:16:00.002+02:00

She was aware that he had come home when she woke up and saw his naked body silhouetted by the light of the open fridge. If she hadn’t felt so hungry she would have got up and grabbed him The fridge was empty, it had been empty since yesterday lunch time. The room became dark again as he closed the door and the light went out. He climbed back into bed and she snuggled up to him, intertwining her legs around his.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you”

“It doesn’t matter – how was your evening?”

“Not so good, the landlord had forgotten that there was a good game of footie on TV tonight. He was just about the only audience I had. I could hardly ask him to pay me” he sighed “What about you?”

“Oh you know my parents – but at least I was fed.” She lied, she wasn’t going to let him know that they were on her way out just as she arrived. “Dad said that if I pop by tomorrow morning he’ll give me some vegetables out of the garden. I can make a curry… pity there’s no rice left” her stomach rumbled, she hoped he didn’t hear.

On the mantelpiece above the blocked up fireplace was the reason for their lack of money. A return ticket to London first thing Monday morning. Gary had played in a bar the week before and had been spotted by an agent. He’d told him to come down to London for a session, the agent had liked Gary’s music and said that he wanted to hear more. There was no way he could miss this chance. It was the end of the month so they’d scrimped and searched for every penny to get the ticket. It wouldn’t have been a problem normally, but a couple of months back Gary’s job had disappeared so they were living on Sarah’s salary, they even let their lovely flat go and now they were stuck in this room with not even enough room to swing a cat.

He held her tightly;
“Don’t worry babe, after Monday things will change. We’ll have a huge kitchen with wall to wall fridges. One fridge just for the champagne”. In the darkness they both imagined a future full of better things and fridges full of champagne. He pulled himself up into a sitting position and reached for his guitar and began tuning it.

“I’ll play you a lullaby” which he did and she was soon sleeping. He was sure that Monday was going to be the day that they would finally listen to what he was saying through his songs. The pubs were okay, but they always wanted the run of the mill stuff. Perhaps they could invite some friends round to share the curry. Ask them to bring something along, rice, wine, whatever, he smiled to himself as he strummed – bring chairs, no; standing room only…

Too creepy

2010-04-27T20:35:00.000+02:00

If you dare

Seashells

2010-04-02T22:04:00.001+02:00

“When I was very small, around 5 years old my father was in charge of prisoners in which ever town we were garrisoned. As my mother had died giving birth to me I was in the care of my father which meant I hung around the prisons a lot. I was used to playing quietly on my own. I remember at the time I’m telling you about I had a collection of small sea shells which I’d collected from some place or other we’d recently lived in. I used to arranged them in rows on the ground, sometimes by size, sometimes by shape and sometimes by colour. On the whole I was left alone. My father was well respected amongst the other soldiers.

Sometimes the prisoners were noisy, proclaiming their innocence, or just cursing everyone and anyone. Often I enjoyed imagining what they were saying as they didn’t always speak our language. The sound I hated the most was when they took prisoners into a room, and there always was a room found for this purpose wherever we went, and did things to them. I didn’t know what they were doing then, but I understand now. The cries and moans and begging, the sound of bones breaking and the agony that followed. If I wasn’t quick enough to get out of the way when the bought the prisoner out I often got a kick, either from the soldiers or the prisoner if he was still capable.

I remember the one particular prisoner that changed my life. On that evening I was playing with my shells and had made a long line of them across the corridor when they bought him out. I didn’t notice until it was too late and he fell over me knocking my shells in all directions. I immediately backed into a corner raising my arms to protect me from the blow which was surely to fall upon my head. To my amazement he spoke to me gently and told me not to be afraid. He gathered up some of my shells and handed them to me with a smile. I still have them with me now – look! I looked into his eyes. They were gentle and kind. Why had he been taken into the room to be beaten?

He was dragged away and locked up on his own.

As the night wore on I was aware of a strange atmosphere in the place; In the courtyard outside people were starting to gather, some had come quite a distance. When my father was free from his duties for awhile we spent some time together. He wondered who this man was, the people had come for him. My father saw someone he though might know and sent a serving girl out to ask. But the man told her that he didn’t know who she was talking about. My father was sure that he was lying. He was troubled and uneasy, he told me that if there was trouble I was to run away and hide. The night continued, I was too excited to sleep and watched the fires and the coming and goings of these strange people. My father wouldn’t let go of his idea and sent another serving girl out to ask the man if he knew the prisoner, again the man denied any knowledge. Just before dawn my father himself went out with a couple of his men and asked again. The man got really cross but what was really strange was that when he heard a cock crowing he fell silent and then started to cry and ran away.

Now do you understand who I’m talking about?

The rest as they say is history. After the events of the next few days and weeks my father and I became interested in this man and we were eventually baptised, as all of us here have been. “

Outside, they could hear the roar of the crowd, louder than ever before, the lions were being released into the arena. Some of the people who had been listening to the story wondered away but others stayed, someone said. “you must be happy that you will soon be with him at last”. Many heads turned as they heard laughter in this place at this moment – her old eyes sparkled like those of a five year old child

“You don’t understand…. he’s always been with me since that day.”

Slark

2010-03-25T21:06:00.001+01:00

Picture the scene, the early 70’s in the 5th form common room. Mini skirts and long hair. There is a record player and there are alternative music days. One day ‘hairy’ music, the next Reggae, there has to be or the record player will be confiscated…. The words to Slark popped into my head this morning, so I Googled Stackridge. They were always being played on the ‘Hairy’ days. I even went to see them at Malvern Winter Gardens.

In which men step out of the postcard album and start doing things

2010-03-15T22:36:00.003+01:00

Not literally but you’ll see what I mean in a second or two

Last week on French TV we were shown a documentary about the rounding up and detention at the Velodrome in Paris of the French Jews during the war. It was very moving, especially as there were survivors participating in the studio. The film about the ‘Vel' d'Hiv Roundup’ has just been released. A young Jewish boy Joseph Weismann, managed to escape. He went to see the making of the film at the Velodrome. He had to go outside at first because he could smell the stench of thousands of people in a confined place for 5 days – it was still on his mind nearly 70 years later! All of the young people that escaped were rebels; a psychologist explained that sometimes it’s good thing to be the one who misbehaves.

Anyway back to the postcard album. The documentary also told us about the people that helped; I know that a lot of people think that the French did nothing during the war, but I can assure you that there were quite a few people quietly making life very difficult for their occupiers. If you look around all over France you’ll see plaques on walls near to where men (and women) were shot during the war. I used to live a few yards away from one, just an ordinary place outside the shops – nothing spectacular. The French citizens who helped the Jews are mentioned on the Wall of Names at the Shoah memorial in Paris.

In my post 'A True Story' in January I mentioned the father of the little girl, Odette, helping Jews to escape from the town where he was mayor. Because of the program last week I wanted to see if I could find his name, Paul Legras de Grandcourt, on the wall. I couldn’t online so I’ll have to go there to look, but I did find this and it’s in English too.

