"Un peu spécial..."

If you're an English speaker, I bet you think you know what the title means, but the French give "a bit special" a different spin - here are some lovely variations of its translation, which range from "a little strange" to "a bit unique"... including some positives but frequently putting a more negative spin on the whole concept of  "special".

My family has been having a bit of an interesting, not to say "spécial" month, and there have been moments when I have wondered why we are just all so weird. Surely normal people don't have such a bizarre series of things to deal with?

Well now, of course they may, and the fact that they may deal with them in different ways does't necessarily mean that our way of coping is worse, or that someone else's is better.

I have been forcibly reminded of how parents think that their children's problems are all their fault by a chat with a wonderful mum, whose child is one of my many dyslexic pupils. Without going into too many details, I can tell you her first reaction when she realised that her child was struggling to learn. She told me, "I thought: It's all my fault! I've indulged my child too much and now s/he's too lazy and undisciplined to learn like the other children!" The discovery that the child was in fact trying very hard, but had a genuine block, freed her up to love and help her child - and this is something that I can identify with too.

Then I read this post today - by a mum whose eldest has just turned 18, and who talks with a beautiful, poetic honesty, about the beauty of their life together but also about the hard years. I hope it's OK if I quote her here. She says: "Hard to know I can’t fix any of the times I dented up your heart with my ridiculous white-knuckled steering-wheel control and big Buick idols."

There we are - we think that everything that goes wrong is our fault, and that if only we keep harsh enough control, our children will be "normal", whatever that is, and not "un peu spécial". But actually, I think everyone's child is special, don't you? After all, I am a Special Needs Teacher...

And one rather sweet thing about the "specialness" of my family was brought home to me again today, as we drove to church and the boys and Ben were yet again discussing what colour words and letters are. And the colours of sounds, smells and feelings, too - I didn't even know they saw colourful feelings, even after all these years of living with them! The ability to do this is called synesthesia, and it's certainly quite special! It's inherited from their dad - I really am the odd one out in this family.

Bank Holidays in France

In France, Bank Holidays don't move around to the nearest Monday like they do in the UK. Sometimes, this means they all fall at the weekend, and we get no extra days off.

But sometimes, they fall in the week and we get crazy amounts of time off - hurray! This last week we had VE day (Wednesday 8th May) and Ascension Day (Thursday 9th) - it was a weekend in the middle of the week, and we enjoyed it to the full, despite a bit of rain.

Son 2 and Ben worked together to construct a small hutch for the new guinea pigs. They came with all their accommodation, but we think that the garden they were in before was more sheltered, and we feel happier now that they have a proper bit of 'indoors' to go into at night, when they are in their run on the lawn. They love the new home, and Son 2 is so happy that his work has been appreciated... and it's fantastic for Ben to have shared projects with the boys.

A trip to the Vide Grenier... a Fabric History of France!

I got back from the massive school Vide Grenier this afternoon and unloaded my finds:

There seems to have been a theme to today's haul! I'll take you on a mini-tour of French fabric history, thanks to today's stall-holders. Let's go backwards in time...

So, it won't surprise you to know that in the 1970s, French women were crocheting granny squares with the rest of us! 3€ with a matching cot blanket thrown in...

They were also buying repro floral fabric rather like the Laura Ashley trend in the UK - I thought this fabric was original early 20th century, but the woman who made the curtains sold them to me, and she should remember when she bought the fabric! She was using it as a tablecloth today... another 3€.

We leap back to the 1950s, and find the origin of the fabrics that Cath Kidston has made so popular today... 50c.

We have to go back a bit further in time to discover that France was importing, or even making, paisley shawls in the 1840s - I am going to have to research this a bit further. It's a fine woollen weave, and in pretty good condition - much like the fragment of Scottish paisley shawl that I've treasured since I found it in the 1980s. This one is whole, with one hole on the fold and a rather fragmenting fringe. 3€.

It seems we have to go even further back for this embroidered bag!

OK, so the bag itself is a little damaged, but the fine embroidered roses and the swags, ribbons and chains are in great condition.

"Oh, around the time of the Revolution..." opined the stall-holder, selling it to me for 3€! What do you think? Which one would you choose?

In other news, Son 2 has adopted not one, but three guinea pigs! I will be asking Seranata for advice... He was very, very keen to care for some rodents, and the owner of these three is ill and has returned to the UK for immediated treatment (please pray for her - we are very moved by her story) so we stepped into the breach! Son 2 didn't really sleep last night, because he kept imagining that he was a guinea pig, and he had a nap with them in their substantial run on the sunny lawn this afternoon. It's going to be hard to get him back to school tomorrow!







St George's Day on the beach!

Happy Saint George's Day!

