Immersion en francaise

Bonjour, I'm back, after a week in Roanne at the École des Trois Ponts (http://www.3ponts.edu/) learning lots about French grammar, pronunciation and lots of other things French.

A very relaxing place, some hot and sunny days, no English allowed!!!

It was exhausting, valuable and at times amusing ... some English words, like, crotchety are very hard to explain and to translate, and many French words are a challenge to pronounce, and remember.







We had wonderful food cooked by Anthony who gave us a lesson in French cheese etiquette and geography each evening: this one you cut like a cake, this one you cut in slices, this one is from here, or there, and with this one you can eat the rind.  Merci Anthony.

My vocabulary has grown, as has my ability to speak an almost decent sentence in the past tense as well as the present and future. It felt a great treat to be able to talk to Tamiko from Japan in a shared languauge, and I was fortunate to have a wonderful classmate, Christine. We shared lots of interests, yoga, reading and travelling so had lots to talk about even if it was a struggle at times to find the words and the corect order! Not sure I will be blogging in French vey soon though!

I'm so glad I  travelled by train, very relaxing, with time on the way there to start my new book A Book of Silence by Sara Maitland, and during my return journey to try to read a cookery magazine in French. Somehow, recipies are easier for me to follow than other types of text, and hopefully, I can put my learning to some use in the kitchen in the next two weeeks.

a tout a l'heure ....

 at the end of the course!!!

Macaroon , cushions. and zips

Our house in France is a mix of tranquility and hustle-bustle, so for most of the day I have been quietly quilting some cushion covers patched with fabric left over from my Bargello wall hanging, then I was joined by Macaroon. First comes the admiration, thanks Macca, I hope you liked the invisible zips,

 but soon other thoughts occur,

 and he just has to get more involved. we play for a while, then comes the chase: Macca and cushion, me in pursuit, the rugs go every which way ....

No harm done, but they are now on the sofa, and I just donated an old cushion over to the dog's basket that's here in my space ...  not sure if either Crumble or Macca will understand the thought behind my generosity (!) though.

And as for the zips, well, they were the most expensive part of the new covers and went in very well, thanks to a very good tutorial on Mildly Crafty's blog, thanks Amy, clear instructions and photos. I'll be putting zips in cushions this way from now on as long as I can find some cheaper than those from the shop in Mauvezin.

Writing this as the sun returns, from 28C on Wds we then had rain, yes, more rain, but its looking good out there now. Perhaps Paul will be able to plant his potatoes next week.  As he said. its fine for the leeks but the mini-digger can't cope with the wettest claywe've had for many years.

Reading poetry: The Bees by Carol Ann Duffy

I've been reading Duffy's latest collection The Bees since last summer, finally reached the final poem today, and of course, now finding it a challenge to recall my thoughts on all the others, even though I made notes on each one! So this is an overall impression, and perhaps a wake up call that to get the sense of a poetry collection its necessary to read the poems in a relatively short time. I do that for long prose but not too much for poetry ... and that's worth thinking about!

Anyway, back to The Bees. This is a lovely book, great cover, great feel and I liked the pattern of the poems overall. Self evidently there are poems about bees, and most of these are on my list of favourites, ones I'm now reading again, Telling the Bees and The Bee Carol to name but two. There are also some powerful poems about death, loss, politics and to use a cliche 'the human condition': Spell, Gesture and Premonition shine out.

As always I was puzzled by a few, and inspired by Duffy's craft -sometimes all she needs is a list and that's a lesson we can all learn from.

Back to my notebook now where the first draft of what might be my next poem has been resting. Noting what I have just written, this one started with a list, of the sounds that accompanied my breakfast coffee on the terrace (yes, its sunny again & warm) ... poignantly I started to write after hearing T's whistle for Crumble, who still has not returned home. Perhaps today, perhaps that whistle reached her silky ears,  perhaps tomorrow.

Review of Charles Dickens A Life

Claire Tomalin has done it again for me with her wonderful biography, Charles Dickens A Life -engaging prose, scholarly but with a light touch and all those helpful extras (endnotes, a cast list, maps and photos) that a reader can choose to  use, or not.
She paints a very balanced portrait of CD, summarises each of his key works with depth and brevity (not an easy task) and the writing feels authentic. His exhausting schedule makes for exhausting reading!  His family structure was fascinating; and the Internet has helped my curiosity about his descendants ... no surprises they inlcude writers and actors. 
I learnt so much from this book not the least about English social history during his lifetime, and now I'm going to reread Tomalin's book about Nelly Ternan, and maybe a Dickens or two.

