Christmas cards

E-Christmas cards! Sent from people who have left it too late to send out Christmas cards on card? Sent by people who are concerned for the planets resources?

Stephen Adams from a UK Newspaper (The Telegraph), writes:

The number of festive e-cards being sent is growing by more than 200 per cent a year, according to one estimate, while the number of paper cards is static. An increasing number of companies are sending email-based cards as the recession bites, with the Royal Opera House even doing so this year.

Many people are also keen to shave a few pounds off their Christmas budgets this year said Sam Heaton, managing director of Britain's biggest electronic cards firm, ecards.co.uk
He said: "Last December we sent 1,362,000 e-cards and year-on-year we are probably increasing at about 200 to 250 per cent." He commented: "I think e-cards will have an impact on paper card sales. It's not cheap to send them. "I don't think people have got the money this year. People need to save money and this is a really easy way to do it."

The number his company sends is still dwarfed by the 750 million that the Royal Mail says it delivers every year. But Mr Heaton pointed out that his company was a "minnow" compared to American e-card firms. He estimated 123 Greetings - the biggest e-card firm in the world - could send out "10 or 20 million a day" during Christmas.

Often criticised for being tacky and impersonal, e-card companies are launching a raft of more sophisticated versions in which the sender can embed pictures of themselves or video content.
Mr Heaton said: "That will give them a new dimension." Ray Sangster of Flip Video, a mini-camcorder about the size of an iPhone, agreed with Mr Heaton's prediction that paper card sales would fall. He said: "Whilst it is still of course special to receive a Christmas card, the impact a personal video message from a granddaughter or grandson has on the recipient can't be underestimated."

La Rentrée

Yesterday was the big day and my son was leaving the petite sectionne to start moyens (4-6 years old).

Oh the worries you have when you are 4, what colour group will you be in, if you were a lapin in the petite section what are you in the moyens and most importantly can you sit next to your girlfriend?

After the first day we now know that he is in the red group, no animal/bird/insect has yet been assigned to each sectionne and no you cannot sit next to your girlfriend! The moyens sectionne is so big this year it has been split up into 2 classrooms.

Ah, the path of true love never did run smoothly.

Charming French rhyme

This morning I was telling one of my French friends about this miracle wrinkle cream - sorry got to keep it a secret otherwise the price may go up! After explaining all the "skin tightening" benefits this cream gives my friend told me a little French rhyme and it goes like this:

Les chameaux dans le désert
Ont la peau tellement tendue
Que - quand ils ferment les paupières -
Ils ouvrent le trou du cul

Camels in the desert
Have their skin so taut
That - when they close their eyelids -
They open their asshole

Transhumance - June 2008

It's moments like this ...!

Oops!

My son used to call out rather sweetly, "Mummy - Bob the builders are here". However, the other morning that changed to, "Mummy - the bloody builders are here"!

Now who did he get that from... Oops!

We've got the builders in!

Have been neglecting my blog recently as "we've got the builders in".

Reading and taking advice from plenty of ex-pats, who have completed or are undertaking building projects, I made sure I had the following before project start date:

Signed and approved plans
Building permission
A signed Devis pour le Travaux
Bottle of Aspirin
Plenty of tea bags

All ready to go I thought to myself and to be fair the first few days went well and then: .........

The main guy started making alternative decisions to those on the plans
Sitemeetings are not quotidienne, but on the fly with client neither included or informed
The signed Devis it seems has to be now more than flexible
I have run out of aspirin
Most upsetting of all I have run out of my Yorkshire teabags

All advice welcome about how to survive this - have another 2 months to go.

AU SECOUR

Oh and don't get me started about the rain!!!!

Another holiday ....

Half term has really carried on into May, much to my sons delight! This week he is at school que le Lundi et Vendredi. All the teachers are on strike on Tuesday, Wednesday is a free day as normal and then its Thursday 1st May, which is a public holiday. No wonder my Mum is always saying "another holiday". As Théo is 4 and doing well I am not that concerned but what if he was 14 and not doing well. Makes you think.

