Au Clair de la Lune, mon Ami Pierrot, please lend me your 'plume'

Au clair de la lune mon ami Pierrot 

(not often you see a sad face around here, is it?)

Prête-moi ta plume pour écrire un mot

(Be a sport! Loan me your quill, I have a few words I'd like to share)

Ma chandelle est morte, je n'ai plus de feu

Ouvre-moi ta porte pour l'amour de Dieu

(Go on. For the love of God open your door. I can't see a thing out here)

(background of a wee door I'm about to start once I've finished the backlog of projects hanging around)

Au clair de la lune, Pierrot replied

'Sorry cobber, have you seen the time? A bloke's gotta sleep!!!

What sort of hour is this to be up brandishing quills???

(heard that one before???!!!)

Try next door at Colombine's

She's up. I just saw the light go on.

You'll have to wait a couple of days for the rest of the story about Colombine and Pierrot.

I only just found them again after 6 years while looking for some old lamps to do up. I love the way Beaker 'tidies' our garage…! 

Anyway, Pierrot has gone to bed like any reasonable person. That is where I will be soon too.

In the mean time, I found my own quill and have a wee word to say to Pierrot and all of you:

Where ever you are… 

FOLLOW YOUR DREAMS

and make them big enough so you don't lose sight of them in your pursuit

Bonne nuit mes ami(e)s

xxxx

If it's important, we will find a way!!

(photo found at this wonderful Australian Artist's blog)

I will find a way to photograph everything I've been working on before the end of the week gulp - that's in two days so I can share it with you next week!! NO EXCUSES.

It's also EXCEPTIONALLY important that I rise early tomorrow and go for my 'patience of a saint Mum' run before the Messies get up, so that I can paint a special request onto some (holding my breath) VERY SMOOTH perspex with clear, deliberate strokes (No grumbly Mum shakes) once 'school' is over.

So that leaves me 3 minutes to keep my promise to myself and be in bed before midnight. I may have to cheat on the 3 mt teeth cleaning time then!!

Bonne nuit ;-) Hope you are all getting your important stuff done.
Love
xxx

To paint the portrait of a bird or Pour faire le portrait d'un oiseau

Nearly a month ago I was meant to be taking off for 9 days. It seems that every time I go to Wales, I come back only in body, and my (freshly upgraded) mind remains in Wales for a good couple of weeks afterwards.

In the mean time, I have returned to Glorious Spring. Homeschooling outside. Painting outside. Life outside. And birds, eggs and birdlings everywhere ;-) It's literally a bird watcher's paradise on our very own doorstep.

Needless to say, we have been inspired. Libellule found this poem by Jacques Prévert*** in one of her homeschooling books. We decided it would be a welcome change to the very dry content of the rest of the French program we had initially elected to try.

Paint first a cage

with the door open

next paint

something pretty

something simple

something lovely

something of use

to the bird

then put the canvas near a tree

in a garden

in the woods

or in a forest

hide behind the tree

say nothing

don’t move…

Sometimes the bird comes quickly

but it can just as well take many years

before deciding

Don’t be disheartened

wait

wait years if need be

the pace of the bird’s arrival

bearing no relation

to the success of the painting

When the bird comes

if it comes

keep very still

wait for the bird to enter the cage

and once it has

gently close the door with the brush

then

paint out the bars one by one

taking care not to touch any of the bird’s feathers

Next paint the tree’s portrait

choosing the loveliest of its branches

for the bird

paint likewise the green leaves and fresh breeze

the sun’s scintillation

and the clamor of crickets in the heat of summer

and then wait until the bird decides to sing

If the bird does not sing

that’s a bad sign

A sign the painting is no good

but if it sings that’s a good sign

a sign you can sign

so you must softly pluck 

one of the bird's feathers

and you write your name in a corner of the painting

Libellule can't stay in one place for more than five minutes, so the rest of the poem (another painting for example) may never be completed. That however, is of  little consequence. This first part was enough fun. We will move on to other things...

Yikes!! There is a howl coming from the cherry tree. That must mean my break time is over. Sigh...

Bisous to you all …

PS.
I have been busy WORKING! Which is why you have had no news from this corner of the woods. Photos to come…

***Jacques Prévert (1900-1977) was a French poet whose poems are often about life in Paris after the Second World War. He also wrote several classic screenplays for film director Marcel Carné, the most famous of which, Les enfants du paradis (The Children of Paradise, 1945), is considered one of the greatest French films of all time. 