The second man to come out and start doing ‘real' things is Odette’s Uncle Justinien, sorry; Count Justinien de Clary. He took part in the Olympics as a trap shooter back in 1900. He and one of his friends were partly responsible for strange idea of the 1924 Olympics for winter sports….

That was quite an album

Accents

2010-03-10T21:09:00.001+01:00

Have you ever wondered about the accents your blogging friends speak with? It occurred to me the other day when I realised that one blogger I know of doesn’t come from London as I thought, but the North. I’ve heard a few of you speaking on the radio and some of you make videos of yourselves, but what about the rest. Do you have a regional accent?

I have a midlands accent. Rob (R.P., of course) tries to correct me when I say ‘bath’ and ‘grass’, so I always ask him; what about ‘gas’? I was on a course once with a girl who told me that that I ‘talked posh’. She told me she was from Canvey Island - ‘can’t you tell?’

All of this from one little postage stamp

2010-02-26T21:20:00.001+01:00

This week I was in Seville( not really, but through my postcards). I wanted to date a card so I looked at the postage stamp, a boy king? Let me see…

Alfonso XIII of Spain was king from his birth until he was forced to leave Spain in 1931. The interesting bit was that, during the first world war, Spain was a neutral country because Alfonso had family on both sides. He caught flu in 1918 and became seriously ill. Spain was the only country that had news other than the war and that is why it became known as 'Spanish' flu.

Alfonso was married to Princess Victoria Eugenie of Battenburg, Named after her Grandmother, Queen Victoria and Godmother the Empress Eugénie. Her full name was Victoria Eugenie Julia Ena. The Ena part is interesting because her mother had chosen Eua (Gaelic form of Eve) which was misread and so she was Christened Ena as her last name. She was known as ‘Ena’ by the public after that. They were both destined to marry other people, but despite everything (haemophilia being one of the problems) they married in May 1906.

The stamp? Around 1901.

The Bridges of Madison County

2010-02-17T21:04:00.001+01:00

Back in 1995 I heard about the film being released and thought to myself ‘I must see that’. Last night I finally go to see it. It was worth the wait and I really enjoyed the bridges, the country side, the era and the relationship between the photographer and a lonely housewife. Rob enjoyed it too, though I didn’t really expect him to. He was quite thoughtful afterwards and asked me what I got up to when he went away on courses in the past. I reminded him that I had three small children to look after at the time. It reminded me that when he was away we used to put a chair in front of the front door at night. The idea being that if anyone tried to get into the house they’d knock over the chair and wake us up. We all slept better for it.

Most of my boyfriends before I met Rob were well travelled or had lived abroad, Rob had lived in Sweden and France before I met him. There must be something about travelling men….

Another postcard story

2010-02-14T17:00:00.001+01:00

Rob is going through some of the first postcards we bought at auction 3 years ago. I remembered the family they came from because they have a Danish name – Our name is Norwegian and the Norwegian consulate was on the outskirts of the village when we first moved here, so Scandinavian connections always intrigue me.

I had an old postcard from Svendborg in Denmark of a ferry, nothing really special, so I prepared my keywords as usual and Googled them to see what the opposition is. The family name came up. How could Google possibly know who the postcard was addressed too? It turns out that the family were ship builders in Svendborg. It’s funny that I’ve taken 3 years to find it out. This is the kind of boat they were building

Soothe your troubles

2010-02-06T11:20:00.001+01:00

Which is harder, to suffer pain or watch the ones you love suffer pain?

Yesterday I was listening to the music on my computer and I’d put all of the tracks into alphabetical order to make a change. Then this song from the Cranberries came up. I wasn’t really following the words, just listening to the voice and that wonderful Irish accent, it’s almost a hymn. So for the weekend I’m offering you balm for your troubled waters, something to soothe your pains.

Here are the lyrics anyway:

"No Need To Argue"

There's no need to argue anymore.
I gave all I could, but it left me so sore.
And the thing that makes me mad,
Is the one thing that I had,

I knew, I knew,
I'd lose you.
You'll always be special to me,
Special to me, to me.

And I remember all the things we once shared,
Watching T.V. movies on the living room armchair.
But they say it will work out fine.
Was it all a waste of time.

'Cause I knew, I knew,
I'd lose you.
You'll always be special to me,
Special to me, to me.

Will I forget in time, ah,
You said I was on your mind?
There's no need to argue,
No need to argue anymore.
There's no need to argue anymore.

Ouuu, ouuu, ouuuu...
Special.

J.D. Salinger

2010-01-29T09:15:00.001+01:00

To be honest until yesterday evening I didn’t know whether he was still alive or not.

I’m reading 'Raise High the Roof Beam Carpenters and Seymour an Introduction' at the moment. I’m about half way through 'Seymour an Introduction' to be precise. I’ve been carrying it in my bag for waiting room moments and to annoy Rob when he starts texting on his iPhone when we go for a coffee. A lot of waiting room people probably thought that I was slightly mad as I read and laughed out loud. I love the way he talks to me, his reader, in person. The part that really speaks to me is that he lived in close proximity (in the book) to someone who was a genius. Since Christian was ill and his IQ confirmed I’ve been drawn to people writing about this subject. Trying to get more clues, I suppose. That’s why I read very carefully every single word written by Bomarzo and André.

Dom lent me 'Raise High…', - in English - and I’ve asked her to bring 'Franny and Zooey' when she visits again (I haven’t been able to find it in her room). When I was at college we read 'The Catcher in the Rye'. I can’t remember the ending, but I remember lots of silly details and how I felt when I was reading it. I want to re-read it – just to see how it grabs me now I’m a lot older.

I didn’t’ know much about J.D. Salenger, but it doesn’t surprise me at all that he was a recluse. I wonder if he was a blogger. I think it would have suited him.

A little bit of Karma

2010-01-23T12:23:00.002+01:00

I lot of the time people seen to think of Karma as a revenge thing. Karma is also a good thing too. Sometimes we get the chance to pay back the good karma. Sometimes we don’t realise it, but Karma is paving the way for us too.

Yesterday I went off to supervise exams on the bus. It was early in the morning and the bus was pretty full with students going off to Lycée (they start at 8 in the morning) and some older students. I prefer to sit on my own by the window but I couldn’t, so I asked a young lady if I could sit next to her and she said yes. Then we realised we knew each other. When Dom was at primary school she had a friend who was half Japanese. I always thought that they looked so sweet together, Dom was very fair with big blue eyes and S was dark with big brown eyes. Here she was – all grown up. I used to see quite a bit of the family and Rob loved the way that S’s mum and I managed to communicate in French (neither of us spoke too well back in those days), so of course I asked how everyone was. Apparently her older sister has been very ill with depression. I was able to talk to her about how we all felt when Christian was ill.

A few weeks ago Olivier and I were discussing the same thing and he spoke to me for the first time about how much he hated Christian being ill because everyone was so sad. So I made a point of asking S how she had coped with it all. She seemed pleased to be able to talk about herself.

Isn’t it true that when someone close is ill everyone is very kind and sympathetic, but the immediate family, the people carrying the load get missed somehow?

