18 Wednesday Dec 2013
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This is incredible and I’m really proud that the so-talented potters are my nephew and his wife.
This isn’t the pot in the film but an example of the lovely things Alice and Roop do.
16 Monday Dec 2013
Castlemoron d’Albret, a village not far from us has two claims to fame. The first is that it is literally the smallest commune in France – its footprint is a mere 3.6 hectares (approx 8.4 acres) – in other words it’s about the same size as the Place Charles de Gaulle which has the Arc de Triomphe in it. France’s smallest commune also happens to be in France’s largest département, the Gironde.
Castlemron’s other claim is that it is the Crèche Capital of the world. So the Sud-Ouest, the local paper, says anyway and it has to be admitted that the Sud-Ouest is fond of hyperbole (and of using 10 words when one would do). Whether or not it’s actually true the promise of nearly 200 crèches set up around the village was quite enough to prompt us to go.
There were crèches everywhere, many of them were in the windows of houses…
This is a Breton crèche and features Anne de Bretagne in red, as far as I know she wasn’t actually present at the Nativity…
This one is made from figures collected in Spain.
As the sign said, this one was created by Australians. We much enjoyed the duck-billed platypus paying its respects.
A tiny Nativity made from pictures cut out of a religious magazine,
Some were beautifully simple as in the one above; others were so detailed, like this crèche Arcachonais below – Arcachon is the seaside resort of choice for smart Bordelais and also prides itself on its oysters.
Not only are the figurines settling down to huitres de Noel, if you look closely you can see the baby Jesus is being presented with a plate of oysters too.
In the Basque crèche he was being given a basket of peppers, presumably Piment d’Espelette (very hot) which isn’t normally foodstuff thought suitable for babies!
There were suspended Nativity scenes,
and ones ranged along the tops of high walls so that up close all you could see were the bottom of the cherub’s foot,
crèches from all over the world,
and arranged along fences.
In the church there was this beautiful silhouette
and a lot of corn is used in Peru:
The whole event was a complete joy but I think my absolute favourites were these two;
a yurt Nativity and
the Inuit Nativity, complete with polar bear and seals.
11 Wednesday Dec 2013
From the Independant and pinched off a friend’s Facebook page. You learn a lot from social media.
07 Saturday Dec 2013
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Yesterday after I’d put up my post about Something Stupid and the Fussy Librarian I saw it had been liked by a blog I’d never heard of before, Interesting Literature. Naturally I took a look and was hooked from this first item on ‘The Twelve Best Facts From A Year Of Interesting Literature:
1. In 1910, Virginia Woolf and her friends dressed up in costumes and donned fake beards in order to convince the Royal Navy they were a group of Abyssinian princes. And thus they pulled off what became known in newspapers as the ‘Dreadnought Hoax’, earning a 40-minute guided tour of the ship. Several members of the Bloomsbury Group were involved, but Woolf was the most famous among them.
It’s so rare to read a ‘Best Of’ that probably really is and this is just the sort of thing that gets me spending far too much time on the internet. As in stopping what I was supposed to be doing and having a lovely trawl through their archives. As I said when I was talking at the Parisot Literary Festival, to write you need to distance yourself from all distractions and that includes animals who want to go in and out, then back in again…and out once more, and addictive blogs.
Oh well, at least I’m not playing Angry Birds…
06 Friday Dec 2013
I’m thrilled that Something Stupid has been picked by the Fussy Librarian to be featured this Sunday, december 8th. The Fussy Librarian, a new website that offers personalized ebook recommendations. You choose from 40 genres and indicate preferences about content and then the computers work their magic. It sounds like another way of adding to the ever mounting TBR pile and what’s wrong with that? Knowing that you’ve got enough books to read is sheer bliss! Their website is www.TheFussyLibrarian.com
01 Sunday Dec 2013
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I borrrowed this off the Bluestocking Review page on Facebook, a treasure trove of reviews, pictures and bookish wisdom…
