le muguet for the first of may

Here is a charming tradition, that has been going on for ever in France.  On the first of May, offering a bouquet of lily of the valley brings good luck.  This morning, all over France, there are trestle  tables, laden with lily of the valley set up on pavements outside the bakers, on street corners, in the markets.

In our village, two elderly people were  selling their bouquets for 2 euros each, in aid of the old people's club.   They explained to me that it had been difficult this year to have good muguet to sell because all the flowers have come out too early.  Nobody seemed to mind too much, I'm sure all their little sprigs were sold by the end of the morning.

wishing you a fragrant first of may!

my garcons and their knives

My eldest boy flies back to the UK tomorrow, last term at university for this year.  I'm always a little heavy hearted when they have to go away again.  So to sooth my maternal heart, I'm following  his suggestion for a boy's post:    Opinel knives.

We live in the countryside - have I already mentioned that?! - and being a fairly hands-on, outdoorsy sort of family, the children have been encouraged to use tools.  I have always seen my boys with a pocket knife, from about the age of 8.  Whittling sticks, cutting up worms, sharing an apple, carving initials - it's just a  country boy's must-have.

The quintessential French pocket knife is the Opinel.  Inexpensive, fold away, sharp, good looking.  The knives are made in the Savoie region of France; a beech wood handle and steel blade.  Originally designed in 1895, they have since acquired design status and feature in museums worldwide.

 How about you, do you have a favourite accessory you associate with your children?

the french town hall

The town hall in any village in France is important.  Ours is rather over-grand for such a small village but it's well cared for, and is certainly a busy place.  This is where we come for any administrative papers, where we keep in touch with village life. Definitely more practical than political.   I love the flowers they planted this year, I love its imposing façade.

good french manners start young!

My first experience of the French school system was, of course, when my babies started at nursery school.  Inevitably I compared to the system I had known in the UK.  Many things were different, some I liked , some not.  This happens when you travel, you end up wanting the best of all worlds!!

A detail that I always found charming was  on the list of items required by the child starting a new school year was a 'porte-serviette'.  A napkin holder.  At our local nursery and primary school, every child had to bring their own napkin for use at lunch time in the school canteen.

Each Monday morning, the child was sent off to school with a clean napkin (complete with sewn on name label) in their -also labelled - napkin bag.   Each Friday afternoon, the napkin was returned home in the school bag to be laundered over the weekend.   During the week the bags were kept in a basket in the classroom and distributed to each pupil after they washed their hands, on their way to lunch.

I soon discovered that there was a sort of pride and tenderness put into the confection of the napkin bags.  They had to be pretty, easily identifiable, a little lunch-time  reminder to our offspring that someone at home was thinking about them.

I found some of these old napkin bags at a brocante this weekend, not really antique, but nicely vintage.  You can find them in my shop, inexpensive little 'souvenirs de France'.

le French tea time

 The presence of some charming little girls during our weekend away reminded me of just how much time must be spent feeding tiny ones.  In France, when it comes to children's tea time or goûter, old traditions die hard, and the most popular end of school-day treat is still the pain au chocolat.  Puff pastry rolled up around two sticks of dark chocolate.

Bakers make sure that  the  pains au chocolat emerge hot from the oven at the same time as children get out of school.  The fragrance wafts down the street and is hard to resist.  80 centimes will buy you a warm pain au chocolat wrapped in a simple square of thin paper.

Mothers who don't manage to get to a bakers before picking up their children, often make it even more simple: a couple of squares of good quality chocolate folded inside a piece of baguette.  A delicious goûter, with no unhealthy additives.

advice to Daphne - kissing in French

My dear (imaginary) friend Daphne has written again, she's having trouble with the whole kissing thing in France - forgive me if you've already read my ideas on this one, the girl has got herself in a fix, and needs my help!

Dear Daphne

I just received your letter;  I'm so sorry to hear that you're having trouble with the natives! Settling in France isn't really that difficult, you just need a guiding hand. When I came here twenty something years ago, I made all sorts of faux pas, but I was young, carefree and blissfully unaware. Today, you and I are of an age where we can no longer feign ignorance.

Your incident with the bank manager sounds frightful, the poor man must have wondered what was happening, I don't suppose a new client has ever kissed him before! No wonder his assistant looked so disapproving, but you're right she could have been nicer about it. Her sniggering was entirely uncalled for. If I'd been there I would have Oh-mon-Dieued right back to her too.