Closer than we think

2010-01-19T20:36:00.001+01:00

My retired lady arrived for her hours conversation this afternoon. She didn’t look too well and told me that her week hadn’t been good. One of her daughters is in the process of adopting a child from Haiti. She hasn’t quite got the passport and visa ready. The orphanage has come off quite well compared to other places because the children were playing outside at the time of the earthquake. Unfortunately now they are all worried about the children being fed and having enough to drink. Hopefully the paperwork can be hurried through and the children waiting to be placed with their families will be able to leave.

Now read Peter’s post.

Stop press, Friday 22nd eight-thirty pm :

We’ve just had a report on the evening news that a group of Haitian children have just arrived in France to join the families that have been waiting to adopt them. Unfortunately I don’t know what my pupils daughter looks like, so I couldn’ tell whether she was there or not. I’ll know more on Tuesday.

A true story

2010-01-08T21:16:00.002+01:00

Perhaps I mentioned it here, perhaps on one of my other blogs. We bought some postcard albums in the autumn that came from a chateau. The albums belonged to a little girl and her mother. The little girl, Odette, used to stay with her Granny the countess when her parents were travelling. Because of the postcards we sold, the present owner of the countess’s chateau got in touch with us. Odette’s mother didn’t exist in any of the records he had!

This week I received a package in the post. With a little help from us and a lot from other places, he had pieced together the life of Odette’s mother. She wasn’t really the Countess’s daughter but the illegitimate child of a close relative (who died) and a nobleman (who acknowledged her as his daughter) Granny, the Countess brought her up as her own. There was a lot more in the document sent to me. Odette lived into her 80’s and died in 1983. Her only child, a daughter, died a year ago, unmarried and childless. This is how we came to buy the albums at auction. I’ve often pieced together the lives of the people whose postcards we’ve bought in the past, but never have I had anything confirmed like this. I think that you can imagine how pleased I am. Odette’s father, a Doctor, earned the legion d’honneur in the first world war and helped the Jews in the village where he was Mayor escape from the German army during WWII. I always knew he’d turn out to be a hero.

I’ve still got plenty of cards left in Odette’s album… and I’m still looking for more clues.

If you're interested, you can read here about the floods in Paris exactly 100 years ago.

Limelight

2009-12-29T19:31:00.002+01:00

When I was small I used to play with a music box at my granny’s house. It was a little Swiss Chalet which played ‘Limelight’. I didn’t know what ‘Limelight’ was but I liked the name and the tune. I must have driven her mad, listening to the music over and over again. My granny died when I was 15 and I presumed that the music box was given to my cousin who was 4 at the time. A few years ago I went to see a film about Charlie Chaplin and was delighted that the theme tune running throughout the film was ‘Limelight’. I knew that he finally settled in Switzerland and presumed that was why the music box was in the form of a chalet.

At the end of the summer I was preparing a postcard of a Swiss Chalet for sale and it reminded me of that little music box so I emailed to my cousin who didn’t remember the music box at all. My aunt put a note in my birthday card a few weeks later explaining that when my step-granny’s first husband died she went to Switzerland for a holiday and bought the little chalet back as a present for my granny (they were next door neighbours). When she married my grandfather we presume that the music box went back to her.

Last night Limelight was on TV. A lovely film made in the 1950s with Charlie Chaplin and a very young Claire Bloom.

Happy Christmas!

2009-12-24T15:12:00.002+01:00

Hope that your festivities go well, however you choose to celebrate.

On to the next burst !

2009-12-22T20:47:00.000+01:00

Christian, my eldest son who lives in England, has just been on the phone. For the last few years he’s been working for Abbey National and doing very nicely thank you. I don’t understand really what he does as banking has changed a lot in the last 25 years since I left Barclays. Recently he went for a new job with them. As you know, they are changing names and all that kind of stuff. They needed someone to be in charge of IT for the change over to make sure everything runs smoothly. The job is for a year and will be based at Milton Keynes. Well Christian found out today he’s got the job. They will even pay his hotel if he needs it. I don’t really understand what his job will be but it is very good news indeed. He’s really, really pleased to have got it and so am I. I wonder what will happen next?

If I don’t tell someone I’ll burst.

2009-12-09T12:01:00.000+01:00

Dom phoned a few minutes ago, she’s been talking with her main professor (I don’t know what you would call him in English). If her project continues as it is and if she gets the right results, he’d like her to accompany him to Chicago next summer to present her work at a conference. She’s only a 4th year student! She tells me she worries about not being good enough and there are so many things she doesn’t know. They wouldn’t want her to go off to the states if they didn’t think she was good enough.

As you can imagine I’m bursting with pride, I’ve already put in an order for my copy of the Chicago Sun Times.

The downside of my job

2009-11-25T16:14:00.001+01:00

(You might prefer not to read this post)
On the whole I love deltiology, discovering new (old) places history, art and tradition. Occasionally I’m shocked by what I see. Usually scenes from the first world war. Today I picked up a postcard dated 1908 of a handsome young man from Ethiopia, a Gallas. I was expecting to see the name of his country on the card. No, he was a resident of the Jardin d'acclimatation in Paris. Today more or less a Children’s amusement park, in the past a zoo. I discovered that humans were exhibited there from the late 1800s. Up until 1930 (this is not mentioned on the English Wikipedia page by the way) visitors could throw coins into a pool in their enclosure so that they would dive into the water to retrieve the money.

As with most older photographs, fine details are very much in focus, especially his eyes.

The park does not have a happy history, all of the animals were used to feed Parisians during the siege of 1870…..

Oulipo

2009-11-24T21:10:00.002+01:00

Or OuLiPo if you want to be pedantic. Was a gathering of French speaking writers founded in 1960. Radio 4 had a program about them last week. The idea is that you impose constraints on your writing which provides inspiration for new ideas. That’s what I understand anyway. I rather like the idea of a lipogram, that is to say, trying to write a paragraph, essay, poem or even a book omitting the use of a letter. How about ‘e’? Looks like a good excuse to pick the synonym finder up from the floor and start rooting for new words…

I’ll try to dash off a chain of words without using ‘e’s. Not bad so far, but now I’m short of inspiration, I want aid in this almighty task… My synonym book is so commodious for this work. How long, I ask my mind can I carry on, until I go mad…..aaaaghhhhh.

Now it’s your turn (I did it again [and again])

Do you remember?

2009-11-15T15:25:00.001+01:00

'Tarantella'

Do you remember an Inn,
Miranda?
Do you remember an Inn?
And the tedding and the spreading
Of the straw for a bedding,
And the fleas that tease in the High Pyrenees,
And the wine that tasted of the tar?
And the cheers and the jeers of the young muleteers
(Under the vine of the dark veranda)?
Do you remember an Inn, Miranda,
Do you remember an Inn?
And the cheers and the jeers of the young muleteers
Who hadn't got a penny,
And who weren't paying any,
And the hammer at the doors and the Din?
And the Hip! Hop! Hap!
Of the clap
Of the hands to the twirl and the swirl
Of the girl gone chancing,
Glancing,
Dancing,
Backing and advancing,
Snapping of a clapper to the spin
Out and in ---
And the Ting, Tong, Tang, of the Guitar.
Do you remember an Inn,
Miranda?
Do you remember an Inn?

