Lazing around

Deep summer is when laziness finds respectability. ~Sam Keen

Last week I took my library books back to the old library, it is closing its doors after 126 years and in September down the hill from the Bibliotheque a new Mediatheque will replace the old.

Children, students and workers are soon to be on holiday. That afternoon after I left the old library, I walked around to the Jardin Public. Teenagers shouted and laughed at jokes, some ran around calling out to one another.

I saw a small group looking up at a lad as he told them some story. There was a magical feeling of happiness, that end of term fever.

StoryTeller

Everything starts a fresh in September, and the new library will be a building with walls of glass, named, La Clairiere.

If you have been dashing around, or studying like mad I hope that you can enjoy some lazy days soon.

A French word for relaxed is reposant
A French word for young lad is gars

A different world?

I am never bored anywhere: being bored is an insult to oneself. ~Jules Renard

Town or Country person?

I have recently been entertained by watching locals dance at a Fest Noz, weird dancing but the music was ok. It was held in a brightly lit Sports hall, I watched perched on a hard wooden pew!

Last weekend I scoffed moules and frites at a nearby Fete de la Musique, we all turned out to watch two bands play,yes only two! oh and some elderly folks dance Breton style.

This weekend it is the local Kermess, where we will watch a bunch of young children dance around in costume at the local football pitch. And eat a plate of frites with something, unless of course you dont eat meat.

The next Fete de la something is for flowers. Also at a village over yonder a pre Bastille day celebration will be held, we can enjoy fireworks, watch sizzling sausages smoke, and munch through another plate of frites.

So if this all sounds a bit dull perhaps the reality of rural life might be a shock.

Seeing Pink Elephants?

Spot the local character?

Yes the man on the left is Joseph, he turned out with his own guitar, er no he can't play but he enjoys life in his own world, and I hope you are too.

The French word to perch is se percher
The French word for pew is banc.

Long summer days

There is a garden in every childhood, an enchanted place where colors are brighter, the air softer, and the morning more fragrant than ever again. ~Elizabeth Lawrence

School children will soon breaking up for their summer holidays, those weeks that seem to last forever and yet vanish in a blink of an eye. My French class will break up too, so I will have to try and study through my folder of notes. The last few months I have developed an interest in French poetry, this is a shock to me.

Here is a poem, that sums up for me some of those teenage feelings. by Louise Labe

I live, I die, I burn, I drown
I am extemly hot and endure cold
Life is too easy and too hard
I have big troubles entangled with joy

All of a sudden I laugh and I cry
And in my pleasure I endure many a tormenting grief
My happiness goes and yet it never lasts
All at once I dry up and grow green

Thus I suffer love's inconstancies
And when I think the pain is most intense
Without thinking, it is gone again.

