Wednesday, September 30, 2009

From footings to brushings: an Antipodean discovering English in France

This morning while I was out doing my daily weekly footing (you remember that, it's the French word for jogging) I had a flashback of that first year in Paris when I barely spoke the language and as such, even the most banal every day situations were opportunities for embarassment adventure.


Particularly fond memories are those of my regular 'English Lessons.' Wonderful French people taking pity on that Antipodean girl with language challenges.

Following are transcripts of two conversations that I will never forget, mostly because they got a giggle out of me.

Triathlon Coach - Alors Angela , on va faire un petit footing dans le parc?
Moi - pardon? (read: what on earth is a 'footing?')
Tri Coach - Un FOOTING! Un FOOTING. In ze PARC.
Moi (Park, I understood) - Ok. Euh, what's a 'footing?'
Tri Coach - (with a smirk) Ah la petite Australienne don' speaka de Enlish?
Moi - Si, but I don't know what a footing is (although by this time I had cottoned on a little)
Tri-Coach (jiggling up and down alternating feet.)
Moi - ohhhhh, you mean going for a jog.
Tri-Coach - Oui, c'est ça. Un FOOTING

The same week at work:

Florence was explaining to me how to ask for a hairdressing appointment. Luckily I got to practice on her before picking up the phone. It was when she asked me if I wanted a 'brushing' or just a cut that things got curiouser and curiouser...

Florence/hairdresser: Alors Mademoiselle, qu'est ce que je vous fais aujourd'hui? (what am I going to do to you today? Inspires confidence, doesn't it?)
Moi - Ummm (lost for words)
Florence - Une coupe ou un brushing?
Moi - Une coupe, and, and, and (thinking: how do you say wash and blowdry as well and what is this brushing you want to do to me?)
Moi - C'est quoi, un brushing? (Vaguely wondering if it wasn't some wierd French initiation rite)
Forence- You don' speak Enlish???
Moi - (groan, again?) Si, c'est quoi un brushing?

I finally worked out that it was a style or blowdry but she regarded me suspiciously for weeks wondering, I imagine, if people really spoke English in the Southern Hemisphere...


These, friends, were my reflections during my footing and subsequent brushing. There are countless other English nouns that the French hitch an ING onto in order to make it a French noun too (you don't go footing, you go for a footing.) And it's a delightful adventure in itself trying to discover them all...    

Tuesday, September 29, 2009

Bribes de Doris



Dites bonjour à Doris. Vous vous rappelez d'elle? C'est mon cochon volant qui vient de Brême. Et  depuis, elle a déjà fait le voyage 'blingbling'/Rothschild à Paris. Sa couleur jaune soleil à heurté la sensibilité du chic parisien (car rare de voir la couleur jaune là bas, surtout dans le ciel ;-) Tant pis, c'est ça d'être révolutionnaire.  Je ne désespère pas qu'un jour même la sobre bubble finira par l'aimer ...

On chante Doris? Que sera, serââââaâââ ... Mais comment? Vous n'avez jamais entendu un cochon volant chanter? Vous allez voir...

... et demain il pleut à Paris

L'Ultime défi

Moi, je pensais que l'ultime défi consistait d'une course aventure à travers l'Himalaya suivi par l'implémentation d'un projet de commerce équitable avec un groupe de femmes tibétaines militantes. Du moins, tel est mon rêve pour fêter mes 40 ans l'année prochaine...


Mais finalement il me semble qu'il y a des choses encore plus dures dans la vie...
L'ultime défi, est d'arriver à accomplir toutes les tâches suivantes quasi simultanément : 


  • télécharger mes photos d'une mer bleue calligraphiées à la main pour la première fois avec Picasa (à priori simple mais not for me car le système m'explique que mes photos ne sont pas des images...)
  • essayer de maîtriser l'option 'liens' du blog (mmm, finalement ça a l'air de marcher), 
  • remettre la même lessive en marche pour la troisième fois depuis hier aprèm, quand j'ai oublié de l'étendre -pour la première fois!
  • siroter un coca light, (même si ce n'est pas le moment de faire un régime sans sucre...) 
  • paniquer car je n'ai rien peint aujourd'hui et il faut récupérer les minimonstres dans une heure.
  • récupérer la voiture de chez le garagiste (si possible sans pleurer sur la facture)...
  • ranger la table après le petit déj ce matin (oui - il est 15h ...)