Never more;
Miranda,
Never more.
Only the high peaks hoar:
And Aragon a torrent at the door.
No sound
In the walls of the Halls where falls
The tread
Of the feet of the dead to the ground
No sound:
But the boom
Of the far Waterfall like Doom.

Hilaire Belloc

When I was in my early teens we had our Deputy Headmistress for English for the school year. She was a very strict woman and we were determined to dislike her, as with anyone in authority at the age we were.

Every lesson during the week was different and she had a very up to date way of teaching considering her age (probably in her late fifties). I remember that we worked on punctuation at our own speed using algorithms. The we had one lesson in the library where we were just expected to read whatever we liked. One of the books we read as a class was ‘A Kid for Two Farthings’ by Wolf Mankowitz (I’ve just discovered that he adapted the novel and there was a film made in 1955). We actually acted out the fight scene in class. Having taught myself, I know how quickly a class can get out of hand. We were noisy – it was a noisy scene, but she never lost control of us.

Every year the school held some sort of event in order to show us off to our parents. That year she chose us to recite Hilaire Belloc’s poem, 'Tarantella'. She explained to us that she had been taking part in choral speaking (I’m not sure if that is the name for it really), which she wanted to try with us and that she would divide us into groups depending on our voices; light, dark or medium. I think that I might have been a ‘light’. The boy with the deepest voice was to open the poem by reciting the first two lines alone.

The night of the recital I had to move around the stage quite a bit. I played ‘cello in the school orchestra, I was in the choir (extracts from Joseph’s Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat) and I had to recite one of my own poems about Conkers, which I wasn’t too happy about as I didn’t really want to go down in history as The Girl Who Wrote a Poem About Conkers. Then I joined my class for the big poem. I suppose it was a success. I only really remember how much I enjoyed the poem.

If you’re old enough and from the US you might remember two English School ma’ams being interviewed on your local radio station. It was our Headmistress and her companion, who set off to explore the Wild West one summer in the late 60s….

Do women have a soul?

2009-11-06T20:45:00.000+01:00

I was looking up something in a French reference book last week. Quid is a sort of who’s who, encyclopaedia, years news, lists of everything, book. We have the 1992 issue; 2000 pages to get lost in. I was surprised to find that there was a section entitled ‘women’.

This included the debate about souls and whether women were to be considered a human being at all. This is a very ancient debate, by the way, and was used to illustrate some point or other. A lot of statistics, including how many women are beaten and the social background of the men beating them up. Then there were statistics on prostitution giving lots of details on the social background, race, and religion of the men paying for services. How long do women spend on housework? Not a very positive bunch of figures at all. It would have been more interesting to see how many women have received the Nobel peace prize for instance (In the quid yes, but not in the women’s part), the women holding important posts in politics, education etc. I haven’t looked at a more recent Quid. I do hope they’ve managed to find women’s souls in the last 17 years.

Buffy Sainte-Marie

2009-10-26T16:27:00.002+01:00

This is one of the songs I want for my funeral. To save you waiting, I’m letting you listen to it now. The Indian calling in the back ground gives me goose bumps every time I hear it. Listen until the very end. Afterwards go and read about her on Wikipedia. I was shocked at the censorship she suffered in the past. She’s still a prominent social activist today.

Raymond Bergevin - Still looking

2009-10-22T17:32:00.001+02:00

I was checking my visitor statistics the other morning as usual, when I saw that I’d had a visitor from France looking at my post on Raymond Bergevin. ‘Gosh’, I thought, ‘fame at last’. When I told Rob about it he laughed – it was him. At first he didn’t realise that it was my blog, he only knows about the other two. It didn’t even click when he saw that I was writing about someone called Rob. In fact he though that the post was very well written and was pleased when he finally realised it was me.

We shall await your immediate response

2009-10-14T07:59:00.000+02:00

Amongst all of the emails about the enormous amounts of money I’ve inherited and won (my sex life seems to have been put on hold by the spammers for the moment). This one caught my eye. How long do you wait for an immediate response?

Why did I dream about that?

2009-10-02T21:04:00.002+02:00

I was running down a corridor with someone, Dom or my little sister, I’m not sure. We were being chased by someone I knew would kill us when he caught us. As he was going along he was hitting everyone who came in his path over the head with some sort of heavy bar; pieces of skull were falling to the ground. When he caught up with us I just hoped that I would be killed straight off, but that was unlikely. The first blow I didn’t feel at all - then the alarm woke me up. I was quite upset by the dream at first until I began to piece together where it came from:

Yesterday evening I watched The Da Vinci Code, that explains some of the violence. I was disappointed with the film, good job Tom Hanks was in it. I also had two accidents (One and two) on my mind. Where did the pieces of skull come from?

When we first came to France I was given a book of short stories to read by one of Rob’s pupils; Letters From My Windmill by Alphonse Daudet. My French wasn’t good enough to read it back then. Dom bought a copy of the same book this summer so I decided it was time to read mine. It is a delightful collection of stories about the south of France. I recommend it. One of the stories starts off with the author having received a letter from one of his readers asking for a cheerful story for a change. Instead he tells the story of the man with the golden brain who eventually falls in love with a woman and removes all of the gold in pieces to buy her everything that she wants. A sad and strange story indeed… So that’s where the pieces of skull came from.

If you want to know why the good people of Avignon dance on the bridge and not in the streets read this book.

Amazon.co.uk Widgets

Sarah Bernhardt hops by again

2009-09-24T21:16:00.002+02:00

See here

We recently acquired some new vintage postcards from an auction. One of the albums came from a chateau. In fact there were two chateaux, the parents chateau and the chateau of the grandparents. There was a Granny so we must assume she was an English Lady.

Ninette wrote to her uncle that she had two letters in her possession from Sarah Barnhardt. Unfortunately the letters had been written to the Comtesse de Najac who was a close friend of Sarah Bernhardt. As Ninette was staying with friends who knew the Comtesse they were going to take her to see her, so she would be asking for a signed photograph of Sarah.

I’ve also fallen in love with an Elephant…

In search of Raymond Bergevin

2009-09-06T17:30:00.001+02:00

Raymond Bergevin was the man who made postcards of La Rochelle and other local places of interest. He seems to have had his peak between the wars. For a few of years I’ve been meaning to check out the address where he operated from, a busy shopping street in town by the market. A couple of weeks ago Rob and I had a few jobs to do in town so we put “look up 66 Rue des Merciers” onto our list. Not an easy task as many of the buildings in the street are not clearly numbered. We started at the wrong end of the road so the excitement mounted as we neared our goal.

Number 66 is a narrow terraced building and today houses a cheap handbag shop (yes, in la Rochelle!). We stood across the road and scrutinised the building looking for clues. We were disappointed at first. Only the wooden beam over the door and window of the shop was of any interest. Looking up above the first floor windows I could just about make out some old faded lettering. So faint that if you didn’t know what it said you couldn’t guess: R Bergevin. It was like finding buried treasure.