"His satirical attacks on rigid French education and the Catholic Church and other institutions of authority expressed France's post-war disillusionment and defiant spirit."

You can't be part of the beach with your shoes on!

As a would-be (by origin, not location UNFORTUNATELY) beach babe, toes-in-sand scruncher, and all round vagabond, imagine my joy when I stumbled on this colourful book :

Inspiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiired was I. Am still going through a yellow phase which I have subsequently put down to withdrawal symptoms: it has now been 5  months since I have had the pleasure of glimpsing, let alone scrunching, a single grain of golden sand. This means I have to resort to using a pumice stone in the shower… not quite the same joy ;-)

Anyhoooooo! Tis my Mama's birthday and she sort of subtly (like a sledgehammer) dropped the hint last time I was home, that her walls could do with a piece of my work. Alors, drumroll please! VOILA! Ze Masterpiece ;-)

In case you were wondering, which you may not have been, it is surprisingly delicate trying to dance a metal nib across a discarded roof plank, which is why I often use brushes instead. Roof planks are ornery things - having spent most of their life NOT being part of the beach - and highly resistant to being danced across with a metal nib (known in France as a 'plume'). Even if said nib is gaily dressed in shades of yellow. Sadly, I have been subject to a mutiny. My brushes are all ganging up on me at once, sporting punk hair cuts and brandishing rebel attitudes, supposedly due to my recent neglect. What then is an artist to do, but go back to square one?

Ah oui! Patience is definitely a virtue when one is wrestling with unbending 'plumes' and unforgiveably ornery wood. Of course, if your 'plume' has a distinct penchant for blue, then you oblige and drape her in turquoise. Only then will she really dance… like sea water sliding across the sand ...

Happy birthday Mama! Dutiful daughter now recommends that you remove your shoes and become part of the beach as you wait for your parcel to arrive :)

Thanks to all of you lovely people who commented for letting me know that my last post did indeed inspire you and make you smile. I can take off to Wales secure in the knowledge that you are smiling and well. Did I say 'take off to Wales.' Bugger! I knew there was a story I still hadn't told ;-)

See you in 10 days. I don't know if driving over the Severn River counts as glimpsing the sea… but it's as close as I'm going to get for now.

Much love
xxx

P.S.

I've put a few more photos of recent work HERE on my Facebook Page (click on the link for those of you who didn't know I had one!!) so if you want to check them out, don't forget to stop by and 'like' my page. It'd really make me smile too.

Gratitude: discovering the meaning of life

Go on! Watch this.
It's less than three minutes  long
It will make you smile
It made my day 

So - did it make you smile? Do you feel a little gratitude for those crème brulées that you love? Have you been following your heart (to the crème brulée section of the supermarket)?

I have a little personal gratitude to share. For Jeanne, who gave me a sweet blog love award a few weeks ago (yes - I do have my tail between my legs, and am now virtually looking up at her with big, pleading brown blue eyes hoping she'll forgive my rather late lateness)
and …

...for all of you who keep popping by to check in on me, even though I'm lagging behind in the 'post' stakes ;-).  My new motto is ' the finisher is the winner.' I borrowed it from the Nice (as in French Riviera, Nice) Triathlon finisher t-shirts, thinking it was pretty apt for many aspects of life especially housework.

Every day, life has an uncanny way of teaching me humility: that I'm not, no matter how hard I try, ever going to be super human, and never will I be likely to grow even ONE extra set of hands in my lifetime - how ever many affirmations I write to the contrary ;-)

As I watched that film above though, I mentally ticked off each piece of simple, meaningful advice it gives, and realised that a good many of them are part of my daily or weekly routine.

So, while being consistently behind in blogging finishing off my own art projects, inspite of all the disorganisation and constant restructuring that characterises my homeschool beginnings, I'm happy. And grateful for life.

Just wanted to share that with you… including the 'blog love' award. I just love 'youse' all as we say in Skippy speak ;-) If you feel like sharing a little 'blog love' then pass it on to some inspirational, motivational and just plain likeable bloggers that you know.

Dutifully, I am posting a link to my first (actually second,  because it has a photo) post.

A Virgo always acts virtuously Jeanne so I am denying the rebel in me and obeying instructions ;-)

Now tell me dear friends, what are you grateful for? And what makes you happy?

Sunday oops Monday Morning, up with the lark...

