All too soon my French classes have ended, my tutor Christine is going to Genève for a family visit and so our daily sessions will stop, certainly for the time being. I don't know how effective it's been, some days it seems as if I am doing OK, then the next my brain is empty …
Month: Aug 2019
Villeneuve-lès-Avignon
After spending too much time staring at French phrases I decided that Villeneuve-lès-Avignon needed study of a different kind ... buildings and views rather than typed pages and online audio. I had been there by car for the Thursday market, but this time I was on my own, and on foot. I have wondered if …
Reflections on … learning French
In which the reader will find disconnected jottings and musings that wouldn't make much of a post on their own … Parler français, or speaking in French, sounds good, but in reality there are many things to overcome or readjust to. The French alphabet is the same as English, but many of the names of …
Blancmange …
I used to be fed blancmange when I was young, I don't remember the taste of it, and I'd have to look up a recipe to find out more about it, but last night I was introduced to a new form of blancmange, Blanc Manger Coco. It's a card based game where each player is …
Les Baux-de-Provence …
I'd been here before, several years ago, to view the Carrieres et Lumieres in the man made caves, and to see the old town and the ruined chateau (la Citadelle des Baux de Provence) nearby. The sound and light show in 2015 was of Bosch, Bruegel and Arcimboldo and featured music by Led Zeppelin, amongst …
To market, to market …
It was Assumption Day, a national holiday in France, so what better day to go to the weekly market at Villenueve-les-Avignon ... along with everyone else who would normally be working that day! To make matters a little worse, we started out late, as my tutor and driver for the day Christine had not slept …
A new way …
You can learn a language in many ways, as a child at school, as an adult, immersive, online, 'sur l'oreiller', and so on. Yesterday my tutor Christine and I tried another way, we went to lunch. In theory there would be new things to talk about, la coutellerie, les serveurs, repas et ce qui fait …
And on the eighth day …
Shopping is one of the things you do when you are travelling, food, wine, stuff ... especially wine. I have been known to buy wine based on the label, wineries with bicycles were a favorite at one stage, I liked a wine that had a gingham table cloth pattern on their products, and at home …
More irony …
Discussing translations and meanings of the words ‘paramilitary’, 'the troubles' and ´black and tans’ with a non-English speaker in a faux-Irish pub in the Cours Jean Jaurés in Avignon could be fraught with risk. However I'm not certain that there was a genuine Irishman within cooee of "O'Collins" this afternoon. We'd already dealt with 'shandy' …
Et deux bières ….
Determined to be out today, and with a need to visit Bouygues Telecom to check on a message I had received, it was easy to accept a suggestion that we go into town, ie, inside the walls. Soraya (my host) needed to go to her bank and being Monday, the local branch wasn't open. The …
EUlogising Europe 2019 