Anyway, just put it all behind you now. I've  put together a few rules to follow about kissing in France – faire la bise. Stick to these old girl and  you should be pretty safe, 

1.    Proper grown ups (like you and me my dear ) shake hands when they meet.  If you're at a social event and you get on well with someone you meet, say a nice young chap at a dinner, or a girl you think you could be friends with, then you  will probably kiss - faire la bise - when you say goodbye.

2.    Whenever you bump into a friend you give them a kiss.  But if you meet the same friend a second or third time in the same day, you don't have to kiss them again, one kiss/day is enough, even for the French.

3     PLease darling , whatever you do, don't hug.  A hug is very anglo-saxon, we like to show the depth of our feelings, show how much we care.  The bise has nothing to do  with affection., and the French don't like to show that they care (which doesn't mean they don't care, they just show it more discreetly).The bise, or kiss, is never warm, and certainly - Dieu forbid ! - not wet.  Cheeks barely touch, a hand may be placed on a shoulder, but even that's not obligatory.

4.    If you're with polite children , they will say bonjour madame to you, and expect you to lean down and give them a tiny kiss.

5.    Whatever you do dear girl, please don't start giving 4 kisses, this is  a social class thing, and believe me, you don't want to get it wrong.  Two will do!!

6. Finally ... please promise me that you will  never (again) kiss your bank manager, your child's headmistress, the postman or the village priest!

Keep me in touch with how it's all going, I'm always happy to help out.

ton amie
S

advice to Daphne - "tu" or "vous"

My second letter to Daphne, my imaginary friend,
newly arrived in France and in need of advice.

My darling Daphne
So glad to hear that you appreciated  my tips for your dinner , well it obviously went off well  if they were still there at 4am!  You must be the talk of the town.  I'm sure that your hubby's  remarkable wine cellar was a help too, were there really that many empties to evacuate in the morning?!  Oh la la!

So now you're worried about when to say "tu" and when to say "vous" to people around you.  This polite and familiar form of "you" is a pain in the derrière until you've cracked it.  But really Daphne my dear, as pleasant as your butcher may be,  you shouldn't have said "tu" to him!   I would have loved to have been there though ,  the poor man probably nearly keeled over face down into his fresh meats.

Of course the basic rule of  thumb is that "tu" is for animals,  children and close family, for everyone else it's "vous".  Mon Dieu!, if only life were that simple.   Maybe this will help:


When introduced to someone at a posh dinner you'll say 'vous' until the atmosphere melts a little - then someone  will suggest saying 'tu'.
In a professional situation, or in a shop or at school it will always be "vous".
In sporting and  artistic circles 'tu' is almost always de rigueur from the outset.  This makes sense, no point trying to put on airs and graces when your wearing outlandish sports gear or covered in paint!
When children and teenagers come to your house, just say 'tu' to them.  They'll mostly say 'vous' to you, until you invite them to switch to 'tu'.  Not all of them will manage,  don't take it badly sweetheart, it's just their education.

I'm not at all surprised when you tell me that you know couples who say "vous" to one another.  As I mentioned before you are living in a very smart and bourgeois world darling, Versailles hasn't forgotten that it's home to a royal palace you know.  In certain  circles of society, couples say "vous" to each other, but quite happily say "tu" to their close friends.  Go figure!  In this sort of family the children will say "vous" to their parents, grandparents and any other adults they meet.

On the whole, until you're really at ease with the language, it's best to take the lead from others.  Between you and me it will always be "tu" !


Ton amie
S

un dimanche à la campagne

A lazy Sunday in the country...

 

Enough sunshine to make us believe that one day 

winter will be over ...

slept late...

croissants in front of the fire ....

extra rations for the horses, made them happy .......

galette des rois for all the valley at our friends château

catching up on kid's homework this evening ...
an aperitif here for our neighbours ...

supper together around the table in front of the fire ...

giggle together over a family film ...

 not too late to bed ....

everyone needs to recharge their batteries ...

that's what Sundays are for ...

Bon Dimanche!

photos 2 & 3 chateau d'emalleville

French pre-Christmas

A French tradition that used to surprise me, is the ritual end-of-year buying of the calendar from ...... the postman, the dustman and the fire brigade!! 

We may have come a long way from the delicious Jaques Tati playing a postman in  the wonderful film Jour de Fete (an essential part of French culture if ever there were one), but there is still a certain affection for the postman who somehow seems to slip into the intimacy and the efficient running of our everyday lives.