...I think I'll take a walk in the park 

Hey Hey Hey it's a beautiful day :)

6.15 wake up

½ hour drive to the pool

1hr training

back in time for breakfast

Beaker leaves for work 

9am start torture lessons with messmonsters

1.00pm feed the starving hordes

3.pm finish torture lessons

EXCEPT FOR GEOGRAPHY

The four of us striding through the fields with compasses 

in order to reach the village town hall 'the back way'

making our way north west through the fresh cut hay

4.30 pm

One hour to don my 'domestic goddess tiara'

5.30pm racing off to rock climbing...

Messies in tow

8pm home in time to cook dinner

9.30pm all in cleaning their teeth 

(we're late tonight so no reading)

9.48 pm finishing blog post

10pm Yogi tea and starting a 'word art' project

Just another ordinary day

A little less (stress)full than usual

Bed time???

Some time later;-)

Hope you are all well

What was your day like???

Smooth sailing

The world is bathed in sunshine...

Butterflies and bees sail effortlessly over the waves of 

daffodils, dandelions and daisies that decorate 

the sea of green that is our lawn

'La vie,' in all its splendour, calls me outside...

But before I swan off...

Just wanted to leave you with this thought found 'here'

It struck a chord in me today :)

Compromise. It is one thing to meet another halfway. It is another to cave in and betray our own truth.

Adieu mes amis, à la prochaine...

Setting sail with a pop!

It's been nearly a month since I blogged… Does that sound like how a confession should start?  Oh paff! Winter is over. Spring has popped it's flowery yellow head around the corner and shouted a big 'cooooooooeeeeeeeeee' to us here at La Rivière. Well, maybe not Cooooeee as that's Aussie Speak and we're in France. You get the picture I'm sure. 

It's time to start afresh! 

I'm setting sail again. We've finished here in the boat yard; the vessels are all ready to hit the high seas and meet the oncoming waves that life tosses their way ;-) Tonight will be the last fire in the hearth (FINGERS CROSSED!!!!) as we toast our dreams and visions of the future.

Soon this 'dreamer' will be berthing near Les Adrets in Provence. 

Home of my godson Dorian. 

Cargo aboard? None visible.

Only wishes ...

The one below has set its compass in the direction of Barcelona. As it navigates just south of our base in Toulouse, TRUST that Beaker won't now, after 12 months of careful use, rip a button off one of his designer shirts and have to go looking for a spare as I've used it for the rigging. (sheepish grin)

 Do you think that the écolier who was surely whiling away his school hours in the early 1900's dreaming of becoming a hero, ever once imagined that pages and pages of the handwriting from his history book would one day be used to make a small, papier maché boat for another child. 

(Trust in yourself and everything will fall into place)

Three more boats are ready to hit the water but I thought you may have had enough for one post. From NO news to 10 pages of news in one hit seemed a little overboard - even for Moi ;-) So I have outsmarted myself and given myself something to write about next week: the remaining boats, Pokemon's 7th birthday, how excited I am about having finally picked up the window for my new studio, my first mountain bike orienteering race by night with an all girl team last night, all the secrets the astrologer said to me yesterday...

Thrilling stuff - I'm sure you'll all agree!!!

 

Until then, may the great ocean that is France Post please be merciful with my vessels and speed them on to 'bon port.' Which, incidentally, doesn't mean 'a damn good port' my friends but does prompt me to ask, " Shouldn't I be popping open a bottle of champagne to launch my ships?"

Chin chin possums :) 

Wishful thinking ...

Today is Pomme's fifth birthday. 

Pomme is the grandson of 'Papsea,' who organises mighty big yacht races all around the world. Pomme is also my godson, and loves bobbing up and down in the waves. Indeed, he is an intrepid sailor always ready to discover new lands.

Seeing there's a big birthday out there on the high seas, it seemed fitting that for Wishcasting Wednesday (Yes I am aware that it's Thursday today, but wanting it finished for yesterday was a severe case of wishful thinking ;-), I wish to give my first little sailboat* to Pomme.

It's not just any sailboat. Although… it might not win the America's Cup … being paper maché 'n' all. However, woven into its billowy sails are magical dreams that sail out into the air ahead of you with the gentle puff of each and every tiny zephyr.

On the great big ocean of life, Pomme, may you find the confidence to ride each big wave, navigate uncharted lands and always arrive safely home to shore.

 avec tout mon amour

Marraine

 Ange

* find out more about the sail boat template and links to Ann Wood Handmade at this post

Thank you Ann :)