French public holidays / national holidays in 2008

Tuesday 1 January - New Year's Day (Jour de l'An).
Sunday 23 March - Easter (Pâques).
Monday 24 March - Easter Monday (Lundi de Pâques).
Thursday 1 May - Labour Day (Fête du Travail) and Ascension Day (Ascension catholique).
Thursday 8 May - VE Day - WWII Victory Day (Fête de la Victoire 1945).
Sunday 11 May - Whit Sunday (Pentecôte).
Monday 12 May - Whit Sunday (Lundi de Pentecôte).
Monday 14 July - Bastille Day (Fête nationale).
Friday 15 August - Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary (Assomption).
Saturday 1 November - All Saints' Day (Toussaint).
Tuesday 11 November - Armistice Day (Armistice 1918).
Thursday 25 December - Christmas Day (Noël).

Je t'aime

My soon to be 4 year old is in love. "Je t'aime", he says about a hundred times a day to his petite amie Romane. I am not sure if it is sweet or precocious!

We have recently had the halfterm holiday and the saying goodbye to each other at the end of the day has gone from peck on the cheek to a long cuddle, kisses on cheeks and lots of Je t'aime and I love yous.

His petite amie lives in a house in the centre of the village, complete with balcony, and the two have amused many a patron at the café opposite with their Romeo and Juliet styled partings.

Advantage:
Should Théo be having any type of hissy fit during breakfast, I only have to mention that we might be late for school, where his petite amie will be awaiting, and before you can count un, deux, trois he is reaching for his back pack and heading for the car.

Disadvantage:
Could get his heart broken at such a tender age.

This has all taken me by suprise as I thought first loves of this kind happened when you got to 8yrs old+. Help - got any advice???

DIY - I'd rather he didn't!

Hubby was home this week, (we are a couple of LATs, hubby's job necessitates that he spends 3 weeks of every month living and working in London), and as usual my son had put all his broken toys into "Daddy's draw" to be fixed.

After hubby had replaced the wheels on various toy cars, mended the Hungry Hippo game and sorted out the missing limbs on various toys he turned to me and asked the question most wives dread, "do you need anything fixed around the house?."

Now, you would think after all these years together I would know better but I actually said "yes" and here is the list:

fix the sticky lock on the front door
mend the garage door handle
screenwash and oil needed in car

Ok guess which job went spectacularly wrong, did you get it right? Yep, the screenwash. After 45mins a sheepish hubby returned and said that he had poured the screenwash into the coolant reservoir and had to drain it, this would mean taking out the battery etc. STOP, I cried and thrust a coffee into his hands.

I dashed across the road to my French neighbours house and asked if he had a moment. This gentlemen used to design helicopters, built his own house and is perfect for that DIY emergency.

Sorry I can't pass on his contact details, he is very much occupied at our house 3 weeks a month putting right my hubby's DIY disasters!!!

Note to hubby: DIY - i'd rather you didn't.


More on LATs - information from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Living Apart Together (abbreviation: LAT) is a term for couples who, whilst committed to each other, decide to have separate homes rather than one shared residence.

The Times Study speculates that quantum of LAT relationships equates the incidences of de facto relationships in the UK.[1]

LATs consist of three factions, concerning decision to keep separate domestic residences. There are firstly: the "gladly apart", and two minorities identified as being: the "regretfully apart" (due to work commitments, family responsibilities, legal/residency requirements, or other reasons) and the "undecidedly apart" (committed but not especially moving towards cohabitation at the time).

Poisson d'avril - Why is there a fish on my back?

Tomorrow is April Fools day and in France it is customary to give your friends little chocolate fish or play the classic April Fools Day trick which is to stick a paper fish on someone's back. The unfortunate victim is then taunted with the phrase "Poisson d'Avril", or "April Fish".

Who says the French don't have a sense of humour!

President Sarkozy visiting the UK

Wow! Spoken like a man head over heels in love.

"I am proud that people have seen her for what she is."
"I think she has been an honour to our country, not simply because of the way she looks, but beyond that everyone understands and has seen a woman who has beliefs, sensitivity, who is a humane person.
"Those sensitivities, those beliefs, this humanity, are what contribute to Carla's elegance."

However, as it is Sarkozy who is the President and the politician just how relevant is "who she really is", or "her beliefs".

I think we are much more interested in his beliefs and who he really is, n'est-ce pas?