 J'en passe sur le reste.
Angela! (Le POMPOM : maintenant c'est  ma MERE  qui me parle!) Secoue-toi!.
Bien, puisque le mot 'objectif' n'a jamais été employé dans la même phrase que le mot 'réaliste',  du moins à mon égard, je propose que l'on conçoit une course aventure ensemble qui ressemble de près la vie d'une maman qui travaille, ou qui ne travaille pas (ça n'existe pas). Pour cela, il faut que vous me dites ' quel est ton défi ultime '??? au cours d'une journée 'normale. J'attends vos réponses...'


Entre temps, je pense pouvoir gérer l'option photo Picasa demain si je ne dors pas ce soir...
P.S. Vraiment,  je t'aiiiiiiiiimmmmmeeee Maman!

What's your ultimate challenge? or 10/10 for trying!


The ultimate challenge? I thought it was a 7 day adventure race across the Himalayas and implementing a fair trade project with a local women's group at the end (at least that's what I dream about for my big 40). No, it's something else. Something far more nerve wracking and insidiously close to home...
It's trying to figure out how to upload my hand-calligraphed and hence scanned photos to Picasa for the first time, while sorting out this links option (looks like I just got the hang of it), putting on the same load of washing for the third time since yesterday afternoon (guess who never got the time to hang it out!), simultaneously quaffing a diet coke (THIS IS SOOOO NOT THE MOMENT TO GO ON A SUGAR FREE DIET), and panicking about not having painted anything yet today when I have to pick the mess monsters up from school at 4.30pm
 Angela (Oh Heavens, now my MOTHER'S HERE!)  you need to pull yourself together woman.
Rightyo then, as the word 'objective' for me has never been used in the same sentence even remotely close to that other word, 'realistic,' I propose we design an adventure race with events that closely resemble the life of a working, or non working mother. Or anyone else for that matter. On any given day, what is your ultimate challenge?

By the way - I should manage to sort the photo option out by tomorrow if I stay up all night so stay tuned!
P.S. really do LURVE you Mum!

Insomniac (lire accro au blog)

Mon DIEU! Je suis toujours là.

I'm Dreaming (on) Mr King


Morning possums - and I MEAN MORNING, it's after 1am and my coach has long turned back into a pumpkin! Paris was as Bling Bling and fleeting as ever; a blur of activities and emotions. Sleep was but a dream of an occupation...


Speaking of dreaming and keeping occupied, I have been negotiating with my new blog now for at least 3 hours. Stimulating, frustrating, ...tiring even this blog stuff! And after all this time I find myself harbouring the same reflections I usually reserve for a particularly complicated piece of newly renovated (by me, of course) furniture:
"Where did the three hour's time go?"
Well, I managed to change my 'reactions.' GOOD POINT. And in doing so, delete all the previous reactions you had left me. BAD POINT.  Then, I did an Alice in Blogland. 'What's that?' you say. It's the art of falling through the computer screen and getting totally engrossed in a whole new world of wonderful people, places, ideas and lives (check them out in my list).  I wonder what Lewis Caroll would have made of it...
'Yawwwwwwwn.' Oops, pardon, Paris and Blogland are catching up on me.
It's time to go and live the dreams that Life defies me to live! Hmmm - and that's my garbled French to English translation of a quote attributed to Martin Luther King which, I must have somewhere in English already but am too buggered to go hunt for.
Ooh la la... bonne nuit!

Thursday, September 24, 2009

More Cheese Please or Happy Endings

- Ca a l'air bon! C'est quoi?
- Un cheesecake!
- Hein?
- Un cheesecake, un gâteau au fromage!
- Tu nous a fait un gâteau salé pour fêter ton anniversaire?
- Non
- Alors ce n'est pas du fromage mais du fromage blanc que tu as mis dedans.
- Et non, du St Moret en fait!

Suddenly, tous les yeux fixaient mon gâteaux. Gloups. Il faut au moins le goûter pour faire plaisir... (lire - 'qu'est ce qu'elle nous a encore sorti, le kangourou?')














- Mmmm c'est bon, t'es sure qu'il n'y a pas de fromage blanc dedans?
- Oui
- Je peux avoir la recette?

A ce moment même je savais que le futur de mon gâteau à la carotte était assuré!