If you want to see what we saw, start from the market, it’s a couple of buildings down on your left. Best viewed from across the road

Angels.

2009-08-15T14:51:00.001+02:00

I was reading about Angels last week. People who have seen them and been helped by them. Were they Angels or were they ordinary people who were in the right place at the right time? Are Angels living amongst us disguised as human beings.?

I’m the kind of person who is quite happy to see David Copperfield flying around on stage. I know that it is an illusion but I enjoy it just the same. I don’t need ‘explanations’ So I enjoyed reading and thought it was good that there is always hope in the most incredible situations.

What if we are all Angels ourselves? Think about it, we are given the opportunity to help someone most days. Holding a door open for someone who’s loaded with shopping. Being someone’s friend. Our smile might just help someone in the depths of despair hang on a little longer and get past their unhappiness. It’s not too difficult, is it?

The writing of this post has been in my head for a couple of days. This morning I was checking out my stats and saw that there was a link to Anji Patchwork from Lori’s blog. A bit strange as I haven’t popped by there for a while. What I found was a post which fits perfectly. Read it and see what you think.

The Cakewalk

2009-08-14T21:31:00.004+02:00

When I was five years old I went directly to my mum’s friend’s house as usual on a Friday afternoon after school. I was very excited, we’d listened to some new music at school. The Cakewalk. Imagine cakes walking! Mum’s friend Chris was married to a musician and he sat me on his lap at the piano and played if for me straight off.

I couldn't believe my luck this evening. Claude Debussy playing the Cakewalk himself

The summer of ‘76

2009-08-01T20:29:00.006+02:00

That’s 33 years ago now. It was very hot and I was reading Lord of the Rings and weighed 8st 7lbs (an important detail in those days).

One weekend in July I got on the coach after work and went to stay with my friend, Sheila, in London. Both of our boyfriends were working abroad at the time so we decided to get together for a weekend. Sheila and her friends lived in a squat. To my surprise it looked like an ordinary house – except that “Clark Kent lives here” was written on the front door. There was an outside loo (pull the chain and run) it was a very hot summer a row of certain plants were growing tall against one of the garden walls.

We visited pubs and drank pints so we didn’t need to queue up at the bar so often. I remember walking down the Portobello road. As a country bumpkin, I couldn’t get enough of the many different types of people out for the afternoon. We stopped and bought hunks of bread; over laden with cheese, tomatoes, mushrooms and toasted –a kind of pizza – for lunch. Everyone was so nice and friendly. I wonder if it’s like that now.

A weekend doesn’t last for long, but I’ve always remembered that one.

Where are you now?

You can count on Shakespeare

2009-07-20T16:11:00.000+02:00

I enjoyed this quote today from Daily Literary Quote:

“Beauty is all very well at first sight; but whoever looks at it when it has been in the house three days?”

Stargazers - Part II

2009-07-13T17:09:00.003+02:00

I’ve been meaning to go back to these two for a while after the comments I received the last time I wrote about them…..

It had been a very hot day and a very hot evening. Unfortunately, in her new sandals, a long walk was just what she didn’t need: Being slightly tipsy she didn’t feel her feet until it was too late. He had invited her to take a nightcap in the garden at the side of the pool. She knew that it had all been arranged in advance. He lived alone and there were two poolside seats arranged just so, patiently waiting for them.

He went off into the house to let out the dog and fetch the drinks. After making a fuss of the dog she decided that her feet were in need of refreshment, so she snatched a cushion from the nearest chair with exaggerated care and placed it so that she could lie comfortably on her back with her feet dangling into the cold water - just remembering at the last minute to remove the sandals. The cushion was placed with amazing accuracy, she realised that she had drunk more than she intended. When she was younger she always played darts and pool to kill after a few drinks.

He came out with two glasses of wine and the bottle. He placed her glass so that she could reach it with ease without knocking it over. He joined her at the side of the pool – with much aligning of the cushion she noted. And they lay quietly side by side looking up at the stars.

“This reminds me of Planck’s wall”
“Planck’s wall?”
“Yes, our feet in the water and our heads in the stars. I remember hearing on the radio years ago. Diving into a swimming pool was used as an example, the swimming pool could be close or miles away it could be as deep as an ocean or a shallow puddle - yesterday or today or tomorrow- am I making sense?
He risked an honest answer – “Not at all”
“Anyway, it’s to do with quantums”

At that moment the dog arrived and blew and snuffled into her ear. Which made her giggle and squirm, she continued:

“What they don’t tell you is that Planck had a dog which just added to the chaos of the universe”
“You mean by blowing into your ears?”
“Something like that.”

They continued to talk, drink and gaze at the stars until he realised that he was talking to himself. She had fallen asleep. He gently rescued her feet from the pool and swivelled her around so that she couldn’t roll herself into the water. He moved to a chair and settled comfortably to watch her sleeping.

After the night at the restaurant he’d realised how important she was to him. She was the first that he had contacted to let her know that he was getting a divorce at long last. Slowly she’d grown close to him again, but not quite as close as he’d have liked. He watched over her and realised how grateful he was that she was there - even if she had fallen asleep.

Leonard Norman Cohen

2009-07-03T13:12:00.002+02:00

I’ve been listening to Leonard Cohen, a lot recently. I’d always been a fan of 'Suzanne' but thanks to Deezer, I’ve discovered a lot more of his music. I love the way he uses words and of course, the way he plays the guitar. I hope that his life hasn’t been as sad as some of his songs are. Checking on Wikipedia I see that he is Canadian which explains the French lyrics and words in some of his songs.

Some of the songs made me remember the poems of Edgar Allan Poe. I once wrote a poem about Edgar Allan Poe arriving in heaven only to meet all of the dead ladies he mourned in his poems – not much of a heaven in fact. I can’t find it anywhere, so you won’t be able to read it.

Anyway I really like this version of 'Lover, Lover, Lover', sorry there is no 'action'. I love the guitar and the beginning and the rhythm. I did find the older versions but they are too fast for my liking. Perhaps as we get older we learn to take our time and savour things?

Dreams

2009-06-19T15:43:00.007+02:00

I’ve had several dreams recently, three that I remember and two which were in a tiny way prophetic. The first was about a not at all logical tandem. I don’t think that I was riding it. When we took Olivier to his friends the following morning, we passed the velodrome and above the entrance is a penny farthing!

The second dream struck me as odd a few hours after I got up. We were at the sea. I was with children – I think that they were mine. We were running along the beach towards the sea but the sea was chasing us; I could feel the spray on my back as I ran. I knew that we had to hurry but we weren’t frightened. I’ve visited this beach several times in my dreams and the sea is always very unpredictable.

We were in a car and Rob had a rat on his shoulder. He was driving and the rat jumped from his shoulder and I felt it run over my foot. I couldn’t see it because I was carrying a big box and it was in the way. Then the rat started to nibble one of my toes; it really hurt and I could feel the blood. Fortunately I woke up as the alarm went off.

Later I went to visit a few blogs and guess what I found

For quite a long time I kept the plans I drew of of a house we moved into in my dreams.

