Sorry that is very unfare, we all know the Dalek is the stylish one in black and silver. Dr B is the intelligent one with unknown powers of conjuring up trains from the Thomas Cook railway timetable even without an electronic screwdriver (this is partly because noone else is allowed access!) - and sorry that was a very British cultural reference!
No of course not. However, I do live with a man who thinks Daleks are cuddly toys just look at how this one makes him smile. I think this is probably the reason that he keeps on saying that we've had a really great holiday, well one of the reasons anyway.
I am going to get him to do some guest blogs about our brilliant and crazy journey. We have both returned home to work and life with smiles on our faces and looking relaxed despite carrying ridiculously large suitcases around Europe for over two weeks. Now if Daleks ever did decide to become benevolent perhaps they could reinvent the sent on ahead luggage system that almost all European railways now seem to think should be confined to the dustbin of history.
Anyway this Dalek was spotted in Waterstones in Norwich and I was instructed to take these photos. Dr B was overjoyed to uncover this as part of our holiday! (Yes he is a very big Dr Who fan ...)
As we were waiting for the train yesterday morning in Geneva I turned to Stephen and said:
They say behind every successful man is a woman. Perhaps they should also say, behind every unsuccessful woman is a man.
I think this had been triggered to listening toa Radio 4 programme about Churchill the previous evening as we were packing and learning just how reliant he was on his wife and on a huge host of secretaries to take dictation - even sometimes from the bath! Not sure that would be seen as appropriate today!
We're back from watching our local taxes go up in the most wonderful array of exploding lights and music. Today was only the second time since the French revolution that the citizens of Ferney gathered to celebrate Bastille Day at the château. At the end of the splendid fireworks - which were accompanied this year by a recording of Joan Sutherland singing some fabulous arias - we were thanked for attending the evening's "Pyrosymphonie". There was no sense of irony in this wonderful neologism - of course in English we call it "son et lumère"!
Anyway it was a great evening, hundreds of people, great food, wonderful jazz music before the sun set, great scenes of adults and children dancing and a full moon.
And who cares how much all those fireworks cost, they made all of us ooh and aah and clap and smile and simply enjoy our national day, even if we are not actually citizens. And it definitely has a lot more class to have the celebration of the revolution up at the château.
The Stiching Peace exhibition is going well in the Assembly Hall of the University of the West Indies. Roberta Bacic had to travel back to Ireland today but the exhibiton continues with Mairead and Marlene from Derry. Roberta was really enthusiastic about the experience of this international gathering in Jamaica and has alraedy got several invitations for further exhibtions. Today we had a visit from a group of local quilters here in Kingston, they left some great comments in the visitors book which has praise in many languages for the exhibtion.
The catalogues are also available in four languages and look really great.
Menu:
Starters and appetisers
spicy beetroot blinis
Lightly poached green and white asparagus
fresh organic turpips
Italian plum tomatoes with basil
homemade mustard and balsamic mayonnaise
sour cream
Main course
Roast lamb
new potatoes
broad beans
gravy
Cardomon, pistacho and turnip greens fritata - the vegetarian option
Cheeses
Bleu de Termignon
Stilton
Laguiole
brie à l'ail de l'ours
desert
chocolate mousse
strawberries in cointreau and passion fruit
Coffee - much needed!
find our wine here!
The service yesterday morning in Ferney was really good, great music, a very mixed congregation with lots of children, a good sermon grappling with resurrection in a time of bad news, reference in the notices to the upcoming Peace Convocation in Jamaica, coffee and Champagne served after the service ... and bunny rabbits and orchids on the communion table. I just had to get a picture ...
It's not every Sunday that you go to church and are welcomed by a photographer. This morning outside the Temple de Divonne, Jean-Jacques Bauswein took everyone's portrait photo before we went into church. And church was packed - by the time we got there - not quite late but very nearly - there were only seats left right at the every front! The service for Palm Sunday was prepared by the people who teach the young people and children. We were surrounded by the large posters of the EELF and ERF "à visage découvert" evangelisation campaign. Each of these is a picture of the face of a member of one of the Lutheran parishes in Paris together with the Bible verse they have chosen. The photos are also used on postcards and on a calendar. At the end of the service the wholoe congregation left the church in silence and went to the Alain Blancy parish hall to find printouts of our photos and to choose a Bible verse to put beneath our photos. Then we all stuck our photos on the large panel on the wall. Our choice of Bible text revealing a little bit more about ourselves than just our faces. I was impressed by how both adults and children managed to keep silent as we chose our verses and crowded around the tables in the parish room. You can find out more about the campaign here and here.
The Lutherans and the Reformed in France are on the way to becoming a united church in 2013. Although there are legal texts and votes that need to take place, the essence of the union is to bear witness to Jesus Christ today. This creative campaign is part of that. What is great about it is that it builds confidence and offers people reticent about talking about faith simple ways of affirming what is important for them. I'm proud of my church.
