St John

We gathered in the grounds of our chapel at 10pm for the ceremony of St John.


I'm not a theological expert but the main point is, you light a whacking great bonfire and you jump over it. Apparently St John is known for pointing the moral finger, and once you have identified your annual tally of errors, you jump over the fire to purify yourself and you jump right into summer hooray!


The last housemartins winged their way home, the darkness deepened. A pair of bats darted in, flip-flapped in spirals above the fire, and darted off.

This snap of the fire looks like a dragon - one millisecond later, it has transformed itself into a tall thin flare.



















B thinks he can do it.






















R knows he can do it.





























I decide not to do it, I'm not sure I can still jump, I'll probably stumble, nobody will notice if I don't, I would prefer to take photos, what does it matter? I'll leave it to the others...and here JC catches me on camera at the very moment I decide to stop wittering and just do it. (I should point out that a peculiar fluke of perspective has made me look broad of beam which I am not, of course).


Our pasteur reminds the children that they can only jump ONCE, as they criss-cross past each other and leap and leap again. He makes cutting comments about it being strange that the YOUNGEST amongs us who have had so few years in which to err seem to be the ones who need the most purifying - remarks which go right over their heads...as they jump over the fire, again and again.


'My lawn, my lawn' says the Pasteur, as the children toss extra logs onto the fire with limited accuracy.


Finally we realise that the reason he wants everyone to stop jumping is to let those who have not yet plucked up the courage have a go. The person who wanted to do this was in fact him:

Yes, the prize goes to our Pasteur Marc!

In a picture is entitled 'Marc D'Arc' , the little smile on his lips shows us that martyrdom can be fun.

Home after midnight yet again, school tomorrow.

Candy Floss

After the brocante, we set off for the the music festival, our suburb's contribution to the Paris Music Festival. Our neighbour, who is a local councillor, let it be known that there was free candyfloss for the children, so we had to go. I do understand the motivation, the glamorous American word 'candy' and the almost spiritual appeal of the pink cloud.

I was a little unnerved to see couples with children walking in the opposite direction of the event, and to see a lot of 16 year old girls wearing - well, wearing what I used to wear in the 1980s when I was 16, going in the direction of the event.

I entertained V, the neighbour's 12 year old son, with tales of how, in the 1980s, we had to lie in the bath to shrink-fit our jeans, and as they didn't have elastic in those days, we were unable to sit down. V stared at my middle aged sausage legs, clearly unable to believe.

'So, you couldn't take them off then?' he ventured.

'Of course not - you had to wear them to bed. Of course, you could only get into bed by standing at the end and dropping like a felled tree...'

It is my duty to undermine the credibility of 'les slims' as they are known here, the beastly things are a health hazard and very unkind to middle aged women - indeed to anyone over the age of 16.

200 yards from the event I heard one old lady say to another,

'Well, it's bearable from THIS distance' and then I knew for sure it was not going to be my scene.

Sure enough, on arrival, there was one of those bands of youths bashing out - well, bashing out the sort of thing that we used to have to endure in the 1980s.

Using sign language we queued for the candyfloss.

V disappeared with a crowd of dubious characters with black sticking up hair.

R drifted to the back of the crowd and became mesmerised - I had to drag him away. When we got far enough away from the band he could be heard muttering

'Can I have another candyfloss?'

'This music is rubbish' said B, 'It doesn't make any sense'

V's mum found V and told him he had to go home with me. V was relieved, even he

did not like the music, although he was wearing what is, from my perspective, an ugly cheap looking 1980s hooded top and tight jeans which dangle a bit under the bum and bind your thighs together, and gives the impression of being the sort of trendy youth who would.

The boys walked on ahead. I was thrilled to find a beer can with a blue ring-pull. I spent some time twisting and pulling it off without damaging it. I rushed inside,

'Look, B' I said excitedly, handing over my find.

'Ah' said B, 'Well, thank you Mummy, but I'm not really collecting them any more, much - er at all'.

Ring-pull currency has crashed, value on the stock market, NIL.

Brocante

Some examples of our many spoils:

6 pretty coloured glasses for 50 cents (Me)








2 small gold frames for 50 cents (Me)
2 coloured bowls and mismatched square saucers 1 euro (Me)
2 cat bowls for 50 cents (R)
Green padlock 50 cents (R)
Electronic key finding device for finding R when he wanders off 5 euros (B)
2 magic tricks cost 20 euros new, 3 euros each, (B)
Coffee machine 5 euros (JC)
2 Mr Bean videos 50 cents (JC)
Britta filter kettle with 4 filters 15 euros (me)
Brown Betty teapot and cosy 2 euros (me)

Yes, managed to replace Bodum coffee maker I broke 3 euros (me)
Carded wool bead hand crafted necklace 50 cents (me)
Ethnic beads 50 cents (me)

Summer jewels

What to do with handfuls of summer fruits, including the tired strawberries which aren't perfect enough for the strawberries and cream but not of course actually mouldy:

Gently simmer fruit together with enough sugar to make a syrup and make it taste good.

