. . . well, that was a long hiatus.

Wow, it sure has been a while since I wrote here. Where to start? I feel almost as though I am sitting down to write an overdue letter. To me, blogging has always felt a little bit like writing a letter. I tried at various times to maintain various ‘themed’ blogs with a more detached approach, but I don’t seem to be able to maintain that style of writing.

There have been so many twists and turns in life’s path since May, when last I posted. (Well, actually, there was one in between post that was so lazy that I removed it ‘tout de suite’, but not before Billy caught me out.) I’m not going to write about the twists and turns here, but I expect if I resume blogging with some conviction, that snippets will find their way in here and there. I don’t seem to be able to separate the parts of my life particularly well, and am not sure that I really want to, anyway.

I very nearly deleted this blog for various reasons, the main one being I set it up to talk about things somehow French related when I was living a life that was in actuality, about as far from French-related as one could get. The whole fantasy of one day living in France is only a tiny part of the whole of me. It seemed somewhat bizarre to base a blog around that minuscule part of my life experience. Again, it comes back to the idea of separating the compartments of my life. . . easier said than done, when in reality it all melds and merges into one messy ‘thing’ that is me.

In recent months I have been caught up with writing in other places. In short, I am trying to finish a PhD. Between us, I am sick to death of the bloody thing, and will be somewhat relieved to submit it before year’s end. I am working on an PhD in English and Creative Arts. It entails melding the 'Literature' side with the 'Creative Writing' side of me. At times it has been exciting and rewarding, but you essentially need to do twice the work, writing both fiction (hard work in itself) and theory, in approximately equal word counts. I’m nearly there, and will be ready to move onward and upward to the next big adventure in just a few months, all going well.

In the meantime, I am a touch burnt out and trying to find a little balance in my life. I’ve become a power-pilates junkie, and in just a few short months have started to see and feel a difference in my physical and mental well-being.

Oh, and I became a drop-out. . .

In my typical all-or-nothing style, when I returned from Paris and Lyon in July last year, I enrolled at the Alliance Française for classes. I started off passionately and set off each week wide-eyed and bushy tailed to absorb all I possibly could in three hours each week. At home I listened to French radio, watched French movies, and spent many hours practicing the language I wish I’d at least started learning at school. I went to intensive classes and in the breaks, I drank wine and ate cheese with my French-learning classmates. I was loving the whole experience. . . and then one day, I just stopped going. I realised that in the collage of experiences and commitments that make up my life, the balance was all askew.

Now that I am closer to the end of my study commitments (they really should be done but life got in the way), I am starting classes again. But this time I’m trying something new—more casual conversational class that runs once a week. I’m a little bit nervous about that as I haven’t spoken French to anyone, if you could call it ‘speaking French’, since June when I simply stopped going to classes. I have been watching several movies each week, listening to the radio and playing language tapes in the car, so hopefully I won’t be the class dunce.

Well, so much for not sticking to the 'French' theme.

Taking a breather

I am taking a break from this blog, and from blog-reading and participation for a while. I am incredibly busy and simply don't have the time to engage in blogging until I meet a big deadline in a few months.

It's funny, though I had the blogger ID for a while, I never did anything with it. I started this blog on a whim after returning from a trip to Paris, and being somehow unable to let go. I thought I would just write a post here and there to 'get it out of my system' and that would be it. What I did not anticipate was the interaction with other people being so interesting and rewarding.

I thought about deleting the blog, but that would be a shame. I want to come back as I really feel that I have been enriched by the contact with people from all over the world with a shared passion. I have removed my blog from my profile for now, and am wrapping the blog in tissue paper until such time as I am ready to return and continue 'enthralling' you all with my little life stories .

In the meantime, I won't be commenting on your blogs as I really need to be strong and get my work done. Some of you know I am completing a PhD and a novel at the moment. I've been lucky enough to secure six months funding to finish the task, and I don't want to waste a minute of that. Between parenting responsibilities, writing, and academic work, there's not much space left. Added to the mix, I am also working on a 'plan' to get me back to France. Part of that plan entails learning the language, the other part of the plan is top secret classified information for the moment.

I wish you all well with your various adventures over the next few months. I know there are books being written, major life changes under way, and all manner of adventures being played out as I write. I hope that in a few months I can come back, and spend some time catching up what people have been up to, and perhaps pick up where we left off.

à bientôt

Something to make you smile on Friday

I am very busy but wanted to drop in and share this link. It is about the most joyous thing I've seen on the internet for a long time. My good friend, the amazing Ms lolliejean shared it with me, and every time I think of it, I smile.