Hot Cross Buns

This Easter I am inviting friends around for an Easter Tea. After everyone has run around the garden to see what the Easter Bunny has left for them I will be bringing out the Hot Cross Buns. My mouth is watering as I type this. I just love the sweet, spicy taste and with a cup of Yorkshire tea - mmmmm - perfect.

I help one of my neighbours with his English homework and in his English Course book from collège, under Traditional English Songs, they had this gem:

Hot cross buns, Hot cross buns
One a penny two a penny - Hot cross buns
If you have no daughters, give them to your sons
One a penny two a penny - Hot cross buns Hot cross buns.

Does anyone remember singing that?

Anyway, whatever calorific treats you are having a Happy Easter to all or as they say it here -Joyeuses Pâcques!

Frrrreeezing France

I left for a trip to London on 3rd March, weather was sunny and 20 °C. Flew in yesterday to 9 °C and rain! Where is the sun? Our unusually warm Feb had me packing up Winter and getting fully into Printemps.

Oh well a few bracing walks are needed; as always I caught up with all my friends over boozy evenings. With bacon butties to cure the hangovers and huge Starbucks lattes I need to shift a pound or so.

Oh I love the odd visit to Old Blighty.

Recette du Jour for you budding Chefs

C'est moi qui l'ai fait !

Really great blog with easy to follow recipes. This blog also contains great pics and video demonstrations of certain recipes. Bon Appétit

C'est moi qui l'ai fait !

Recette du Jour for you Bloggers

Take one blog, add a widget and after 5 seconds you have baked a Blidget!!

"Underground, overground, Wombling free The Wombles of Wimbledon Common are we..."

I wonder what cultural icons most Brits have bought with them to France? Well my son is in the process of teaching all his friends in Maternelle about The Wombles.

During their outings to the park, forest etc all the children are taught to have a respect for the countryside and its animal inhabitants and that includes not dropping litter. My son is now very keen on playing spot the litter and thanks to a DVD that my Mum sent over from the UK he thinks that the Wombles are needed over here.

After a visit to a local charity shop Grandma has managed to procure one of these elusive creatures and my son is taking him to school after the hols. Apparently all his copaines et copines remain a little confused. Can't imagine why. All descriptions of exactly what a Womble is, en Francais, would be very welcome!

Click on this link to watch the Wombles: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZ2mJPSccvo

Wombling facts from: http://www.toonhound.com/wombles.htm

The Wombles first emerged from their burrow on Wimbledon Common in 1968. These litter-loving little folk were created by author Elisabeth Beresford who was inspired whilst walking on the common with her young children, Kate and Marcus. One joyful mispronunciation later (Wombledon Common) and we had Great Uncle Bulgaria and his young charges Orinoco, Tomsk, Bungo, and Wellington and his not-so-young associates Madame Cholet and Tobermory. The Wombles scour the common looking for litter to recycle into very useful things and generally cleaning up the mess that we mucky humans always leave behind us. FilmFair's stop-motion series reached our screens in 1973. It featured fabulous puppet designs from Ivor Wood, cockle-warming narration from Bernard Cribbins and a totally-hummable title track from Mike Batt. Orinoco quickly emerged as the star Womble, with his ceaseless appetite for cakes and sandwiches and forty winks. Wombling can be such hard work, you know...

Deep in the Merde – and only the best will do!

During the last couple of weeks there has been the smell of bonfires in the air as everyone in our voisinage has been burning the last of their garden debris. This week the air has a completely different smell, poo! Literally. All preparations are under way for the potager. For anyone not familiar with the potager please see below.

According to my neighbour Henri not any old poo will do – take it from someone who has one of the best potagers I have ever seen – the secret is to use sheep poo. Now as readers of this blog know, this is a delicacy for my weimaraner Oliver, he has been in seventh heaven this week eating and rolling in it! I have had to hose him down after nearly every walk this week, that is of course after I can catch him as he runs around the garden on a herbal high.

We really are deep in the merde here and only the best will do – sheep poo!