A very readable book, and one that was so good to have at a difficult time. Our two year old English Staffi Crumble, went missing on Friday evening, and despite searching all weekend there has been no sight of her. We've put up lots of Perdu notices, walked and walked the fields and woods near the lake where she ran from, into the fields, probably chasing a hare, or a deer, as she did so often. We are all feeling bereft, wishing we could do more, hoping she can somehow find her way home from where ever she went.

Its been sunny and warm for a few days, the still snow covered mountains look wonderful,  there's lots of birdsong all around and last night we had a wonderful meal of asparagus, freshly picked from the garden. Just a few good things amongst the sadness we are all feeling.

Sunshine and a book

Trying to develop a blogging routine, or really a writing routine -so this is both. Had to just note that wonderful sunshine is out and about at the moment, not only is it wonderful but it could be said to be warm, Yes, almost unbelievable isn't it, after this so very cold extended winter.

Yesterday's walk demended my thick jacket and welly boots, the fields are slippy, alomost marshy, but the late afternoon view towards Toulouse gave me an idea for a poem. I drafted it last evening just before sleep, later I will look at what came from my pen ... sometimes the words stay right there, go no further, but sometimes they travel to the keyboard and sometimes further.

Off to find a chair for the terrace -coffee and another chapter of  Dicken's life and Tomalin's prose calls.

Another catch up

I've not been here for a while, hopefully a few weeks at Enmatte will give provide a little more time for blogging and writing. So a quick tour of why I've been away from my desk ... starting with the week the plumbers took away the bath and built a wonderful walk in shower in my Effingham bathroom, well worth the disruption of going to Sue's for a shower each day.

Then the decorator moved in, and everything was in a different place than usual, but again worth the disrupution. Its great to have some colour on the walls (previously cream) and worth the effort I put in cleaning everything before it went back. Maybe Grandma was right about the annual spring clean?


Easter being cold and wet (and a bit snowy)  did not deter Sue and I from continuing along the Thames Path, joined by Arnold on Saturday and also by Chris and Gill on Monday. We have now reached Shiplake having walked past some very pricey real estate including Cliveham. The pubs along the way were warm, with good beer and good food, once outside, well wrapped up, we had the company of swans, red kites and lots of different species of waders.No photos of this stretch yet as I've just failed to insert the ones that Arnold emailed to me, and life really is too short to try again!  There's a great pic of a red kite, once rare but we saw several hovering  in the Berkshire skies last week.

I've also been busy with Mole Valley Quilters tasks, including my first AGM as the Chair. The business of the evening is always dealt with quickly so we can enjoy the 'Show and Tell' ... this year I encouraged folk to bring finished work, work in progress and work that had a confesisonal story attached. I took my Amish wall hanging with its fudged binding! 

Here's a selection made by the members ... applique in liberty prints, a Help the Heroes quilt and some woven gift baskets

Finally, some pics of the quilting I've finished in the past few days. As I mentioned, the Amish wall hanging has a fudged binding and I do hope no-one looks at the back! That said, its OK on the front and I like the combination of hand and machine quilting, and the rather puffy look that the polyester batting gives.it. I only used that batting as it came in the he kit ... it feels nasty/scratchy to touch which I why I never use it otherwise.

  

and yesterday I sewed the binding on the large (ish) scrap quilt I used as one of my practice pieces last time I was here. Again, a rather unorthodox way of finishing the quilt as I bought the fleece backing to the front and used a zigzag stitch to fasten it down. I kept reminding myself that this is just a garden quilt and buying special binding would have been an unnecessary extravagance!!

Its now on my bed as the weather is rather chilly for April ... the sky early this morning was a stunning grey and red and the mountains very clear -that usually means rain!

Well, that's this catch up done, time for coffee, half a pain au raison and another chapter of Claire Tomalin's Dickens -such wonderful writing about the great writer.   Back soon, I hope.