And, in keeping with my 'kinda rule' to keep the French connection, one of the musicians is from Toulouse.

I can't figure out how to embed, so go here to see ( goes for about five minutes)

Following text comes from the site.
This cover of Stand By Me was recorded by completely unknown artists in a street virtual studio all around the world. It all started with a base track—vocals and guitar—recorded on the streets of Santa Monica, California, by a street musician called Roger Ridley. The base track was then taken to New Orleans, Louisiana, where Grandpa Elliott—a blind singer from the French Quarter—added vocals and harmonica while listening to Ridley's base track on headphones. In the same city, Washboard Chaz's added some metal percussion to it.

And from there, it just gets rock 'n' rolling bananas: The producers took the resulting mix all through Europe, Africa, and South America, adding new tracks with multiple instruments and vocals that were assembled in the final version you are seeing in this video. All done with a simple laptop and some microphones.

Anzac Day 2009

Thanks to the wonders of technology I have just watched live, the dawn service at the Australian National Memorial at Villler Bretonneux in Northern France.

I understand that this is only the second such service to have been held at the memorial, which is on a hill overlooking what had once been World War I battlefields.

Until recently Australians have been raised to understand that our biggest sacrifice of human life in war happened at Gallipoli. But the reality is, over 40,000 Australian soldiers are buried in war graves throughout the Western Front. More Australians died there than anywhere else.

Just recently I discovered that one of the sons of my French ancestor served in the Australian forces at the Western Front. How strange it must have been go back to the land of his father's birth, to be fighting under another flag, but as an ally to his father's homeland. I know he would have spoken French, as I am reliably informed that right until two generations back, that the Australian descendants of the man I call the 'first Frenchman' were forbidden from speaking English at home.

I don't know much else, other than he was injured in France and released from service as a result. When I have time I intend to search the war archives and see what more I can discover.

More on Australians in France for Anzac Day, here.

Foot in mouth syndrome

This week was the last French class of the term. I was full of enthusiasm, having viewed many French movies over the course of the last two weeks. I can't remember if I mentioned here, that the Alliance Française has had a big film festival running throughout the country. I saw many movies, and going to class this week, I was still riding a wave of pseudo-Frenchness. I'd been transported through a plethora of emotional experiences, times, and places. And, to cap it off, in many films I actually understood a lot of the French, and noticed that the subtitles did not always work with the dialogue being spoken.

One thing our teacher does each session is ask who has been to restaurants or the cinema, and tries to coax some sort of conversation out of students. Sometimes I am too shy to speak up. Some weeks, especially if I have been up working since 6 in the morning, I am terrified that he will pick on me to speak. Often it feels as though the French is there, in my head, but as soon as I open my mouth it is as though I have contracted some mysterious disease that steals the words and messes around with my brain. What spills out of my mouth is just plain embarrassing. But this week, like the good little student I aspire to be, I spoke up. I said I had seen many films and proceeded to list those I could remember, showing off a bit with Director's names and so on, where I could. I decided to try and explain a movie that I thought the other students may not have seen, one that my daughter and I both loved, though we were quite introspective and a little sad for hours afterwards.

The movie was La Vie Moderne, a beautiful documentary filmed in the Haut-Garonne region. The cinematography is just amazing, and the subject matter dealt with with such respect and empathy, that I don't imagine anybody could not be moved by the film. I felt as though I had been privileged enough to be invited into the lives of the farmers of the area; beautiful, proud people, who handle the reality of the decline of their way of life with such dignity.

I am not going to review the film or reveal too much of the story. I prefer to talk about the emotional responses to movies or music here on the blog. I do enough formal writing in my everyday life. I am just going to say, if you get the opportunity, you MUST see this film.




So, without giving too much away, there is a moment in the film where it is mentioned that with the decline of the farming way of life, that farms are being closed, and entire villages in the districts are being transformed into a place for the more fortunate to have their holiday homes. Now, obviously life cannot remain the same forever, the world changes, and lifestyles have to be reconsidered and reinvented. But while watching the film, I just could not help thinking of how utterly heartbreaking and soul-destroying it must be to walk away. I found myself trying to imagine how difficult it must be to leave behind something that has been an integral part of who you are, a place that has seen generations of births, deaths, and everything that comes in between. And, I am afraid I was also a little ashamed at the all consuming daydreams I sometimes have about finding the perfect abandoned property in rural France, and making it mine. For, I had never once stopped to think about any of the people who'd previously inhabited my fantasy derelict property in the midst of that daydreaming time.