The weekend has been pleasantly busy with social pursuits as we celenbrated Stephen's birthday with a wine-tasting on Friday evening and Saturday morning. It was good to take time out with friends and fun to put together wine and cheese to share together.
Everyone attending brought a quote about wine. More details in a special guest post by Dr B.
We came back from our afternoon wandering around the multicultural streets of St Denis with some little pots of miel béton - concrete honey! Far from being concrete the honey is runny and fragrant. It comes from the "banque de miel" which has some buzzy and bee-like qualities on its website and also has a blog. So you've got the idea this is urban honey, these days with all the worries about the health of bees, urban bees are often those who seem to show the least dign of illness - partly because tehre is little chance of them feeding on monocultures.
Anyway if we do end up living in St Denis I think I'll try and invest in heaven (investir le ciel) and become part of this brilliant project which makes sweet honey come from the concrete rock. I love the fact that the banque de miel is run by the "parti poétique"! Now of course in secular France I should perhaps not point out to them that the image is straight from those poems in the Bible called the Psalms - le miel du rocher Psalm 81.16 - I think a modern translation would be honey from concrete.
Long may the urban bees produce honey for us.
This Saturday is "Le jour de la nuit" across the whole of France. The idea is to switch off all municipal lights so as to be able to observe the night sky, the stars and enjoy the biodiversity of darkness. It really sounds like fun. Ferney is going to take part, though not Geneva as the idea doesn't seem to have spread to Switzerland yet.
There are several fun things taking place including a night time walk to look at excessive private lighting and the problems of light pollution. The local astronomy club is setting up telescopes in the garden of the Maison St Pierre next door to where we live so that we can all look at the winter night sky. Find out more here.
Meanwhile I just love the play on words of "le jour de la nuit" which means both the day of the night and also the daylight of the night. In spiritual terms I also love the idea of the night and the darkness also being holy. I think Sautrday night might be quite fun - and also the big switch off will really help to reduce carbon emissions - maybe we should be having more days of the night. That night is also the night we all get to sleep an hour extra as the clocks go back, so the switch off will last an hour longer too!
So today France is mainly on strike but strangely the post office in Ferney was open - though we didn't actually receive any post. anyway this strange turn of events meant that Dr B was able to go and pick up a box of books that has been waiting for us since an hour after we left on holiday. There are many goodies in the box which came from the SCM sale but for now I'm going to curl up on the sofa and see whether this one is any good: Murder, Manners and Mystery: Presentations of Faith in Contemporary Detective Fiction: Reflections on Faith in Contemporary Detective Fiction.
It sounds quite fun though the frame of detective fiction it refers to does seem to be rather narrow compared to my highly eclectic selection. I shall have to see whether there is even any mention of the wonderful Fred Vargas, even if only in translation. Meanwhile I should perhaps return to my idea of trying to get people to write a crime fiction book through updates on my Facebook status, it was working quite well for about half a day ... Not sure whether a crime novel I would write would have religious overtones, though I suppose it couldn't not. I think my protagonist would be called Gloria (surname of course Excelsis), she would of course be a cleric but I haven't quite decided which country she will live in and which of her elders will be the first corpse. You better keep watching this space!
UPDATE
Just reading this on page three:
"If short of plot, pop in a caricatured pastor, nun, ex-nun, or woman priest as sleuth"
oh well, he's seen through me already ...
So for now here are some more images from part of yesterday's trip to the Canal du Midi. Apparently one of my (about 3) readers complained that yesterday's collage of the olives was not as good as some of the others. Well all I can say is I'm sorry, I'm just doing this for fun folks, I am not a professional artist or photographer.
Anyway, yesterday was a very full day - just the amazing Château Landure and the lovely Abbaye de Fontcaude to add now, but first another day of holiday to enjoy, not many of those left.
Figs, melon, cheese, bread, ham and wonderful local viognier wine - the perfect supper at the end of the perfect day. A real blessing as the sun finished setting.
When we first moved to Carouge in Geneva over 16 years ago there was a wonderful local grafitti that went "Avant les murs avaient des oreilles, maintenant ils ont la parole!" That was before the age of digital cameras and I'm not sure we ever captured it on film but I still think it's one of the best pieces of grafitti I've seen: "In the past walls had ears, now they tell a story"
Opposite the main post office in Geneva are some great shutters which only have full words on them if both shutters are open - the other fun thing is that, this being Switzerland, the words are in both French and German. Unfortunately sometimes the shutters get painted and half of the word seems to get lost.
Anyway I think it would be fun to have one word on the shutters when they're closed and another when they're open - could be quite fun to make into an animated computer game actually. Each player gets a house and has to get the words on the inside and outside of their shutters - maybe you also get spray paint to paint over the words on your neighbour's shutters.