Take 6 ramekins which you have collected from eating too many commercially produced cream puddings, and line bottom of each with fruit

Either fill with sweetened plain yoghurt or even better, fill up with high-class vanilla custard - we call it 'flan' over here. V. Good also with skinless orange segments, soft brown sugar and lemon custard. You can make your own custard, shop stuff has extra gelling agents for a more professional skinless surface, but can always sprinkle with raspberries or sugar.

500mls milk

one dessertspoon of sugar,

vanilla essence or finely grated lemon rind,

one heaped dessertspoon of cornflour

Mix cornflour with a little of the milk, add sugar to the rest and to the boil and whisk in, keep whisking until thickening (if doesn't look thick enough, mix more cornflour as above and whisk in). Pour into ramekins

Street Party

French social life takes place in June, and consequently June is very stressful because French people find social life stressful, and because of the late light nights, and the impossible volume of events to cram into four short weeks, for example:

• Barbecues which they start heating up at 9.30pm, followed by a long night of the all-pervading smell of charred food and the sound of people talking loudly

• Brocantes and vide-greniers - we pay the Marie (local authority) 10 Euros for right to gather together in the streets, erect small tables and sell our rubbish for ridiculously low prices and buy even more rubbish in return for equally ridiculously low prices
• School fetes and shows, exams, end of term presents for teachers, farewell parties and birthday parties because at last it is warm enough to go outside even if you were born in January
• Weddings
• Music and other outdoor festivals
• Last minute rush for medical appointments before the medical practitioners leave for the South of France
• Street parties - the only chance in the year to meet your neighbours in friendly circumstances

Last night was the night of our street party. This involves:

• Setting up a barbecue in the street in order to char enough flesh for an army (allow wait of at least one hour for your kebab)
• Speakers the size of a minivan to vibrate you while you wait in the smokey queue
• Vast hordes of people with fags dangling from their lower jaw, all of whom seem to know each other and are possibly related.
• Cheap plonk served by male neighbours in strange straw hats

However, there is a brighter side: for the children. The street is closed off officially, and for once the beastly cars are kept at bay long enough for the children to parade the streets with trolleys, skateboards, scooters, bikes, footballs bats and flying objects which are supposed to be hit by the bats. Not only that, after about 9.30, when everyone has drunk too much cheap plonk and the kebab is nowhere near cooked, the children can do pretty much what they like for the rest of the gloriously late night.
On the day of our party, JC and I had been into Paris for a talk on Life and Death, which I can only describe as a Near Death Experience (NDE) - at least one quarter of the audience was asleep, three of them on the front row. After a brief struggle I abandoned all hope, lined myself up behind the head of the person in front so the speaker couldn't see me, and surrendered myself to the world of dreams. For this pleasure, we had to hire a babysitter. Women amongst us will know that this means tidying up the house a bit before the babysitter arrives. After 3 hours of struggle to remove only the most embarassing objects, stains and fluffballs, I was, as usual, red faced, sweaty unbrushed and ill-dressed when the babysitter arrived. I JC meanwhile was in Paris, perusing the book shops. I removed my rubber gloves to shake hands.
The babysitter was a reluctant 15 year old, much vexed by his mother's insistence that he do something useful and jolly well get babysitting, as he had much better things to do, in particular a rendez-vous with Eleanor at 7.30pm. His mother had 'interpreted' the finish time of the babysitting, which I had stated quite clearly as 8.30pm, as 7pm: the only way for her to maneouvre him out of the front door presumably. Some bad feeling ensued. I was even more late and had to I jog to the station.
So, by the time the street party commenced, well after my bedtime, I was not in the best of humours. At 10.45 pm JC and I had managed to hunt down and undercook 2 pork steaks, especially unwelcome as JC is a vegetarian, and a jacket potato. We talked to one neighbour who said the previous owner of our house was his friend as he sympathised with Leftist politics. We slagged off the previous owner of house for all the things we have subsequently discovered are wrong with it, the lack of basic maintenance for 20 years and the exorbitant price demanded. We posed for a group photo which we will never see, and were at last able to head home, thankfully not far away.
I awoke with a start at the stroke of midnight.
'Where are the children?'
'B is home, but R I don't know'.
Horrible groaning noises - followed by an argument about whose fault it was we had not set clear boundaries and who would go out to look for him, I lost.
At 12.13 am I bumbled out into the street in my nighty and was greeted by a surreal sight: a group of children of all ages, some barely out of nappies, circulating under the streetlamp like midges.
'Time to come in now' I shouted at R
'Daddy said I could come home when I want' shouted back R, defiantly, visibly irritated. I reminded myself he is eight years old.
'He said you had to come back at midnight or you will turn into a pumpkin ie extra homework tomorrow if you don't get inside RIGHT NOW'.
A reluctant, hang-dog R leaves the party early. The others continue to circulate.
I will never understand French social life. But the funny thing is, you wake up the next morning feeling you have had a really good time.