Lemon Meringue Pie

2009-06-11T17:25:00.003+02:00

This one is dedicated to Nicky, who loves cakes of all kinds and needs cheering up at the moment…

My daughter is on a single woman mission to convert the entire population of France to the idea of carrot cake.

Last summer Dom and her friend held a birthday party for the younger brother of one of their group. In exchange he did a series of cartoons for them. This is one of his sketches of Dom presenting her famous carrot cake. ( I really can’t think why her eyes are green and twirly)

One of Rob’s colleagues, who was Dom’s colleague and is now Olivier’s colleague too, has already been converted and she put carrot cake as her favourite cake in the subject box of the email she sent me. I thought you’d like to join in. Here’s the email, Please let me know which cake you choose:

“No cheating.
If all of the eight puddings listed below were sitting in front of you, which would you choose (sorry, you can only pick one!)? Trust me...this is very accurate. Pick your dessert, and then look to see what psychiatrists think about you.
REMEMBER - No Cheating. Make your choice before you check the meaning.
After taking this dessert personality test, send this e-mail on to others, but when you do, be sure to put your choice of dessert in the subject box above.
ALSO, SEND IT TO THE PERSON WHO SENT IT TO YOU. DON'T FORGET TO CHANGE YOUR PUDDING CHOICE IN THE SUBJECT BOX
BEFORE YOU FORWARD IT.
Here are your choices:

1. Angel Food Cake
2. Brownies
3. Lemon Meringue Pie
4. Vanilla Cake With Chocolate Icing
5. Strawberry Shortcake
6. Chocolate Cake With Chocolate Icing
7. Ice Cream
8. Carrot Cake

No, you can't change your mind once you scroll down, so think carefully about what your choice will be.
OK - Now that you've made your choice, this is what the researchers say about you...

1. ANGEL FOOD CAKE -- Sweet, loving, cuddly. You love all warm and fuzzyitems. A little nutty at times. Sometimes you need an ice cream cone at the end of the day. Others perceive you as being childlike and immature at times.

2. BROWNIES -- You are adventurous, love new ideas, and are a champion of underdogs and a slayer of dragons. When tempers flare up you whip out your sabre. You are always the oddball with a unique sense of humour and direction. You tend to be very loyal.

3.. LEMON MERINGUE -- Smooth, sexy, & articulate with your hands, you are an excellent care-giver and a good teacher. But don't try to walk and chew gum at the same time. A bit of a diva at times, you set your own style because you do your own thing. You shine when it comes to helping others and have many friends.

4. VANILLA CAKE WITH CHOCOLATE ICING -- Fun-loving, sassy, humorous, not very grounded in life; very indecisive and lacking motivation. Everyone enjoys being around you, but you are a practical joker. Others should be cautious in making you mad. However, you are a friend for life.

5. STRAWBERRY SHORTCAKE -- Romantic, warm, loving. You care about other people, can be counted on in a tight situation and expect the same in return. Intuitively keen. You can be very emotional at times but a true person in every way. You like to do things for yourself and help others learn about themselves.

6. CHOCOLATE CAKE WITH CHOCOLATE ICING -- Sexy; always ready to give and receive. Very creative, adventurous, ambitious, and passionate. You can appear to have a cold exterior but are warm on the inside. Not afraid to take chances. Will not settle for anything average in life. Love to laugh.

7. ICE CREAM -- You like sport, whether it's cricket, football, rugby, or tennis. If you could, you would like to participate, but you enjoy watching sport. You don't like to give up the remote control. You tend to be self-centred and high maintenance.

8. CARROT CAKE -- You are a very fun-loving person, who likes to laugh. You are fun to be with. People like to hang out with you. You are a very warm hearted person and a little quirky at times. You have many loyal friends. You were meant to lead and teach others. A wonderful role model.”

Question for passing Canadians

2009-05-29T17:48:00.001+02:00

Just over 20 years ago I watched a Canadian production of a book, serialised for television. The story was about a young woman who had moved to a remote village in the forest as a school teacher. She fell in love ( There was a very erotic dream sequence with him rising naked from the water!! ) with a young man of the region and they married. Times were hard and children kept being born so the husband wanted to move to the city to find better paying work. She didn’t want to go. I remember she took her son to school and the teacher said that she’d put him with younger children because children from the country are slower. She knew that her son was exceptionally intelligent, she was a teacher after all. There was a lot of unhappiness. Then for some reason they were back in the forest. The husband was drinking heavily and there was snow everywhere so she set off to get help as she was about to give birth. She gave birth to a baby girl alone in the snow. The baby was called Blanche.

I seem to remember that Blanche died and she became depressed. I can’t remember the end of the story or any of the character’s names besides Blanche. I do remember that certain scenes were in the French dialect of the region, which I adored, though there were subtitles too. The French authorities didn’t like this idea much and the later episodes were dubbed into ‘proper’ French. Any ideas as to which book I’m thinking about. Does anyone remember the TV dramatisation? I’d love to find the book and read it.

I’d always hoped for Colette

2009-05-25T21:16:00.004+02:00

Rob gets annoyed with me sometimes as I become involved in reading the backs of our postcards. In order to keep up with the higher and higher costs of eBay we have to present as many postcards as we can for auction – a lot of work. This postcard was easy to read and I recognised the signature at once; Pierre Loti, a French writer who lived very close to where I live now. I checked and double checked. I can’t prove that he was on that particular cruise ship but he did return from that direction at that time. The signature and the writing are his.

“For Mademoiselle Manuelle Chiappa, In memory of our crossing in the Ionie. – Sept 1913”

The young lady he dedicated the postcard to seems to have had a few admirers – I know because I’ve been reading the backs of her postcards….

One day I will find one written by Colette I am sure.

I don’t normally do politics, but…

2009-05-24T20:43:00.002+02:00

We were granted French nationality on the 24th September 1990. since then we’ve made an effort to vote at every election and France, being France, there have been a few. In 2002 the extreme right-wing candidate Jean-Marie Le Pen almost became President. Everyone expected everyone else to vote and you can always expect the followers of the extreme candidates to turn out and vote, which they did.

At the time I was teaching problem teenagers. Most of their families came from northern Africa and quite a few from Portugal. I’ll always remember that Monday morning at about 10.15, we had just entered the classroom when one of my pupils asked “Will we have to return to our home countries Madame?”. He had fear in his voice and the class quietened down more quickly that usual to hear what I had to say. They knew that I was an immigrant too and that Monsieur Le Pen was non too fond of the English. I assured them that there was another round to the elections in two weeks and that most people would never allow such a thing to happen.

Later I went into the head of department’s office to hear one of my colleagues repeating what Rob had been saying without pause since the results were known the evening before; Everyone had been too confident and not taken the election seriously. Both threatened not to vote in the second round. Everyone took to the streets in the two weeks that followed to protest. One of the moments when I was proud to have French nationality. Our choice was between the devil and the deep blue sea. Monsieur Chirac wasn’t too popular at the time either, but he was a better choice.