So it is that as from mid November, we can expect a knock at the door, often in the evening, and open to find a familiar face, still in  uniform, brandishing a pile of not particularly attractive calendars for sale.

There is no fixed price, it is for the client to give as he or she sees fit, and that's where the subtlety comes in to play.....   While I have never heard of rubbish being strewn across the drive, letters being lost, or house fires neglected chez someone who had been miserly with their Christmas tips.....   there is always a niggling doubt.....a superstition .  As if giving generously may in some way protect us from unpleasant incidents.

The firemen say that the money they collect is handed over to families of firemen lost in service.  I don't think the postman or the dustman can offer the same explanation,  but still we give.

How about you?  Does this happen where you live, or how would you react if it did?

French rubbish

I like to think that you regard this blog as reasonably civilized, elegant, at moments even chic .... well today your opinion may change.

The lovely Suzanne of Old Grey Mare is encouraging us all again to think about what we do to help keep this planet clean.  She was the inspiration behind my compost post, and today you can thank her because you're going to hear about French rubbish!

I'm sorry but this is not a joke..  Here we go...

Can you believe that for the sake of a blog post I actually took pictures of our rubbish being collected this morning!   My children say that the men in white coats will soon be here to collect me!

We may live in deepest Normandy but when it comes to our poubelles (bins) there is nothing provincial about us.

We have a poubelle verte into which we put anything we can't put into our poubelle bleue.

Into the poubelle bleue we put plastic, cardboard, newspapers, tin cans.

No glass bottles are allowed into a poubelle,  I have to drive them to the nearest bottle bank, except I don't go to the nearest one because there's a lady in the  house opposite the glass collector who twitches the curtains - I swear she keeps records on what everyone's drinking, so I drive my bottles along the valley to the next village where I hope no one knows me!

If, par malheur, we should put the wrong thing into the wrong poubelle, the dustmen may choose to name and shame by strapping the offending item onto the lid of our bin for all to see, and leaving the bin full.  Quelle honte!

For large items such as a broken down fridge, a no-longer-desired armchair etc we can either put them out on the pavement on two predetermined dates, spring and autumn, when the same dustmen come by to collect the monstres  or take them by car to the dechetterie (selective rubbish tip) .  The man at the dechetterie is very nice indeed, always happy to give a hand unloading my car, and doesn't think it at all strange when  I tape notes to things I leave behind explaining what's wrong with the item and suggesting ways it may still be useful.

A big thank you to Suzanne who is SOO right to make us feel responsible for what we're doing for the planet.  Please check out her site and see what great ideas other people are having.

french kiss

"OMG" an American friend recently yelled down the phone, "I think I just made a dreadful mistake, I was introduced to this  distinguished looking French man and I leant forward to kiss him on both cheeks, I'm sure I should have waited or just shook his hand, or done nothing....His wife was standing there just sort of smirking .... This is SOO hard, I never know what to do"

The time had come to get back to basics:

1.    Respectable adults (whatever that means) shake hands when they meet.  If they get on well together and if the atmosphere is friendly and sociable, they will probably kiss - faire la bise - when they take leave.

2.    Whenever I meet a friend, male or female, I will faire la bise.  If I bump into them again during the day, it's not necessary to kiss since it's already been done for that day.

3     The bise, or kiss, itself is not a warm sloppy affair.  Each person leans forward and directs his cheek towards the other persons cheek and makes a soft kissing sort of noise as their heads brush together.  Hands don't have to touch, but may do.  Generally the right hand is lightly touching the other's left shoulder.

4.    When children meet up, or take leave,  all ages in all circumstances, the girls do the bise to everyone, and the boys kiss the girls and shake hands with other boys.  After all these years I still enjoy watching this need to touch as I sit outside school gates, or wait for my son at the rugby club.

5.    There is nothing shocking in two men doing the bise, just  a sign of close friendship and affection,  not sexual.

6.    There are those that give 4 kisses instead of two.  This is a social class issue, take it from me, you don't want to go there!

Hope that helps!

Je t'embrasse!

photos thanks to Google Images

la fête du muguet

In France it is traditional to offer lily of the valley on the 1st of May, to bring good luck in the coming year. 

So from me to you.
Happy Fête du Muguet

This post is linked to a French obsession at Chateau des Fleurs

photo 2 crabtree & evelyn 3, 4 christian dior,