Ripples of Social Unrest

I was awoken in the dead of night by a loud crash which I was unable to identify. JC is far too phlegmatic to be woken by such things. I used to be before I had children but now at the slightest noise I find myself on my feet with a sick bowl in one hand and a pile of towels in the other.

When I went to check the house for intruders, the cat came with me, peering into each room, and afterwards smoothing my legs with her velvet fur and pressing her nose into my fingers until I felt sleepy again and went to bed. No sooner had I fallen into the sweetest of slumbers when I was awoken by a further crash. This time the feline culprit was caught in the act on the kitchen floor, disentangling herself from underneath a saucepan lid, and was invited to leave the family residence by the nearest exit. I spent the rest of the night tossing and turning and having horrible dreams about my husband in a series of wrongdoings for which he took no responsibility, and was very grumpy the next morning.

It must have been one of those days because when I went to collect the children from school half the girls in R's class were in tears before they reached the arms of their carers. It was one of those ripples of social unrest which occasionally afflict the Girl Community.

The girl I pick up, S, broke into keening and wailing when I stroked her back and asked her what was the matter.

'Something Has Happened aa bo ha hooo'

She sobbed desperately for the next half hour. Her younger sister L, when she could be bothered to look up from her play with her equally unaffected friend V, threw in a series of sensible but heartless questions, in response to which S wailed,

'Stop asking all these questions, it makes me re-live the whole thing and it's UNBEARABLE! We are all guiltyoooahahah mmfff'.'

We eventually ascertained that S and her girl friends had sworn a pact of secrecy, so that she could never tell anyone about the terrible thing that had happened.

'If we tell the mothers they will all be..' gasp, gulp 'on the PHONE to each other TALKING about itoooaaaaaa' No, she would have to bear the burden Entirely Alone.

'Well', I chipped in from the driving seat 'I've just seen L sobbing to her Mum and I'm sure she's grassing you up, so you won't be the first. Anyway, your Mum is going to notice you are crying, she's sure to get it out of you. Much better to talk about it and sort it all out'.

Sniff, wobble.

I was wondering about the moral implications - it seemed certain that some horrible crime had been enacted, such as murdering a puppy or vandalising their beloved teacher's car. Should I phone the Mum, thereby doing the very thing which S dreaded?

Once the girls were safely out of the car, R said coolly 'I know what happened'.

He and his friend E, clueless boys, had spent an entertaining afternoon playing Sherlock Holmes and Watson, skulking in the shrubbery and earwigging on whispered conversations. He and E were now able to make the following Detective Report (I translate):

• some girls had said some nasty things about some other girls, not sure who said what about whom or why
• then a girl from the fifth class had taken N aside in the girls' toilets and told her she had overheard N's friends saying that N had Big Ears and Big Teeth which stick out
• an attempt to resolve the situation ended in N saying that she would Forgive No-one because L had told her, not only that she was Not Her Friend, but she had Never Liked Her
• this was considered such a moral outrage that the whole Community of Girls turned against L who now has No Friends (except for A).

'Enough' I said, holding up my hand. 'Goodness, it's complicated being a Girl. You boys don't do this sort of thing do you?
'No. If we don't want to play with someone anymore, we don't say nasty things - we just tell them to go away'.
'Oh, why do you tell your friends to go away, aren't they upset?' (girl question)
'Well, sometimes we are playing a game that only needs two people so the other two have to go away. They just play another game'.
'Mmm, but you do get annoyed with each other sometimes' I said
'Yer, well, then we just have a fight'.
The fighting does upset teachers and Mummies, but I suppose there is something to be said for a short sharp shock of physical violence which can leave those involved injured, but never Wounded (for days on end). Many times I have lectured R on the merits of resolving conflicts peacably, and hauled him in front of some boy to make an apology, only to observe both boys smirking, and the 8 year old 'victim' reassuring me that it really wasn't anything serious.
Which leaves me with the question: why did I waste so many of my Sunshine Years worrying about these Boy people, wondering what they were thinking, what they meant by that, why they did this, talking about them with other girls, falling in love with them and wishing they would fall in love with me, when all along they were very... Simple.

Yes, summer

Yes, summer, the fledglings are at large. A family of great tits arrives as I sit on my favourite little bench under the below-mentioned tree. The babies push and shove on the branch and shout very loudly,

DI DI DEE DEE DI DI DI DEE DEE DEE DEE!





They are proclaiming to the local cat population:


FLYING SNACKS AVAILABLE HERE!





The neighbourhood cats materalise, turn their headlight eyes full beam on the babies, and jitter with unmet desire.


The parents, who are looking worn and grey, feathers at all angles, try to restore order and call out pointedly in their adult song,

TEA -CHING, TEA-CHING

They whirr to the bird table, snatch up a sunflower seed, whirr back up to the babies on the branch, tap open the seeds, eat the seed in front of their young, yum yum, and drop the husks on my head.

DI DI DI DEE DI DI DI DEE DEE DI DI shout the babies. They don't get it. They don't understand the seed thing. They want Mummy and Daddy to keep putting live worms in their open beaks, and who can blame them? The parents persist,

TEA-CHING, TEA-CHING-CHING