Potager – Defined by http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potager_garden:
A potager garden is a French method of creating ornamental vegetable or kitchen gardens. Often flowers (edible and non-edible) and herbs are planted with the vegetables to enhance the beauty. The goal is to make the function of providing food aesthetically pleasing.
Plants are chosen as much for their functionality as for their color and form. Many are trained to grow upward. A well-designed potager can provide food, cut flowers and herbs for the home with very little maintenance. Potagers can disguise their function of providing for a home in a wide array of forms--from the carefree style of the cottage garden to the formality of a knot garden.

Flat pack - send it straight back!

It had looked so colourful in the catalogue, just what my son needed to keep his books in order. On wheels too, what fun. Not so much fun now that it is all in pieces in front of me with accompanying bags of screws.

The instructions had 2 people holding hands with a clock underneath saying 45 minutes. 2 people who are magicians maybe. 2 people consisting of a 42yr old and a 3.5 yr old, I think not. Actually, Théo put the wheels together whilst I was working with pieces 1 and 2 and the bags of screws A and B.

3 glasses of Bordeaux and 2 silkcut later I was sorely tempted to throw the whole lot in the nearest pubelle. Théo, who by now had given up to and was watching me from the sofa with Ollie (our Weimaraner), said that I should have bought one "already made, Mummy." Out of the mouth of babes and all that. Next time that is exactly what I am going to do!

Flat pack - send it straight back.

It's a Jungle Out There

Last weekend myself and a friend took our children out to a park in one of the nearby villages. We headed for the play area and let the children run off to the slide whilst we sat on an adjacent bench (IN the play area). After 20 minutes I just could not bear it any longer. WHERE WERE ALL THE PARENTS. OUT of the play area it seemed. For some the childrens play area is a place where you simply leave the darlings whilst you have a smoke and a coffee elsewhere. Preferably at a distance so the shouting and screaming does not interfere with conversation. I am all for parents having rights to and getting their chance to relax but I think it is super mean to achieve that by dumping all responsibility for your offspring onto unwitting strangers. Mediating between young children is difficult anyway but even more so when you don't know who they are.

What happened to learning about sharing and the use of words and phrases like "a moi", "a toi", "chacun son tour", "partage". It became quicly obvious that there is no univerally shared sharing system. More like who can grab the quickest. Is there no playground etiquette?

One baby, about 10 months old, was sitting at the end of the slide with pebbles in his hand. My friend alerted the father who was not worried in the slightest and told us to carry on. Carry on as in saying "ok kids keep coming down the slide, never mind the baby at the end he will provide a soft landing"!

One last thing, the park in the beautiful village of Anduze is well worth a visit. Not only is there the childrens play area but lawns to picnic on, pigeons to chase/feed - depending on your age! There are ducks and swans who are partial to a baguette and a goldfish and koi-carp pond too. May I just say that if you come, we could do with some help in the childrens play area! IT IS A JUNGLE OUT THERE.

The Older Woman

Our neighbours daughter had her fourteenth birthday this weekend and we were invited along to the celebratory Goûter.

My son, who is 3 and half years old, was memerised by all the giggling girlies who were trying out the new make up, music and hair accessories. It was all glitz and glamour and dancing to Mika, until someone suggested football.

Now that really impressed Théo, an older woman who looked good and could still kick a ball!

Give a Mum a laugh and pass this on ............

My friend Sally e-mailed this to me. Have not stopped laughing.

FOR ALL THE GREAT MUMS

I was out walking with my 4 year old daughter. She picked up something off the ground and started to put it in her mouth. I took the item away from her and asked her not to do that.

"Why?" my daughter asked.

"Because it's been on the ground, you don't know where it's been, it's dirty and probably has germs" I replied.

At this point, my daughter looked at me with total admiration and asked, "Mummy, how do you know all this stuff? You are so smart."

I was thinking quickly. "All mums know this stuff. It's on the Mummy Test. You have to know it, or they don't let you be a Mummy."

We walked along in silence for 2 or 3 minutes, but she was evidently pondering this new information.

"OH... I get it!" she beamed, "So if you don't pass the test you have to be the Daddy."

"Exactly," I replied back with a big smile on my face.

When you're finished laughing send this to a Mum

A p.s to my post (Homework - Cahia de Vie)

I came across an interesting website called http://www.frenchentree.com/
which has a section called Your Guide to the French Education System. Full of interesting facts.