But, as per normal, I digress. Back in the French lesson, I told the basic elementary language skill-level version of the subject matter of the documentary, with assistance from my ever-patient French teacher. But when I reached the point where I tried to explain about the film being, . . . très triste, il m'a fait pleurer, I had to stop. Je suis désolé, mais. . . . . . I cannot say any of the next part in French, I garbled. Then, in my bumbling fashion I spilt out how sad it was that these farms and villages have become little more than towns for the wealthy English people to buy holiday homes.

This is where it gets tricky:

I have no idea really, about the truth of that statement. I based it purely on an emotional response to the film. I was almost crying as I explained (in English, for I cannot 'do' emotional outbursts in French) about these rural people and their disappearing way of life. I picked up a line or two here and there from the film, and from that created a narrative about the people who'd moved into the region. I guess, in my defence, it is what I do. One of my 'real jobs' entails writing fiction. I guess on a base level, that means I make stuff up. And, sometimes I get caught up in the worlds that are working themselves into existence inside my head.

But, maybe I should have stuck to the facts, especially when one couple (bloody hell, and they HAD to be English, didn't they?) told me that they were going 'back' to that very region next week to stay with their (probably perfectly lovely) English friends in their renovated holiday house that used to be a farm.

Oh well, go Me. Remove foot from mouth, and proceed to offend, yet again.

***

On an aside, nobody in my class had seen the film. In fact, nobody in my class had seen any of the festival films. That surprised me. I thought people would jump at the opportunity.

Abba as you've never heard it

I am still really busy, so in lieu of a real post I am going to share a song from a gorgeous young Australian artist. I am a little spooked by the fact that this boy is the same age as one of my daughters. That must mean I am older than 25 after all!

The clip is shot in a popular Australian radio station aimed at the youth market. Everyone listens to it in our house as we're all young (or young at heart). Each week they invite a different artist or band to the studio to do a cover version of their own choice.

Enjoy!

Too busy to blog, but not too busy to beg.

I'm awfully busy at the moment, trying to write lots of words and other stuff I do when not being distracted by pretty shiny things online. So, instead of a real post I am pasting in a chunk from an email sent to me this morning by a friend. After reading it, and taming the green-eyed monster, or at least settling the nasty beast down (for a green-eyed jealousy monster must be female, I think?) I figured I'd put her request out there.

I remember so many funky gorgeous places, but I spent most of my time in Paris off with the fairies, wandering and not knowing where I was going or where I'd been. Come the end of the day, I'd whip out my map book, find a kindly looking French person, smile and ask, Excuse-moi s'il vous plaît, où est Bastille? while miming the shape of the monument. Then off I'd go, pointed in the right direction to eventually find my way back to my pretend Paris apartment, sometimes having a few adventures along the way.


I seem to recall most markets etc being in the latter part of the week, but I will put this out there, and see if anyone comes up with an idea or two.

Sooo, could I be so rude as to nudge in on your little French journal, and have you ask your French friends about Paris (or nearby) flea markets, great secondhand shops/emporiums/precincts, especially ones that have old books, postcards or anything book- or paper-related? I’m trying to also look in to wholesale places, but they’re really hard to find, even for new books (hoping to get some beautiful French children’s books). Oh, one annoying thing: I’m there between Monday and Thursday, so any markets need to be open on weekdays. Bummer that I can’t be there on a weekend as well.

Thanks in advance lovely internet people.

*Well, that was pretty much long enough to be a real post after all.

Je voudrais une croissant

Sometimes I forget that I started this blog in part to keep track of my progress learning French.

I am pleased to report that after seven months lessons at the Alliance Française de Myhometown, I am making progress. I can now understand the words in this rather funny clip of the New Zealand comedic duo, Flight of the Conchords, singing Foux Da Fa Fa.

Before I went to France I may have recognised about three of the words.

This week I read a children's book aimed at the 5-7 year old demographic without my dictionary. I guess that means I have made some progress. At this pace I will speak fluently somewhere around my 65th birthday, so long as dementia doesn't get hold of me first.



I've accepted that it is going to take an awfully long time to learn enough French to get by while learning (in Australia) on a very part-time basis. It's frustrating because I am one of these people who likes things done yesterday. But, I guess it is a good lesson for me. Patience is a virtue, or so they tell me.

