Oriental tapis

Today I chose the photograph which really resulted in my journey back into art, it was taken in the forest on a cold February morning. I posted the picture onto my blog, some time later fellow blogger Carol asked if she could paint one of my photographs and she chose this photograph.

I liked what she painted and I was inspired to start using photographs as inspiration for art. My photograph and painting are shown below, I thought the colours in my art were like an Oriental rug.

February Colours

Oriental tapis

Both images are in my Made a favorite folder on Flickr.

Link to Carols blog here.

In Brittany every summer there are many marching bands and they parade at the many fetes in the towns and villages. The biggest parade is held in Lorient during the Festival Interceltique, where they play the bagad If you hate the bagpipes you will hate the Breton version too!

Lorient was originally a place for warehouses and shipyards, established there in the 17th century, it was named L'Orient (The Orient). Trading in India was big business and the French East India Company was later founded there. Lorient grew as a port and was badly bombed during World war II since many German submarines were based there.


Submarine in French is sous marin
Warehouse is entrepôt.

Driving Lesson

You never really learn to swear until you learn to drive. ~Author Unknown

I spotted this Citroen DS 19 Dinky toy on the back of our TV magazine and so decided to paint a picture of it ~ original nose with single headlights ~ also known as Déesse, or Goddess.

A small piece of French History

President Charles de Gaulle praised the unusual abilities of his unarmoured DS with saving his life during the assassination attempt at Petit-Clamart on 22 August 1962 planned by Jean-Marie Bastien-Thiry — the shots had blown two of the tyres, but the car could still escape at full speed.

Green Goddess

This event was accurately recreated for The Day of the Jackal.

When I was young I thought that these cars were really ugly!....now I love them...

The French word repérer can be used to spot or locate.
The French word recréer can be used to recreate.

Etymology for the word Paint.

He didn't fess up.

If you mess up, 'fess up. ~Author Unknown

Several years back I saw the name Jules Ferry on a map, and have seen it many times since, Rue Jules Ferry is often used as a street name.

So who was Jules?.......He was prime Minister of France twice, and helped to remove education from the strong influence of the Catholic Church, good man I thought. But on reading further I changed my mind, he formed the idea of acquiring a great colonial empire, for the sake of economic exploitation. He declared that "the superior races have a right because they have a duty: it is their duty to civilize the inferior races."

This week Segolene Royal who was the leader of the opposition in France has been stirring things up for the French President. Read more here. Segolene discombobulates the issue!

Link to Wikipedia about Jules Ferry.

Link to Jules Ferry Biography here.

I took this picture last week when I walked up Jules Ferry street in Fougeres, I am going through a door phase!

Old Door

Do you think that he, Sarkozy should say sorry for previous French governments who messed up and for the arrogant attitude of Jules and others like him?.


The French word for duty is devoir.

The French word to stir or mix is mélanger.

The word discombobulate.

Vanilla and a painful past.

Reading a blog recently made me think about smells, it may have been The Curates Egg. How could my thoughts about the smell and taste of ice cream on holiday, lead me to Nantes?

The capital town of Brittany used to be Nantes, but these days it is Rennes, which is about a 40 minutes or so drive away from here, I would like to visit Nantes sometime because I believe that it has some interesting old buildings and architecture.

I was researching Vanilla, lovely stuff isn't it I love the smell, and the taste, especially the real thing not the manufactured type. The vanilla seeds come from orchids, and vanilla was used long ago by the Aztecs, they used it in drinks with that other gorgeous thing we love chocolate.

The use of vanilla in Europe takes us to the French Departément No 974 better known as La Reunion, or The Island of Reunion situated in the Indian Ocean.

The vanilla plant was introduced into Europe, around about 1500, but they were difficult to cultivate, however in 1819, small vanilla plants were brought to Cayenne, La Réunion island.

This is where Edmond Albius enters the story he was the son of a slave on the Island of Reunion. He becomes an important name in this story because at the age of 12, he invented a technique for pollinating vanilla orchids. So after this sucess the technique was introduced to the neighboring islands of Madagascar, Comoro and Santa Maria.

I stumbled upon some interesting information explaining lots about the orchids and the history about the lovely black seeds which give us the taste and smell of vanilla.

Link here about Vanilla.

Link here about Edmond.

And so of course I wondered about Edmond's mother who was a slave and that brings me back to Nantes, which sadly like some other ports, like Liverpool, became rich because of their involvement in the slave trade.

Link here about Nantes breaking the taboo.

Like I said I haven't been to Nantes but I have ventured to Rennes, so that will have to be todays picture!.

Old Timbered buildings in Rennes Colombarge.

The French word for Pod is gousse.

The French word to be in chains or shackles is entrave.

Etymology for the word slave.

Etymology for the word vanilla.....well I never knew that!

Salt makes you fat?

It is a shame that I didn't take any photographs yesterday but I felt I needed to get out of that car park pronto pronto.

I have been trying to find out more about the history around here. Fougeres you see is really a border town. It sits on what was the border of France and Brittany and with the largest castle in Europe it has plenty of stories to tell. Well I found out about a salt tax called a Gabelle which is a Latin word for tax. Apparently Fougeres had plenty of salt smugglers selling their contraband, skulking around the castle walls.

Secret Salt

This salt tax caused lots of upset with the French folks and helped fuel their anger in the Revolution. They got angry a lot!

Just imagine food today without any salt, mashed spuds just wouldn't be the same would they. Now I have never been a person who needs to use salt at the table, since I am more of a black pepper person, but never the less food would taste a bit bland without a bit of the white stuff sprinkled in during the preparation.

The thought of what poor people may have eaten in the Revolution, makes me feel very lucky to be alive today, and not in those times. Mind you I am English so I guess they would have killed me in those days?!

How much do you pay for a container of salt? No idea I bet!..here is a link about this wretched tax.

Here is a link about the word Salt.

Painting on a Restaurant in Dinan

It wouldn't be so appealing to eat a large packet of crisps if they didn't have the demon salt on them!

The French word for smuggled goods is contrabande.

The French word for adding salt to your food is saler.

Etymology for the word salary.

Knickerless ??

When I was very young we were dressed in such things as ankle socks and kilts, little boys wore short trousers. Anyway young boys must have really looked forward to when they could wear long trousers and feel more grown up.

When I was in my teenage years I had a dress, but it was actually a pair of culottes too, so it was ideal for a girl who hated to wear dresses.

This morning on my way back from the bread shop I took note of a plaque on a wall for the umpteenth million time, and said to myself I will look up that name on the Internet. Well one lead, leads to another, and my research takes me deep into civil war and revolution. I find that many battles and skirmishes were fought right here between the Chouans and the Republicans.

The next thing I read about is how there were people called Sans culottes. The poor working classes wore long trousers pantalons!. The posh didnt wear long trousers but wore fashionable knee britches known as culottes, of course many of these chaps lost their heads in the guillotine!

Seems to me that wearing the long trousers was a lot safer than the culottes!

On my walk towards the bread shop (verylong way round)

And so there was this term Sanculottism for the patriotic French working classes. Click on the link if you want to read more.

Our Boulangerie.

Blinds down on Monday, day of rest.

You can have your bread sliced for a little extra money, oh and the guillotine was last used in 1977!!! not that long ago eh!

These days if you are shopping for culottes you would be buying underwear or as the Anglais call them knickers! So sansculottes nowadays could mean no knickers.

The French word for without or absent is sans.
The French word for skirmish is échauffourée.

Etymology for the word skirmish.