Pour finir sur une note... une note... enfin juste une note, merci SkippY pour le film suivant et de me présenter Mr God DJ. Comme quoi, tout le monde à son rôle à jouer...

Et sur cette note sucrée, Have a Great Weekend! Ange is off to get some inspiration from glittering Paris!

Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Say Cheese or The proof is in the Pudding


First of all - Sorry car mon message ce soir aurait du être en français. Mais il m'est trop difficile de l' exprimer dans ma langue d'adoption, tellement il me tient à coeur ... So, we continue in English. Accrochez-vous donc.
Tonight between cooking the kids' dinner, cooking lasagne for the kids' lunch tomorrow, and whilst I was full on into messing up the kitchen, what the hell! cooking up a baked cheese cake for my calligraphy class tomorrow - I had a flashback of baking my first (and consequently last) carrot cake during my first  year in France.
 In spite of the spectacular patisseries overflowing with delicious cakes and pastries that peppered my 'quartier,' I was determined to cook a fair dinkum Aussie/kiwi carrot cake. Must've been a lust for orange in me even way back then. ;) Beaker was the only one around at the time to witness the result and up until now I had sworn him to secrecy. At nearly 40 I throw all self respect to the wind and say, 'it's time to bare my soul!'

Anyway, there I was, landed in Paris with this burning desire to cook a moist, juicy carrot cake. So off I went into the city to buy the ingredients.
First obstacle? The language barrier. Second? 14 years ago there was no self-raising flour in France, nor could you buy baking powder (except for a rather dodgy article whose name loosely translated into 'chemical yeast' ... yoook). To top it off, you could buy baking soda, but only at the chemist... Don't even ASK me about the cream cheese. Philadelphia was some obscure place in the US but certainly 'not a CHEESE mademoiselle.'  I obviously confirmed the prevailing suspicion that Antipodeans were little more than savages, so off I trotted  home, a little desolate but none-the-less determined to make my cake.

Under the bemused eye of Beaker, I diligently grated my carrot, mixed it with approximate amounts of sugar, flour (no cup measures at the time and I didn't have kitchen scales...) and a small packet of the 'chemical yeast' that I had finally bought in desperation. One hour later I was the proud mother of .... a carrot pancake.  Only people who know how magnificent a carrot cake normally looks like will see the tragedy and/or humour in this.

It was a beautiful colour mind - all golden on the outside and orange on the inside. However, completely inedible it was, even for the upstart pigeons for whom I had gracefully decided to leave it on the window ledge outside.  It stayed forlornly on the ledge outside for three weeks. Its only virtue was that it didn't go mouldy, inspite of the relentless Parisien drizzle. Thinking back, I should have varnished it and used it for a frisbee. Boulogne had great parks next to the ample patisseries...

Needless to say, I buried the incident waaaaaaay back in some irretrievable memory until I was strolling around Toulouse recently and saw, wait for it, A BAKED CHEESECAKE in the window of a very cool café. Deduction: if they could buy the cheese locally, then so could I!!

And here I am tonight, waiting for my baked cheesecake to come out of the oven, deliriously happy to have found a cheese suitable to make the icing for my next attempt at ...CARROT CAKE. 14 years later I am ready to create my second one. But is Toulouse???

 With all this cooking for family and friends (plus mess monsters, plus housework etc) I have had no time to paint. But my reflection today was that life's a lot like cooking; if you don't have all the ingredients, then the fun essentially lies in making do with what you've got, and making it up as you go along.

 Love, And Do What You Will as St Augustin says...

PS. Now, you can buy English baking powder and (I'm in HEAVEN) Buderim Ginger in the local supermarket! Now that's progress ;-)

Tuesday, September 22, 2009

Enjoying the present(s)



This morning I abandoned Doris early to go for a run. As the drizzle frizzes her feathers, she opted to stay in and tidy up the kitchen for me while I raced through the forest to let out a bit of bottled up energy. Beaker, always on the lookout for a marketable idea, reckons I should do just that - bottle my energy  - and sell it!
On that point, Mrs JM from Australia yesterday launched the  idea of harnessing the power of giggle energy to solve the world's energy problems. GIGGLE!
It's possibly my favourite word. Just the sound of it incites me to chuckle. Another word that conjures up a giggle!
Anyway, after testing out the giggle/energy theory on myself during my hour's 'footing,' as they call a jog in French, I concluded that it could work! Don't you think? Looking to Mrs JM to help me on that one on a global scale though!