Update: Meanwhile Dr B prefers this translation "Before walls had ears, now it's their turn to speak". A translator has to always be open to revision.
On Saturday, we set off from Nyons to get to St Chinian for a journey that seemed at times as though instead of following a map, we were working our way down the wine list of a restaurant. Leaving Nyons we first went past the road to Vinsobres, which became a Cotes du Rhone Villages in 1967, and then, in 2006, got promoted to being a stand alone appellation. We then skirted the southern edge of the Enclave des Papes, a territory once part of the Papal States that became part of France only in 1814, close by Visan, where our wine imbibed the previous night came from, and whose label bore the papal arms. On the road to Bollene, we passed by the industrial complex of the Celliers des Dauphins, known for its massive production of Cotes du Rhones wine for supermarkets and other outlets. Crossing the Rhone we continued through the Cotes du Rhone and Cotes du Rhone Villages appellations before crossing into the Department du Gard, moving into the Coteaux du Longedoc territory, first through Sommieres, then the various sub-appellations such as Gres de Montpellier, Pic St Loup (where we passed by the Domaine de l'Hortus, whose wines feature on the wine list of the Chanteclair restaurant opposite our home in Ferney), then on past the signs to Montpeyroux, which also boasts a wonderful cafe des vins called l'Horloge at the centre of the village.
Throughout the journey we would get stuck behind the narrow tractors that are used to harvest the grapes in the vineyard while the smell of pressed grapes would waft into the car as we drove past the village cooperatives. Then, as we got into the home straight towards St Chinian, we entered the Faugeres region, and drove past the signs to the Domaine Moulin de Lene, whose hat obtained on a previous visit Dr B still wears as protection from the sun, and whose wine we drank for the first evening of our stay in St Chinian. Finally, after going past the Domaine de la Liquier, we turned off the D909 to St Genies de Fontédit, and saw our first sign from a producer of AOC St Chinian ... but that will be another story ... one you're all going to get bored by by the end of this holiday!
(This post was written for the stranzblog by guestblogger Dr B)
So you wait for months for emails about culture and then they come along in groups just like buses!
Our friend Alan Leather is starring in Waiting for Godot which will open while we're away. Do hope that we'll be back in time for one of the later performances though. Here are the details for those of you in the Geneva area
A Theatre Someone Production
Waiting for Godot
The classic comedy by Samuel Beckett.
Vladimir and Estragon pass the time waiting for Monsieur Godot. Will he arrive to-day?
Directed by Sue Humphreys
With Alan Leather, Gary Bird, Andrew Brookes, Joe Pirri, Gabriel Bird
October 1st and 2nd Theatre les 50, 31 bis Impasse aux Rues, St Jean de Gonville
October 9th Commons Room, Webster University, 15 Route de Collex, Bellevue
October 15th La Grande Salle, Emmanuel Church, 3 Rue Monthoux, Geneva
October 16th Salle Ausonne, L'Esplanade, Divonne les Bains
All performances start at 20.00hrs
Tickets 19 euros [France] 25 CHF [Switzerland] Free seating
For reservations or information:
e-mail theatresomeone@hotmail.com
Thanks to Sophie Verbeek, my wonderfully talented erstwhile calligraphy teacher I get the occasional cultural email and this one really took my fancy because it's such a great play on words.
Sophie will be one of the artists exhibiting at the Robertsau in Rumilly. The Robertsau styles itself as a "mixer of contemporary art" offering exhibition space and space for artists to "mix" with one another and with the public.
Rumilly is in the next door département of upper Savoy, not far from Annecy.
Meanwhile the "soupistes" are a grouping of artists in our part of the world, the Pays de Gex. They say that soupism - the philosophy they espouse - is without form just like a bowl of potage but that one thing is fur sure, it's meant for sharing!
So the mixeur and the soupistes get together for what looks as if it will be a very eclectic but fun exhibition in Rumilly. The whole philosophy the Robertsau looks great - a free space for artists and public to mix and talk and encounter in. A curated space.
Now of course to make soup you need a mixer - if you're making that kind of soup. But you also need friends to share it with, which is what we did with the delicious pumpkin and red pepper soup we ate last night.
Anyway I hope we make it to Rumilly before the end of November. First though we pack to head to the Languedoc.
du 26 septembre au 28 novembre 2010
Jane Le Besque - Christophe Jacquemet
Fanny Gagliardini - Rachel Nisbet - Mike Layland
Yvette David - Sophie Verbeek - Jean Deprez - Catherine Jacquet
installation, photographie, volume, peinture, bijoux, point croisés,livre d'artistes...
Une association invite une autre association...
La Robertsau, le mixeur d'art contemporain de Rumilly, nouvelle mise en marche de la machine
pour "les soupistes", un club d'artistes en tous genre du pays de Gex.
Soupism: la philosophie derrière le soupiste est aussi informe que le potage
mais quelle que soit sa saveur, elle est faite pour être partagée.
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