We celebrated in England, for once - Ben is back home but the boys and I are staying with his parents in Somerset.

This afternoon the sun was shining and we had a thrilling time making sandcastles on Burnham beach.

The tide came in and the boys were thrilled and horrified in equal measures to see their moats filling up with water!

There is nothing like the sea when you live in the centre of southern France...

A Flurry of Vintage-style Dresses!

I do like vintage, but I haven't worn vintage clothes all that much since the 1980s (when I was a devotee of little white lacy blouses, of course)!

However, I've had an exciting few weeks tracking down vintage and vintage-style dresses in the charity shops and braderies of spring-time France:

This one is really super - hand made and very new, despite the vintage-style. Don't you think it looks nice with my 6€ sling-backs from the local braderie? Sadly, it seems to have been made for Marilyn Munroe, and I've done some pinning around the top and will have to get stitching and taking in...

This little cutie seems to have been made for Minnie Mouse - but it fits me very well!

This one isn't really vintage in style, but I do like it and it will come camping with me and appear un-crumpled from a rucksack, which is a huge bonus!

There's a belt on this one which I need to adjust - it looks fine now, but I think it will look nicer once it's belted! It's really the oldest dress - properly vintage, whilst the others are just 'in the style of'.



And finally, I did buy one second-hand modern dress, which is going to come in so handy on a daily basis, I can tell you!

Which one is your favourite?

With thanks to Della and Kezzie, whose fashion blog posts made me realise that I surely could manage to put the timer on my camera, but who usually manage to avoid water-containers and wheelbarrows in their own wonderful photos!

An ABC of my life in France, right here, right now!

A is for animals – I have been thinking a lot about hares recently - I love them. I spotted one in February, went looking in March but didn’t see any, and then sadly found a dead one on the road this weekend. They are all around us here, but almost completely hidden from us. Wonderful, reclusive, animals.

 

B is for birds – they are singing again, and the hoopoes are back. Last week they were hoo-hoo-ing from the top of tall posts as they looked for their mates. Now they are quieter, so I think they found them!

C is for crutches – Son 2 ended up on them last week, just as Son 1 is reaching a complete recovery after his knee operation…

D is for Downton Abbey – we borrowed the first DVD from work, bought the rest at Christmas, and I have now even made a new local friend (American) as we unite in search of someone in the area who has a copy of the 2012 Christmas special. No spoilers, please (I’ve seen enough on my friends’ blogs, anyway…)

E is for eggs – we have plenty, and the boys seem to be capable of eating as many as the hens produce! I find that I’m buying less meat now that so much of our protein is provided by eggs.

 

F is for Facebook, which is proving a very convenient way for English speakers in the Toulouse area to keep in touch – my last four pupils have all found me through Facebook!

G is for the garden, which is water-logged but blooming!

H is for the Hunger Games books, which Son 1 talked me into reading over the Easter period – very impressive, and addictive too!

I is for ironing – I taught Son 2 to iron shirts a few weeks ago, as he’s looking for extra pocket money! This is going to be very convenient…

 

J is for jaune – a yellow packet of licorice sweets which a trainee gave me this morning, because they are traditional to Toulouse!

K is for keeping a record of all the good things that happen – however busy I am, I am glad that I have my gratitude journal for a daily record of the good times, and my blog for a chance to share and keep photos and stories of our life here together in France.

L is for lessons – I am enjoying work with pupils and trainees aged between 4 and 54, so there’s never a dull moment!

M is for Marriage – we’re going to a good friend’s wedding soon, and are so excited for her – more to follow…

N is for nest box – China the funny hen has been shut out of hers, as she is broody again! She goes broody so often that it’s tempting to get her some eggs to hatch one of these days… but then what?

O is for ordinary. This is just ordinary life – same old, same old, you could think – but how pleasant it is to think about all the interesting things that happen in an ordinary life.

 

P is for blog posts– I really don’t seem to manage many at the moment, but still enjoy reading those of my friends, and even meeting some new blogging friends - hello to my newer followers!

Q is for Queen Elizabeth II – I have a jubilee tin or two on display in the living room, and realised how very British it all seemed when my new American friend came to visit…

R is for really muddy – that’s our front garden, including the path! It’s forced us to act on something we’ve considered for ages, so we should soon be getting some work done to have a driveway and path put in to the front garden.

S is for the Simnel Cake I made on Easter Day, with the British marzipan left over from Christmas!

 

T is for Achilles the tortoise, who is out of hibernation but still seems to think that the days are made for hiding indoors – no summer-time rambles round his enclosure yet!