Then when I feel my joys certain
And my hour of greatest delight arrived
I find my pain beginning all over once again.
~~~

Click on the link to read more about Louise Labé

Clink on the link to read the poem in English, modern and old French; About.com helps me with a great deal of my French homework. There are of course a few different translations of this poem but the feeling is the same in all of them.

Today is the longest day of the year, so here are a few pictures with a pagan feel to them.

The Green Man

Flowers at the Cordon des Druides

Sunshine on The Ancient Stones


The Sleeping Stone

The French word for blink is cligner
The French word for vanish is disparu

It's Show Time

I perhaps owe having become a painter to flowers. ~Claude Monet

For me the month of June is when all the flowers show off, wild or cultivated, they are saying come and look at me.

On Saturday we met with friends and sat in the sunshine down by the chateau (castle). We chatted and I pointed to various plants wondering what they were. We watched some rather unusual free entertainment. One man on stilts cracking a whip, and another with a huge puppet which was a white bird.

Posing for tourists

Afterwards I insited on a quick walk around the nearby park so that I could visit the rose arbor and take some photographs of the gardens and the river Nancon.

Roses grow on you

The gardens also have two areas set aside for allotments, which I think is great since it is right in the middle of a large town.

All lined up

Flowers everywhere, I love this pink duo, hanging over a garden fence on the pathway back to the castle.

Pink Perfection
I hope you are having a bloomin lovely time.

The French word for cracking is craquement.
The French word for allotment is allotissement.

Hunger and the Red Cross

It is easy to take liberty for granted, when you have never had it taken from you. ~Dick Cheney

I recently read a book called The Children of Freedom, written by Marc Levy and translated by Sue Dyson. I have a pile of books started but not finished, but I had no problems speeding through this one. Usually when I read a book that I enjoy I don't want to get to the end, however with this one as I approached the end of the book I needed to know how the story concluded, so I raced through to the pages.

Here is a link about the book The Children of Freedom.

Something that stays with me from the story is how these very young people were so hungry all the time and good food was hardly ever come by. The story also made me think about the Red Cross who are mentioned a few times and what a difficult job that they must have had, and what horrific sights they must have seen then and also today in the war zones on our planet.

Here is a link about the man who inspired the creation of the Red Cross.

The story is set in and around Toulouse in the south; France was split in half by the Nazis, but the whole of France was under Nazi rule.

Last year when I visited Laval, a town about an hours drive away from here not I stopped and took this photo, a small simple monument in memory of some brave people who resisted against the Nazis .

Resist


I had no idea that many of the resistance were not even French.

All those strong bold monuments remembering the fallen soldiers of France tend to be the young men who died in World War 1.

Freedom for France

A French expression to be starving is avoir l'estomac dans les talons.( to have your stomach in your heels!) To starve affamé.

The French word for freedom is liberté

Finally a big thank you to my friend who sent me with the book, what a nice suprise! Merci mon amie!

A walk past the local Pharmacie

Under my head till morning; but the rain
Is full of ghosts tonight, that tap and sigh
Upon the glass and listen for reply....
~Edna St Vincent Millay

The weather has been good this week, the water level in the garden recuperator (water butt) is almost at the bottom, and the soil in the vegetable garden is turning to dust. We have been taking early morning walks at 7.30 it is a nice time of the day to be outside. The village has a small school and I saw some children walking through the school gates even at this early hour.

All is set to change as three days of rain are forecast so I will be back indoors admiring the cobwebs.

On my plod around the village there are flowers to cheer me on my way, but men with strimmers slash and destroy these helpful flowers.

Rustique Bouquet

Perfectly arranged

Latin ~ Digitalis Purpurea , Breton ~ Brulu, Anglais ~ Foxglove. A man named William Withering who recognised that this plant which had often been used in herbal medicine could be effectivly used to help people with heart disease Link here about William.
Link here about camomile.

The French word for weed killer is desherbant or herbicide.

The French word for recognise is reconnaitre.


So what do you see, weeds or flowers?

Lets hope they are a bit deaf.

It was his nature to blossom into song, as it is a tree's to leaf itself in April. ~Alexander Smith

Every Thursday evening a small group of French and a few English will meet up at our local Maison du Canton. It is not the town hall but more of a community centre. Ours is a beautiful stone building and this is where we will practice singing every week.

The first song which we attempted to sing is fairly ancient, it is aptly named Viens Chanter Avec Nous, I think it may have been written in 1640 something! I have never done this kind of thing on a regular basis before but I felt it might be good for my French, who am I kidding?

The man trying to turn us into a choir is quite a character but I cannot really understand what the heck he is on about, I just keep smiling at him so he probably thinks that I am half mad.

We then intend to go and sing at the local Maison de Retraite's (old peoples homes), and make them miserable! Lets hope not eh....

What is a Canton?

Garden plots at the Maison du Canton

Beautiful flowers and Trees

Hope that you are all keeping well and not working too hard, I have been busy with a paint brush and so I am covered in blue paint. Its nice and warm here but not too warm for the big woofer in the forest.

Big Woofer on a forest track

The French word for have a try at or attempt is essayer

The French for half mad is demi fou

Etymolgy for the word harmony.