Where we stayed

Where we stayed

The dog

The village of Chapelle des Bois

..seen from up here, where we made our pilgrammage

Isn't it beautiful?

2 Favourite Flower Photos

Mountain Blooms

The mountain speaks to the flowers and the flowers speak to the mountain, and the air is filled with beautiful secrets.

Swallows

Papy likes to sit out in the barn, smoking his pipe, reading, and musing himself about how to keep the tiled floor clean from blown leaves and bird droppings. He decided to remove the old swallows' nests, all but one which was in a place convenient to him, and then he built a special dropping catcher held under the nest on metal brackets.

Here it is - under a nest cobwebbed and abandoned - for the swallow mummy was having none of it and constructed a new nest next door, where she could arrange for all the droppings to be properly cast out onto the floor.

There comes a time when the nest begins to feel too small, and a young bird wonders if he might fly. There comes a time when a swallow mummy must stop shrilling for the babies to stay in the nest, and start shrilling for them to come out.

The moment of flight.

Piano Lessons

We found a piano teacher, a piano djinn, who was prepared come to the aid of absolute piano beginners with no piano and no prospect of continuing with lessons, and she said: Your wish is my command.

R's wish was to learn how to play Mission Impossible straight off without learning how to read music.

The piano djinn obliged with an easy arrangent. R played with guts and brio, without warning and without waiting for advice, which probably explains why the teacher is sticking out her tongue. However R stuck at it, practising on other people's pianos, until the right and left hand were able to coincide and the melody was struck.

B's desire was to learn to read Bass Clef (so he can teach himself whatever he wants he later explained) and to play something by Henry Mancini of Pink Panther fame. After the neccessary set of exercises, B played, with finesse, a rendition of Moon River which was enough to make female relatives weep. I didn't realise good old Henry (was responsible for so many easy listening classics: them from Love Story and Midnight Cowboy and Breakfast at Tiffany's, The Windmills of your Mind... when he was 11, innocent of films and music, his father took him to see one, he decided there and then that he would be a composer of film scores.

Both children were utterly enthused by this teacher, who showed infinite patience during the near impossible mission, and after five days of one half hour lesson a day, R was also able to hammer out the theme from Indiana Jones and the Pirates of the Caribbean, and B a rock and roll number, and later on Mamy and Papy's piano, he was able to read and teach himself an arrangement of Strauss' Blue Danube.

The photo shows R explaining to B non-verbally that he should remove his hand from the keys and stop interfering.

Books

We do not know why...


...but wait a minute, what is that I see in his hand - could it be a B-O-O-K? Surely it is too small to be the comic album of Asterix or Gaston La Gaffe? I do believe the boy is reading!

I want to give hope to all you mothers of boys out there, reading can come, when you least expect it (like the Spanish Inquisition).

B has never read a book unless forced (although he has perused comic albums such as Asterix and Gaston La Gaffe) This even though his parents are Active and Enthousiastic Readers of Talent, and have stacked his shelves with books and filled his mind with eoncouragment. But he has never read a book unless forced. Until now. In typical B fashion he has gone from nil to serial reader - reading whole series of books in one week, persuading his father to order the next instalment from ebay and waiting impatiently for the post to arrive.

R, who has lost a playmate, is not pleased about this and accuses B of being a BORING OLD MOLE. He goads B in any way he knows how. B however has the ultimate goading position, semi-reclined on the sofa, managing to read and look down his nose at R at the same time.

I think the book on R's chest may be a counter-goad. I await the unfolding of the next act...

Sleight of Hand

B has suddenly sprouted long legs, he has the proportions of a gnat - with long feet.

He has abandoned collecting ring pulls and painting model soldiers to become a magician. Here he is in a video which he shot of himself. As you can see, he doesn't do the banter.




My favourite trick, which for some reason makes me laugh long and loud, is as follows:

He balances a Euro on his forehead, between his eyebrows.

'Can you do that?' he asks. If he is performing this trick to an adult they will more than likely answer, 'probably not', but a child can be guaranteed to shout' 'I can do that, yes I can do that let me have a go, let me have a go' at which point blank faced B hands over his Euro for them to have a go...it has a drawing pin sticking out of the back.
He has taught R the following trick: ask the person you are tricking to lend you two coins, 2 euro coins for example. Hold up one, and say 'one euro', then the other, 'one euro', with a flourish, slide the two coins together in one hand, and say 'One euro plus one euro makes two euros...now how many coins did you give me?'
'Two' says the victim, looking eagerly on.
'Oh thank you very much, I thought you were only lending them to me' (runs off with money).
B was thrilled to see ready-made tricks for sale at a brocante, the young man selling them had no need of them now that he had graduated from silver-tongued illusionist to student at a business college, say no more. For three euros apiece, B had tricks which wowed his schoolmates for many weeks, smaller boys trailed him, claiming in vain that they know how it's done.
B's career ambition, other than being a master magician, is to work at the bank like his father, and buy a flat near us, above a takeaway pizza joint so that he just has to go down and get one whenever he wants. Adolescence looms...