U is for growing Up! Our boys are growing up like wildfire – even little Son 2 is approaching my height now, and losing some of the puppy fat that has ‘dogged’ him (did you see that, Ang, did you notice it?) for the past few years. And Ben and I are appreciating getting more mature in the good ways, whilst holding on to the fun side of youth, obviously… no point in being TOO grown up!

 V is for Vide Greniers, of course! They are starting up again now that the weather is, in theory, more spring-like. We have a lot of weekend projects and not much spare money, but I shall visit a few and shall share my finds with you, friends!

W is for washing machine- ours has broken down again! Fortunately, Intermarché is only 2 minutes away and has a launderette, while we wait for someone to come and sort out the machine for us…

 

X is for X ray – Son 1 has what might just be a final check-up in June, so hopefully all will be quiet on the leg-bones saga from now on.

Y is for yellow – the daffodils were severely hit by our late snow (not as late as the UK’s I know!) but the yellow tulips are just fantastic this year!

Z is for our local zoo/safari park – just a wonderful place to visit whenever the boys and I are looking for a wander. How nice to have a local tiger family…

Nearly a Nest Egg...

Continuing an Eastery theme, I have learned a bit more about the table service I picked up in a charity shop for the huge sum of 40€!

As you can see, this set with stencilled/hand painted hens, chicks and cockerels is quite large - it must have originally been a 12-place setting, with several sizes of lidded bowls, serving plates and fruit/cake stands on pedestals. A few are actually cracked. The platter has been used and used and used again. There are chips on one or two items. But the rest is in super condition, and we are now using the plates every day.

I turned the plates over one evening and started Googling the text on the base of each item. As you can imagine, it wasn't exactly easy given the curly-wurly writing, and the first thing I had to do was type in 'faience', which is the name for this kind of pottery. A great list of the faience manufacturers of France pointed me in the direction of Sarreguemines, which is apparantly what that stencilled writing says! It's one of those towns that kept switching between Germany and France in the nineteenth century, and remember that date, folks, because that's when this pottery mark was used!

I was pretty certain that the pottery must date from the 1930s-1950s, because nearly everything I buy does, and the design certainly isn't 'Victorian' to my mind - too simple and even faintly modern, I'd have thought. But I guess that it was based on the lovely hand-painted pottery of rural France (from Quimper in Brittany to Martres-Toulouse down here), and that its simplicity doesn't imply a recent date.

I called Ben to see the results of my research, and we began to get a bit worried, because what if I'd accidentally bought something that is too good to use and to put through the dishwasher?

Our final conculsion is that, although the set must add up to being worth quite a bit (a lidded bowl like the one above, whose lid I've put on the shelf above, could be worth about 90€), if we're careful with the big pieces, never use the cracked ones, and stack the plates carefully in the dishwasher, then I just happen to have bought us the best quality but also most useable table service that we will ever own!

It goes well with the other handpainted, Denby or Portmerion pottery that we have collected over the years, and we have ourselves a collection!

Happy Easter!

A final Pause in Lent, 2013

Well, even though it's been bitty and I've not had all that much blogging time, I've appreciated our Pause in Lent this year - thank you for your contributions and comments! My thought this week has been about how easy it is to define ourselves negatively ('well, at least I'm not...') rather than positively. I want to avoid the comparison definitions of myself, and go for the positive ones, the ones which say what I am, not what I'm NOT!

This led on, strangely but logically, to Jesus's story:

“Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector.  I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’
“But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’

“I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God."

The story is in the book of Luke, and you can find the full version here. The logical connection is that the Pharisee was all about what he was NOT, but the tax collector looked at what he WAS. The strange aspect is that what he sees about himself is negative, and not all the positive cheery stuff I was aiming for! So does that mean that either the tax collector or I have got it wrong?

I think not. The tax collector doesn't compare himself to the Pharisee, only to God, and to what he feels he should be in God's eyes. That's not wrong, and Jesus promises that it got him justified by God. I can look at myself and see what I have done wrong, and what I lack in terms of character. I can go to God about it and seek his mercy, without comparing myself to other people. I can also look at myself in the shining light of Jesus' love and forgiveness, and see some wonderful, wonderful things about myself, made in the image of God and redeemed by his grace. I think that this is where the positive definitions come in. As Mother Theresa said: 'For you see, in the end, it is between you and God. It was never between you and them anyway'.

Have a special Holy Week, if you're commemorating it. And see you for Easter Joy!

Spot the tortoise!

Achilles the tortoise, adopted last autumn, has emerged from his self-made hibernation hole! I was quite anxious about him, as we had a fairly cold winter with a lot of standing water, and I imagined him drowning... but not to worry, here he is and he has been fed fresh dandylions by the boys, which seem to suit him just fine. Now he just has to gradually get rid of the 'mole hill' which he is currently carrying around on his shell!