The European elections are coming up very quickly, some might not think that they are important. I can give you plenty of links of sites covering the horrors of two world wars. I’ve read postcards sent from the hell of the trenches. Europe is important, especially as the world is in such a mess at the moment. Whatever you believe in it doesn’t matter – just VOTE!

Room 12 Blues Foundation

2009-05-07T20:55:00.000+02:00

I probably haven’t mentioned before that I only ever phone my mother up in the mornings. The reason why I do this is because later in the day her speech would be too slurred and she probably wouldn’t remember who I am. When I was very small I remember someone inviting her to drink a glass of sherry at Christmas. It took a lot of persuasion and she accepted half of a very small glass and sipped it as if it were poison. Lots of things happened it the 35 years that followed….

I’ve been blogging for 6 years this month. When I first started blogging Christian became ill and it was through my blogging friends I understood what was going on and felt that I wasn’t alone. This morning I received an e mail from Stacey (on the left). Stacey and Bill live in Cleveland Ohio. They too went through the lot with their youngest son, a young man who is a brilliant guitarist and I wish I knew where there was a link so that you could hear him play.

The email said; “Saturday, the IRS letter designating the Room 12 Blues Foundation a 501 (c)(3) charity came in the mail” I didn’t understand what it meant at first either, so I looked at the site… So if you are interested and live in Cleveland you now know who to contact!

Just call me stupid

2009-05-01T20:56:00.002+02:00

If you could see my forehead today you’d see that it had the word ‘Idiot’ written on it. Yesterday I was very, very stupid. The day started with breakfast on the port. This is pleasant enough but involves eating croissant and baguette. Both are the worst things to eat for someone diagnosed as pre-diabetic. Later, I bought some bread from the supermarket as this is a holiday weekend here too. I chose old fashioned baguettes as the flour is different and slightly better for you. We had a sandwich for lunch which I don’t usually have these days, though I did have a plateful of salad with it. Olivier worked his first full day at the towers so Rob suggested McDonalds as a treat for him. Again I had salad but the burger bun is white bread, then I couldn’t resist a mcFlurry with crumble topping…

My blood sugar reading wasn’t as high as I expected it to be after such a sinful day but I woke up in the night feeling dreadful and I had indigestion . Today I feel… hung over!

Recently we were shown the documentary Super Size Me on French TV where the brave Morgan Spurlock submitted himself to fast food and no exercise for a month. He damaged his health more than anyone would have imagined. He was very healthy and fit at the start, I wonder what would have happened if he hadn’t have been so fit..

Recently I’ve lost a bit of weight, just be being sensible and cutting down on quantity. I’ve also been feeling very well and having good blood sugar readings, despite a little treat from time to time. I’m so disappointed with myself for sliding so far backwards

Thanks Bo!

2009-04-25T20:36:00.002+02:00

I’m a great fan of Deezer. I can listen to whatever music I want at anytime without breaking any laws. I love remembering names from the past and typing them in to see what comes up. Recently I’ve been listening to a lot of Bobbie Gentry. Do you remember her? Pretty, slim with lots of black eye makeup and long back-combed hair. She takes me back to the late 60s, early 70s, her show was on TV every week, I watched religiously with my mum and sisters.

At school, our geography teacher couldn’t understand why, for the first time ever, the entire class could spell Mississippi. My best friend and I who were the eldest in our families dreamt of Bobbie as an ideal older sister. Where did Bobbie go? That is a mystery equal to that of the object thrown from the Tallahatchie Bridge…

If you read the Wikapedia entry for Bobbie Gentry, take a moment to move to the discussion page.

I’ve chosen a video of her singing Fancy. A reminder of how the role of women has changed in the last 40 years.

Info

2009-04-24T21:05:00.000+02:00

Jo has decided to make her blog Brilliantgirlgenius by invitation only. I you were a regular reader and would like to have access to her blog email her at revolutioninmyhead(at)gmail(dot)com or me at the address on the right hand side just under my picture and I’ll forward your email to her. If you are shy you can always check out some of your sister’s blogs in my list.

have you got 6 minutes and 36 seconds?

2009-04-19T17:00:00.001+02:00

A disappointing book

2009-04-18T18:55:00.001+02:00

The most disappointing book I ever read was The Old Curiosity Shop by Charles Dickens. I remember watching a BBC dramatisation of the story as a child and being terrified of Daniel Quilp.

If I were Nell, I’d have dumped my grandfather in the nearest poor house. He was pathetic and lets face it he gambled away his own granddaughter’s virtue. The best character by far in the book was the villain Quilp. Having said that, the pages of the book which cover the part of their journey through the industrial Midlands is a must. Hell on earth. An interesting documentation which I’ve heard quoted by historians at least twice.

Mouse - Part 5: Learning

2009-04-16T22:00:00.002+02:00

Despite his intention, Mouse didn’t get back to the strange shop for nearly a week and during that time questions were eating away at his brain (“And the vision that was planted in my brain still remains”). He longed to hear those noises again. He went in the morning before work as he had done on the first visit. The old man came from the back of the shop and smiled;
“I knew you’d be back sooner or later”. The old man explained to Mouse that energy was needed to turn the wheels to make the sound come. The energy came from the two small cylinders which in turn needed recharging with energy themselves. By the end of that second visit Mouse had acquired and learnt how to use a “battery charger”.

Now Mouse could listen to the sounds as much as he liked with the exception of time to make the cylinders work again. He would lie in the dark of his room late into the night listening to the words. He even found himself imitating some of the noises with his voice. Mouse started to visit the old man more frequently who explained to Mouse the meaning of music. Eventually Mouse met others who were in on the secret. There were other sounds and tunes to be heard. Mouse found that his life suddenly became more colourful, he was more aware of emotions, the sun on his face, the scent of flowers, birds singing, his spirit was lifted out of the grey world that he had known before. Then one day one of his new friends took him aside and showed him yet another new idea: Books. Mouse knew what a book was, but to his amazement, in the past, they also contained stories and poems….

Hello darkness, my old friend,
I’ve come to talk with you again,
Because a vision softly creeping,
Left its seeds while I was sleeping,
And the vision that was planted in my brain
Still remains
Within the sound of silence.
In restless dreams I walked alone
Narrow streets of cobblestone,
’Neath the halo of a street lamp,
I turned my collar to the cold and damp
When my eyes were stabbed by the flash of a neon light
That split the night
And touched the sound of silence.

And in the naked light I saw
Ten thousand people, maybe more.
People talking without speaking,
People hearing without listening,
People writing songs that voices never share
And no one dare
Disturb the sound of silence.

Fools said I, you do not know
Silence like a cancer grows.
Hear my words that I might teach you,
Take my arms that I might reach you.
But my words like silent raindrops fell,
And echoed
In the wells of silence

And the people bowed and prayed
To the neon God they made.
And the sign flashed out its warning,
In the words that it was forming.
And the sign said, the words of the prophets

Are written on the subway walls
And tenement halls.
And whispered in the sounds of silence.