Suddenly, through all the giggle-fuelled 'footing,'  it dawned on me in a particularly beautiful spot on the track that it was the beginning of autumn. The Forest was awash with all sorts of greens going browns and oranges. There's that splash of orange again... follows me everwhere!
Giggled less of course when I got back home to find Doris being a lazy pig and the only splash of orange was the juice the kids had spilt on the table... but then, they're my present(s) too...

For the French Impaired, what does my plank say? ' With Little, One Can Live Infinitely in the Present.' It is the direct result of a particularly horrendous bad hair day spent cleaning up after my 3 mess-talented, loveable monsters! Ahh - inspiration, I told you, you can find it anywhere if you look hard enough! (click on the image if you want to see it in close up.)

Monday, September 21, 2009

L'herbe est plus verte or The Grass is Greener


Je commence mon blog ce matin avec une question piège. What in heaven's name is THAT a photo of?

En fait - Quoi? n'est pas la bonne question car l'objet n'a jamais été le sujet (si je me fais bien comprendre ;-). Quand j'ai laissé mon téléphone portable à mon petit pokémon ce weekend voici ce qu'il a vu. Une jolie couleur verte qu'il voulait analyser de plus près.

 Mmmm, elle me plaît aussi cette couleur. Mais étant 'adulte', je cherchais quand même à savoir ce que ça représentait concrètement. Fouillant dans les archives de mon mobile, j'ai trouvé d'autres trésors dont cette deuxième photo... Finalement je me suis rendu compte que c'était notre trampoline. Et moi, bluffée, car je ne l'avais jamais vu de cet angle...

En parlant de vert et donc de verdure, saviez vous que Thomas Edison (now didn't he invent the light bulb or something?) a été 'conseillé' par un de ses profs d'aller s'installer dehors dans un champs où il aurait plus de chance à réussir sa vie grâce à sa personnalité sympa.  Mmmm, on t'a pas dit pareil, Y?
 I'm starting to get an idea... Stay tuned ...

Sunday, September 20, 2009

Singing in the Rain with D




To introduce our guest star, is what I'm here to do. So it really makes me happy, to introduce to you... introduce to you ...(anyone hearing the Muppet Show in their head???Sorry - got a bit carried away there ;-)
A big welcome to DORIS my positive pig. Her flying highness in flesh and feather!

Hovering up there, she looks like she's snubbing you but infact she's warming herself after her flight in the last rays of sunshine before the rains of this weekend (funny how our own disposition at a given moment affects our interpretation of how others see us - but that's another topic). And I say 'rains' on purpose of course, for there were many. There was one rain that was great for watering the parched plants that I had shamefully forgotten to shower this summer. Then there was a second, slightly more insistant rain that drenched the kids when they took advantage of a break in the weather to pick some figs and quinces. Then there was the last rain that battered insistently at the windows and nearly drowned our border collie to the extent that he howled until we let him inside.

Now, while I firmly believe that every cloud does have a silver lining (plants watered, kids giggling, dog washed are just minor examples), for tonight Doris and I leave you with these wise words from Crowded House:

'Everywhere you go, always take the weather with you...'

It pops into my head whenever it rains and people complain about the weather, which I find most intriguing given that the weather is something that we can do absolutely nothing about! Complaining about the weather appears to me about as futile as trying to take it with you! But that's just my simplistic view of things.

Guess therefore that I shall let the weather do whatever it pleases tomorrow while Doris and I adapt ourselves accordingly. Painting inside it shall be then piggers!

Friday, September 18, 2009

Of course pigs fly. Backwards even ...



Doris has arrived. Who is Doris? All yellow (a colour that I love but, along with green, have great difficulty painting), she flew here from Bremen last night with her little red wings and a bit of help from a pilot friend who happened to be travelling the same route. Along with Maud who I will present to you one day, she has become one of my two favourite objects and is now a source of inspiration for me. Guess you can find a muse in anything. (That's very Zen, ponder that one!) Anyway, she's a little tired after her long flight so she will pop in tomorrow. Just remember to think twice before you say, "Yeah, I'll believe that when pigs fly!"

This is what my birthday inspired!


The written word has power.