***

All the French blogs I am reading are talking about Spring. This week I am excited because we had some rain, and for the first time in months I went to sleep without the fan blasting cool air on my face. Autumn is here, soon it will be winter. Rain and grey skies! Hooray! I am happy about that. While people all over the world dream about our climate, I'm over it.

One of the joys of living in the land of eternal sunshine is we have a very high rate of skin cancer. So far I have been lucky and have only had benign chunks cut from my body. But I cannot help thinking it is only a matter of time before my silly sunbathing for hours on end days as a teenager catch up with me.

Well, I told someone who reads this blog via email this week that I would try to post something positive about Australian life here every now and then. I planned to do that today but got sidetracked by the suspect lumps on my legs that may or may not be more sun damage. I think so far I spoken about sharks eating swimmers, ill-educated graffiti artists, our binge drinking culture, and now death by sun. Cheery little soul aren't I?

Redesigning Paris Sarkozy style

I got a little bored with searching for apartments in Paris that I cannot possibly afford and probably don't actually want, so I found something else to amuse me today to while away a bit of time in the 'I Really Should Be Working' hours.

I'm no city planner, but I must say all of these designs are pretty horrendous to my untrained and uncultured eye. Of course, having spent less than two weeks in Paris I am not really in a position to comment on the 'need' for any of these concepts. But I know what I like, and I don't like these at all.

More on that story here.

A meandering stream from that place where the words come from.

I am not very well travelled in the global sense. Though I have experienced a lot more of Australia than some I know, who define themselves as Australians and have travelled all over the globe, but have barely seen anything of the country in which they live.

Perhaps my limited experience as a global traveller has influenced the way I think about certain things I've noticed since I became interested in the notion of one day living away from Australia for a while. Though I've settled down somewhat, for a while there I was reading a lot of books, websites, and blogs written by people who've decided for one reason or another to relocate to another part of the globe.

Now, from what I can ascertain, these people were not forced at gunpoint to pack up and move to a country where things are sometimes done a little differently. It appears that people set forth willingly on the adventures that would widen their horizons and give them a taste of another way of life. So why is it then, that so many people seem to want to recreate in France, the lifestyle they've left behind?

I've seen blogs where people list where to get, say American or British grocery items, toiletries, and even clothing labels. As I understand it, there are shops and restaurants that are opened up by expats of one country or another aimed specifically at providing products and services for other expats who can't live without a particular brand of toothpaste or toilet paper or whatever. And I've seen too, all manner of associations for expats so they can, so it seems, mix with their own kind, and so not be bothered by those pesky French people, with all their strange ways and words.

Maybe I am missing something, but isn't the point of moving to a new country to live and do, 'As they do?'

Then again, maybe I am just jealous that I am not yet trying out a new lifestyle for size.

***

The other thing that baffles me, while I am at it, is this whole notion of trying to find ANOTHER country inside the one you inhabit. Now, I went to France and came home and began to learn the French language. I now go to lots of French movies, and sometimes find myself reaching for a French made product from the shelf at the shops too. But, I do not want to find France in Australia. If I found France here, well, there'd be no bloody point being obsessed with the idea of going to France to experience something other, would there? It would be cheaper to buy the guidebook that helps me find France in Australia, and pretend, rather than spend all that money and add to the carbon emissions problem by sitting in a plane for 23-25 hours. But the fact is, no matter how much I buy, no matter how well I learn to speak the language, I am not going to find France in Australia, and nor do I wish to.

***


To drag this post out just a little longer, while procrastinating instead of working to a looming deadline I just revisited my flickr account and came across this photo. Now, if I didn't know any better, I might think the owner of this house is living in rural Australia. But they're not. I know that as it's our house in the 'burbs. It's different to the other brick and tile and manicured lawns around us, and we do strange things that don't blend in to the surroundings in which we've chosen to inhabit---like grow vegetables in the front garden, and have a gravel driveway. Maybe then, we're doing the same thing, trying to recover something we've left behind? In our cases, rather than something tangible like a homeland, it's more a feeling, a desire for times that exist only in our heads that we are trying to bring to the suburbs-the olden days, back when life was simpler, and the suburbs didn't suffocate people (okay, to be fair, I should not say we when referring to suburbs and suffocation, it is only I who actually feels this way. I am such a drama queen).

***

*The book by the way, is an excellent reference book for those seeking to find French stuff and services in Australia. But France itself? Well, it ain't here babe. Never was, and never will be. You've got to travel to find that.