En vacances sous la pluie

Beaucoup de l’eau – il pluie et pluie et pluie.

Okay, so I neither speak nor write much in French that would make any sense to a Frenchman. I suspect there should be a fait in there somewhere. But I think I could gesticulate at the sky, pull a hood over my head, empty the puddles out of my shoes, shake the drips out of my hair and make him understand.

It rains ... and it rains

Mother Nature must have a sense of humour. It was only a few months ago that we were rushing to the garden centre and buying the last remaining, and because they were the last remaining, rather expensive, water butts to connect to the drain pipes around the house. Before a drought was officially declared and the water companies imposed hose pipe bans. Less than a month later and parts of England were flooded.

Now we come on holiday and ... there is spray so thick on the roads that the car ahead disappears into a foggy haze; windscreen wipers set on max; sunglasses ... !!! ... cowering in the glove compartment, and children making comments like “When can we go home?” and “What can we do in the rain?” – Littlest has already agreed that she gets so wet in the swimming pool anyway that swimming in the rain could be fun.

Bastille day tomorrow – note to self – avoid travelling at the start of a French holiday weekend in future. And avoid rain if possible.

Comments

Colour, Delacroix, flochetage and why don't we all have a go at inventing words

Yes - it is a real word. Flochetage. Well, a real-ish word. One invented by the painter Delacroix, when he found the dictionary cupboard bare and required a word to describe his technique of layering different coloured paints, using lightly pulled brush strokes to create texture and pattern and thereby enhance his base-layer colours (... lost? - stick around, read on and all will become clear. Or perhaps muddier ...). Flochetage implies both stringiness and threadiness. Apparently. And it sounds good - in a filling-the-mouth-with-sound sort of a way. Try it ... flochetaaaage. Not that I speak French. So I am probably mis-pronouncing it. Nor am I an artist. So what do I know about painting techniques - except that I think this one works. What I do like is the concept - you invent a new technique in whatever it is you do, hunt around for the vocabulary to describe it, find the dictionary is lacking, so make up a word of your own and announce to the world what it means. Delacroix isn&#

My beloved boy, how lucky I have been

It's an odd thing that when we are waiting for someone to die ... and I say someone here even though the one in question was a dog - but to us he had character and a place forever in our hearts and was more of a familiar someone than some of the people in our lives. So, I'll start again - it's an odd thing that when we are waiting for someone to die, our senses go into overdrive. We notice things that normally would be part of the background of our every day. We breathe more - or rather, we don't but what we do is notice our breathing more, as we watch his. We pause. We think. We listen to ourselves and our inner voices speak. Memories flood our dreams ... though sleep is fitful. Why am I telling you this? ... ... we lost this beautiful boy today And in the hours before he went, I saw perfect spheres of dew on blades of grass - little orbs holding micro-images of our world; a bumble bee drunk on nectar, yellow-dusted with pollen, resting in a crocus; ten - yes, ten!

Confetti for the brain. A little bit of history regarding a use for holes and a couple of quotes.

Confetti - noun: small pieces of coloured paper thrown over a bride and groom following their marriage ceremony. Also the bane of church yards and wedding venues - who wants to exit church after their favourite spinster aunt's funeral and slip on the papier mâché mush of last weekend's weddings, or step, in your wedding gown, onto a pink spattered step when your colour theme is lilac? Confetti - derived from the Latin confectum, meaning something prepared. Which suggests that there is something missing from the traditional wedding rhyme 'something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue ... something prepared.' How about something shared ... declared ... or ensnared?? Nature's confetti is all over the ground at this time of year - The garden, footpaths, and pavements are covered in blossom snow. And, when he falls asleep beneath the apple tree, it speckles Four-legged-friend's black coat. The confetti we know today - bits of b

Walking The Dog

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