Today so far…

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Dalmatians

2.15 am.  I’m woken by the sound of rain thundering on the roof and the OH shouting ‘Did you remember to shut the car windows?’  No, I hadn’t, so as I was the one who’d been out in the car earlier it was only fair thaat it was me who had to dash out in the dark and the wet in my dressing gown…  I also had to shut the bathroom velux window even though it wasn’t me who’d opened it.

Get back into bed, distinctly damp around the edges, and try to get back to sleep.  This is going to be tricky as I’m a natural insomniac and once woken stay awake for hours.

4.30 am.  Have finally dropped off when OH jerks upright screaming because of cramp.  The inventive swearing which follows lasts much longer than the cramp did and relieves his feelings enough for him to be able to lie down and start snoring.  He claims he lay awake for hours.  I attempt to sleep and have very strange dreams as a result.

7.20 am.  Second daughter leaves to go to work.  This is not unusual.  She is always very quiet.

7.22 am.  Flynn decides to voice his protest at being left behind by his mistress and tunes up.  He has a fine, and loud, tenor.  Desi, possessor of an equally fine warbling contralto, joins in.  A concert for two Dalmatians performing ‘O Sole Mio’, ‘When Will I Ever see You Again’ and ‘How Much Is That Doggy in the Window?’ follows.

7.23 am.  I am contemplating Dalmatian-icide.  Only the thought of what the daughter might say if she comes back to find her dog in little bits stops me from leaping out of bed.  And the fact that I’m just too short of sleep to move.

7.27 am. The concert stops.

7.29 am. It starts again.  Luckily not for long as the dogs have run out of puff.

7.45 am.  One of the cats sits outside the kitchen window.  This happens most mornings.  Today the dogs take exception.  Loudly.

7.47 am.  I give up any hope of having a semblance of enough sleep and decide to rely on strong coffee infusions during the day.  The dogs rush up with such pleased smiles at seeing me, at last, that I’m almost incapable of telling them off.

So there you have it.  I was planning on writing something witty and erudite – one can dream, but the brain is much too fuzzy from lack of sleep.  Or is that just age?  It’s nice to have a proper excuse for once anyway.

Though to be honest I’d rather have had an uninterrupted night.

 

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New In Bordeaux…

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creative writing Bordeaux, International Club of Bordeaux, social clubs in Bordeaux, social groups, writing group Bordeaux

I’ve been doing myself a little bit of a disservice when I said that I’d been doing absolutely nothing during the summer, for I have in fact.  Along with a group of incredibly dynamic friends I’ve been involved with the creation and launch of a new international social club in Bordeaux for English-speaking women and men of all nationalities, and goodness has it been fun!

15 of us had our first meeting in a sun drenched courtyard in mid June to discuss plans, what we could all do for the club and to be given individual jobs to do. The International Club of Bordeaux was registered as a French Association (non-profit organisation) with the Marie de Bordeaux on July 1st and we were off.  July and August were punctuated by meetings planning our activities, being given things to do by the President who is a genius at making people want to work, working out how we’d get the word around and we managed to ease our new baby into the world within 7 weeks with a picnic in the Parc Bordelais.  It was touch and go for a bit whether rain would stop play but  the weather gods were supremely kind to us.  The damp forecast changed the day before and our inaugural event on August 24 was warm but not too hot and it was generally agreed that a good time had been had by all.  Certainly some of those who said they had to leave early where still there around 4.

Not our picnic – This was the opening of the new bridge in Bordeaux earlier this year but countss as an excellent celebration!

One of the reasons that we’ve been able to get going so quickly is that we can call on so many different talents, from genius gardeners who are happy to run the gardening club to the graphic designer who created our logo and the so talented website designers who have been working their cotton socks off to get the website up and running.  As we grow the website will too, but I think you’d agree that it’s both great to look at and easy to use.  They’ve created a Facebook page too.