Now for interesting true stories I suggest you check out this: http://boards.babycentre.co.uk.
It has a section called: Parents in France/French parents

Could hardly believe what I was reading concerning the maitresse in the maternelle section of this school:

There are also many things said about his teacher, not just from English people, one of which was that something was stolen from class (by 3 year old) and she sat them all down and told them she was going to the police and they were thieves, she had most of them in tears even when their parents came to collect them, and many didn't want to go back!

So far we have had a positive experience with our local Maternelle but I would really be interested to read yours. Please leave a comment and let me know.

maternelle

Homework night - Cahia de Vie

Sunday evening is homework night at our house - well not really homework as such but my son, who is 3 and a half, sits down with me and his cahia de vie.

Théo is in the petite section at Maternelle and each Sunday we sit down with his cahia de vie and review his weeks work, look at the announcements and then fill in a couple of pages of things he has been doing of interest over that weekend with family and/or friends. If you have anything especially exciting to report then you bring it to the teachers attention on the Monday morning and your child then talks about it to the class.

What a system - fantastic. It bridges the gap between his school life and home life in an interesting and simple fashion. Your child also gets an opportunity at public speaking at a very early age! Furthermore, as Théo speaks English at home and French at school it has also helped to bridge both the language and culture gap. When he started last September we were encouraged to put in photos of family and friends. We wrote underneath both the English and French names that Théo uses.

The photos also cleared up another mystery. The maîtresse was under the impression that Théo had a brother called Oliver and had been asking him what section of school he was in. Théo had been telling her that I would not let Oliver come into school even though he had BEGGED me. She could hardly believe her eyes when she finally saw a photo of this much talked about Oliver. Yes there was the photo - Oliver chasing a ball! He is of course our much loved, loopy weimaraner. But so much more than that in Théo's eyes.
(for pics of Oliver please look at blog entry Oliver the Weimaraner)

maternelle

Watch out Sangliers about

Comme d’habitude, I popped into our local Café for a cafe-crème with another Mum after the school drop-off. She was looking a little shaken and told me that her car was at the mechanics because of a run-in, literally, with a sanglier.

My friend had been on her way to Nimes at 6am, driving at 80km/h when a sanglier came into contact with the left, front side of her car. Will she be eating daube de sanglier tonight, (wild boar cooked in a thick red wine sauce)? Apparently not, after making contact and wrecking the side of the car, the sanglier carried on running aside of it for some distance. I said to my friend that he was probably making sure he could get a good look at her and memorise the number plate!

There is an on-line magazine called http://www.lost-in-france.com/ which reccounts this popular urban myth. One evening some men were out driving through the forest when they hit a large animal that ran out in front of their car. Getting out to investigate they found that they had hit a male boar/sanglier. The animal wasn't dead but had been knocked unconscious so they decided to lift it into the boot of the car. Some miles further on they heard loud noises coming from the boot and turned round to see that the boar has recovered consciousness and was now, very angrily, making it's way out of the boot. They were forced to abandon the car while the boar completed it's exit, pretty much writing off the car in the process.

For further information about the sanglier please visit this page hosted by wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanglier

sanglier

Oliver the Weimaraner

Have just been blog browsing and came across one by a guy in the South of France who posts a daily pic of his Weimaraner called Oliver. Well, well, well.

Here is a tribute to my gorgeous Oliver, who lives in the lap of luxury, in the Cevennes.

If you are interested in learning more about this noble breed, considering having one as a pet and are interested in rescuing or adopting a Weimaraner please visit:

http://www.oregonweimrescue.org/links.html

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weimaraner

Bonne Année 2008

Goodbye crappy Christmas of 2007 and a huge welcome to the New Year.

All my best laid Christmas plans got torpedoed by bugs of the gastro, flu and bronchiolite type. Hubby coming down with the "man flu" had me dreaming of serving him divorce papers 3 days into his life threatening illness!

When I staggered into the Pharmacy on the 27th December for yet more supplies, I thought they were having a belated Christmas Staff Party. It was heaving with people chatting happily, but all on a mission as it turned out for sick friends and relatives.

So with relief I listened to the church bells chiming in the New Year, and wished everyone everywhere a Bonne Année and Bonne Sante.

Welcome, welcome 2008