(Jenkins, Gordon; Simon, Nat)

A couple of quotes

2009-04-05T11:42:00.001+02:00

I’m a great fan of the Daily Literary Quote which I have on the first page of my iGoogle. Everyday there are wonderful, quotable quotes from writers of all nationalities. A little while ago there was a quote from Yevgeny Yevtushenko, a Russian poet:

“Translation is like a woman, if she is beautiful, she is not faithful; if she is faithful, she is not beautiful.”

Having struggled with translations myself, I know how painfully true that can be. A few days later another quote, this time by the French poet Paul Verlaine:

“Baiser ! Rose trémière au jardin des caresses. - To kiss ! Hollyhock in the garden of caresses”

See what I mean? A rose trémière sounds so much more romantic than a hollyhock!

Safe sex

2009-03-26T13:44:00.003+01:00

This little rant has been niggling under the surface for a long time; every time sex education is mentioned in the UK someone stands up and says that it will encourage teenagers to have sex. It’s not rocket science, but teenagers are naturally interested in sex. It’s to do with the continuation of the species - it’s natural.

Every summer, over here in France, there is a campaign to remind everyone to take their condoms with them on holiday. You can buy them for a euro, indeed packs with 2 or three for a euro, we have machines in the streets, you can buy them at the supermarket and the chemists have them on prominent display. When a certain-young-man-who-shall-remain-nameless was in his early teens, he and his friends spent the summer playing water bombs with condoms bought from the chemist. “They hold a lot of water, you know mum, much better than balloons!” Non of them worried about going in to buy them which means that when they do need one for the pupose for which they were made, they won’t have any hang-ups.

Recently the above mentioned young man attended a university information day. He came back with lots of leaflets including a little book which he showed to me (provided by the student’s branch of our health insurance company). This booklet talked about sex and the different aspects of it. (Some practises of which I’d never even heard of.) The main point running through the whole book was, to practise safe sex, respect for others, relationships and hygiene. (Have you noticed we talk to each other about these things?)

My point is that if you hide it away, kids will educate each other in the worse possible ways and the results are children who aren’t really wanted or loved. I’ve taught young people who’ve grown up knowing they were ‘mistakes’ or ‘accidents’ – not a good start to their lives.

Mouse - Part 4: Noises

2009-03-22T21:38:00.002+01:00

In the evening Mouse took out the box and examined it closely. It smelt faintly of the shop. Then he remembered the little container thing. Looking at the two together it didn’t take him long to realise that the smaller object was made to fit into the larger one. Now for the oblongs, he remembered which one the old man had pressed to open the window. He decided it was best to go gently as these old objects must be fragile, eventually he got the two to fit together. One of the oblongs had an arrow and was marked ‘play’. Play was what children did. What had that got to do with anything? The old man hadn’t mentioned that this was a toy.

Mouse was beginning to wonder why he was wasting his time on such a trivial affair when his finger slipped and pressed down the play button. He saw the little wheels were turning and the sort of ribbon had started to move. There was a very loud of noise, he had never heard the like if it before. There were words, he was sure he could hear voices, but they weren’t the same – they weren’t talking. He managed to catch the meaning of some of them;
“People writing songs that voices never share”
He didn’t understand – what is a – song?

In his confusion Mouse let the machine continue to make a noise, eventually there was a click and it stopped turning the ribbon. He pressed the button marked Play again. Nothing.

Mouse didn’t sleep at all well that night. Some of the words he had heard were turning in his brain: “Left its seeds while I was sleeping,”. There had been other strange noises too, which he didn’t understand. Mouse resolved to go and visit the strange shop again as soon as he could.

I’ll never be a woman - ugh!

2009-03-11T10:08:00.000+01:00

My son said to me as I helped him on with his tights

Let me explain. Today is the ‘Percent’(père cent). One hundred days before the start of the baccalaureate exams. The tradition is that the lycéens in their final year dress up and roam the streets asking for money. They used to throw eggs and flour but that has died out mainly, I hope. One town has banned the practise. Everywhere the hundred days is marked in some special way. You may ask what they do with all the money they collect. They go out and have a good time. Tomorrow serious revision starts – some hopes.

Olivier has gone out dressed as Little Red Riding Hood. (The same costume Dom had for her Percent – I have a sneaking suspicion that he hasn’t asked if he can borrow it yet). He went out and bought a lovely blonde wig with plaits and has borrowed a pair of tights to complete the outfit. I just checked, he forgot his lipstick.

Anyway there we were at 6.30 this morning struggling to put on a pair of tights; he hates them. Rob and I took him to his destination. A certain set of traffic lights. Very popular, some groups camp out all night to bag the busiest lights. There were already some young people out and we gave a few coins to two groups. The costumes are always very well done, in the past I’ve seen chickens, cows, Where’s Wally, ladybirds, clowns and so on. Operating scrubs are very popular. They are all very polite, if you haven’t got any change to give they thank you nicely and wish you good day.

He received his voting card today ‘sniff’.

Mouse - Part 3: The box

2009-03-05T16:24:00.002+01:00

As he opened the door there was a feeble tinkling sound from above him. Mouse shook his head in disbelief. The place smelt strange too – he didn’t like it much whatever it was. The room was stuffed with junk from the past, there were even tables made out of – wood. Strange idea. He headed towards a pile of books. Something he recognised from his grandmother’s house when he was a child. They weren’t at all uniform in thickness and size and some of the covers seemed to be of a hard type of paper - very strange. Mouse jumped and almost dropped his coffee when he realised a man had come towards him from the back of the shop. The man was like the stuff in the shop, old and strange, Mouse was beginning to wish he hadn’t come inside.

The man indeed looked strange but he had a friendly smile so Mouse decided to risk asking about the box he had seen. The man’s face dropped when he understood exactly which box Mouse was talking about. He observed Mouse and seemed to decide that he was someone to be trusted. The man lifted the box from the window and put it down carefully onto a wooden table so that mouse could see it clearly. While Mouse picked up the box and examined it and tried to read the words written in the oblongs the old man fetched some small cylinders from a drawer. He turned the box over and slid open a cover, revealing a hole with what looked like metal springs inside. He took the cylinders and placed them onside the hole, replacing the cover.

Mouse could not imagine what all of this meant. The man placed the box in front of him and applied pressure to one of the oblongs, much to Mouse’s surprise the little window sprang open. The man then pressed another oblong and pointed out to Mouse that two tiny wheels inside were moving. Mouse wasn’t impressed, two rotating wheels weren’t exactly rocket science.

The man spoke for the first time:

“You can’t stay here with this – it’s too dangerous. Take it and try it out in the safety of your own home. Here, you’ll be needing this, this is what the box is for”. He handed Mouse a sort of thin plastic container with what looked like wheels inside along one of the sides. Mouse could see a brownish ribbon leaving and entering the container. Mouse just looked puzzled. The man continued;

“If you can puzzle out how it works and what it does, you’ll know – just don’t share it with anyone else. Go on, you might as well have it, it’s of no use to anyone else”

Mouse picked up the box and the little container with wheels inside and started to back out of the shop. The man sighed in exasperation

“Hide it!” he hissed

Mouse managed to stammer goodbye and the man just turned away muttering something about Mouse needing to come back soon.

Mouse was late for work for the first time in his short life.