My contribution to the group is being in charge of the monthly newsletter which goes out by email and currently involves many emails to the website experts starting with ‘What do I do…’

I’m also setting up a creative writing group for the ICB – believe it or not, according to Google (that fount of all wisdom) there is no English-speaking writing group anywhere in Bordeaux or nearby.  Funnily enough, for the first time ever, I’m seeing notices going up for French writing groups so with luck I’ll have hit the crest of a wave.  So if anyone reading this is within reach of Bordeaux and fancies hanging out with other writers our first meeting is on October 1st.  You don’t have to join the club first to come along.  Details on the website.

If You’d Gone Down To The Woods…

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Chateau de benauges, Chateau du Cros, Donz'Art, Marie-Ange Daudé

I’ve had an incredibly slothful summer; I’ve done practically no writing, practically no housework (plus ca change), very little cooking which involved going near a stove, have been very bad at blog updating though I did manage lots of reading.  On reflection it doesn’t sound a bad way to pass the time…

I also had an almost total fail on updating the blog (Flynn is doing very well by the way!) and one of things that I meant to write about and didn’t was Donz’Art but on the better late than never principal, here goes.

Our neighbouring commune is small; 150 inhabitants living mostly in a few clusters of houses strung out along a country side road but, like the mouse that roared, someone in the dollhouse-sized Mairie thinks big and has grabbed the French committment to culture with both hands.

This year Donzac staged an Arts Festival, not the usual take a room in the mairie or salle de fetes and fill it with local amateur artists jobby, oh no.  They decided on a Randonée Artistique where visitors could follow a walk punctuated by works of art through the vineyards and patrimoine of the commune and commissioned works from local professional and amateur artists.

The walk started with a cadre de vue;This is Chateau de Benauges, traditional rival to Chateau du Cros which my daughter is in charge of restoring.  Benauges supported the French in the Hundred Years War, du Cros the English which no doubt explains the difference in size between the two.  Benauges is still lived in though the owners decamp to Bordeaux in the winter in search of modern amenities such as heating.

There were several other cadres de vue, framing Benauges, which isn’t actually in the commune but well worth looking at, from other positions and one delightful one of the ruins of a tall Palombiere poking out over the top of a wood.

In the nearby Lavoir (where the village washing was done) one of the professionals had created this:

Sadly the picture doesn’t do it justice, but the combination of the place which is lovely in itself, the reflections in the water of the metal sheets and the gentle noise they made when the breeze moved them was utterly delightful.

This is part of a creation by 15 year olds from the local collége:

and nearby a resident had created a Tree of Life

The red and the blue symbolise the circulation of the blood.

And then down a tiny side road, which is pretty magical in itself because it goes through vineyards and woods towards a stream and stone bridge it was blow your socks off time.  First there were three simple stick men walking, then as you walked down the hill you saw a shimmer of blue amongst the trees, the colours shifting and dancing in the dappled light from the leaf canopy.  It gradually revealed itself to be this:

The Birth of a Papillon Blue, from Marie-Ange Daudé who also created the installation in the Lavoir.  It is a completely astonishing thing to come across in the woods – especially if you have no idea that there have been artists at work as happened to my husband who was just walking the dogs.  It’s made entirely from that blue twine used in the vines which is a perfect medium for this piece as the twine is very slightly shiny and becomes almost iridescent in the filtered sunlight.

I’ve seen this several times now and it’s never disappointing.  I’m just dumbfounded with admiration for anyone who can come to the sort of little clearing you can see all over the place round here and have the vision to create something as simple, and as stunning.

And I feel much the same for the two local artists, not professionals, who took a fallen tree a few metres down the road from le Papillon and made it into the Beast of Morillon.

They even gave him a tail; This isn’t big budget art, the materials are simple, everyday items probably one of the reasons why nearly all these works fit so very well into their rural settings.  They’re pure enjoyment, true lifters of the spirit, absolutely not what you expect to find tucked away in remote corners of Entre deux Mers and all the better for that.

Perhaps nearly as surprising is that these works have been out in the open for over four months now, completely unguarded, and though they’ve inevitably suffered a bit of damage from the weather they haven’t been vandalised.

That really is something.