Words have the power to heal, to uplift and to motivate. All too often we don’t appreciate their power – at best disregarding the strong positive impact they can have, and at worst, mis-using them through anything from complaints and negative ideas to insults... (and if you look closely, even spelling mistakes ;-)

What type of words work to make a personal change, on one level, and that can go on to make a global change on another? The expressions and sayings of the world’s visionaries like Ghandi, Seneca, Mark Twain, St Augustin, The Dalai Lama, Lao Tse, Martin Luther King and many others are a great place to start. Regardless of religion or country, we all have our secret idols that inspire us to live a better life, and give us the courage to go on with our projects.

In the news every day we hear story after story of sadness, violence, hurt and pain, that reinforce a sense of desperation, suspicion, mistrust and general helplessness in all members of the community alike. It appears to me that if a little more effort went into focusing on and reinforcing the good, the joyful and the visionary, then individually and as a community, we all may find the courage to take a little more responsibility for our actions, and dare ourselves all to fix objectives that can improve our own daily situations, as well as those of others.

So let me take some of the expressions of the world's great visionaries and give them to you from my perspective. I'm not the first nor will I be the last person to do this - but hopefully my version will inspire you in some way! In any case, that's the goal!

Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Bleu d'Ile d'Yeu

I remember when I was little in NZ being 'in love with ' a crimson coloured building block. Crimson was the colour my teacher called it and through that building block I felt what crimson was. I was crimson. On l'Ile d'Yeu - it's blue. Bleu, vibrant and communicative. Blue that draws you into it's depths and lulls you, rocks you and convinces you that you can breathe underwater. Everywhere you turn there is blue. Bleu outremer, turquoise, cobalt, Bleu minéral... blue forever. And just when you surface - they throw some orange at you. SPLAT!

Je me souviens, petite fille en NZ, avoir était amoureuse (et oui, c'est la seule façon de le décrire) d'une brique de construction en plastique couleur cramoisie. Cramoisie, ma maîtresse l'appelait, cra.. moi .. sie. A travers ce jouet pour enfant, je ressentais ce que c'était cette couleur rouge, non, rose! Alors rouge-rosé? Attirante et indéfinissable malgré son nom: Crimson. Elle me possédait, je lui appartenais.

Sur l'Ile d'Yeu c'est le bleu. Bleu communicative. Bleu qui respire la vie. Bleu qui t'aspire loin dans sa profondeur, qui te berce en te convaincant que tu arriveras à respirer sous l'eau naturellement et sans effort. Il faut juste lâcher prise et ... se laisser... tomber... Et puis, quand tu remontes à la surface, on te jette de l'orange ... Splatch!

L'Ile d'Yeu and the Ride of Your Life


Ok - for me to get the hang of this we are going to jump forward and backwards a bit in time.
First, you have to come with me to L'Ile d'Yeu, (God's Island - although some Kiwis and Aussies think that their islands belong to that category too) where you can bathe in the colours of the French Vendée area that have influenced a lot of what I've been working on since summer... So jump in P's jeep with the kids (otherwise you will have to bike as only residents are allowed cars and as petrol is the most expensive in France, I suggest you make the most of the free ride) and we'll take a look around at what this tiny island has to offer by way of inspiration.

Good Signs


When I woke up yesterday morning my blog hadn't disappeared, not of it's own volition, neither was it merely a dream of mine. So I take that as a good sign. Today is one of those hazy days of hovering between 'not knowing where to start' and 'wondering if I maybe shouldn't finish something off!' The highlight of my day though has been scavenging the glass bowl off the top of a toppled electricity pole. Gotta get some before and after shots up so you can see what I make of it - most likely a lamp. We all need a bit more light!

Quand je me suis réveillée ce matin mon blog n'avait pas disparu! Ce n'était pas un rêve donc ... C'est bon signe!! Aujourd'hui je vacille entre ... 'je ne sais pas par quel sujet commencer' et 'peut-être je devrais finir quelque chose que j'ai déjà commencé'. Le point fort de ma journée c'était de récupérer un isolateur d'un poteau électrique écrasé par terre sur le chemin de retour de l'école. Je pense que je vais l'utiliser pour faire une lampe - on a tous besoin d'un peu plus de lumière dans nos vies!!

Sunday, September 13, 2009

Hesitant Beginnings

Hmm. You are going to definitely have to bear with me as I thought I had already published a message 4 minutes ago... But it would appear that I didn't. Have to start again tomorrow. The bedbugs are calling ;-)