I did some lawnmowing today. Okay, so nothing worth mentioning you might say, except that it is a rare occurence in my case. Mowing the lawn bores me to death and the grass always grows back anyway. But sometimes, even I find the state of our back garden embarrassing. Usually, I do it when my wife begs me to do it, but this time, I did it out of my own initiative. This is how dire the situation was. And, well, it doesn't look great, but it does look better. And I did it right before No Mow May. So I can wait for a month until I get the lawnmower out again.
Tuesday, 29 April 2025
La base
Au retour de l'école, notre fils nous a parlé de ce qu'il a fait lors de la récréation. Il nous parle assez souvent de ses jeux d'enfants. Et une chose m'a frappée: un élément de ses jeux qui revient constamment c'est l'existence d'une base. Ce qui me rappelle que l'on avait exactement la même chose lorsque j'étais enfant: une base, LA base, souvent notre galerie ou la galerie d'un voisin. C'était parfois "un camp," beaucoup plus rarement un QG, mais dans le fond c'était la même chose: une base dans lequel nos personnages opéraient. Et cette base, elle revient souvent dans ses conversations. Elle est l'élément central de ses jeux à l'école avec ses amis. Je suis fasciné de voir à quel point son enfance ressemble parfois à la mienne.
April Heat (argh!)
I guess it was bound to happen: the temperature has gone increasingly milder and we now have our first hot days. Just at the end of April, we are above 20 degrees Celcius. On the last day of the month, they are forecasting temperatures as high as 25. It's at 25 that I start getting uncomfortable. I now have to wear light clothes. I hate it. I cannot stress how much I hate when temperatures get hot. It should go back down in a week or so, but the worst has already happened and I am all gloom and doom for the months to come. Yes, I am not a fan of heat.
Le figuier a des feuilles
Monday, 28 April 2025
Criminally Good Books
Boréals/Boréaux
Sunday, 27 April 2025
Train watching from the balcony
Jaseurs boréaux
Saturday, 26 April 2025
Railway Bear
Écureuil roux
Friday, 25 April 2025
Cate Blanchett VS leaf blowers
Just when I thought I could not love Cate Blanchett more, she says something that makes me positively adore her. She recently said that leaf blowers should be eradicated. Yes, yes, yes, YES! I hate them, hate them, hate them! They are loud, polluting and useless. Nobody needs leaf blowers, a good old rake does the job, if a job needs to be done, and the rake does it quietly. And, it allows you to exercise. That said, I think dead leaves should stay on the ground, where they belong. But anyway, since Cate Blanchett might be retiring from acting, I think she should enter politics and promise to make leaf blowers illegal. I'd vote for her.
Cornegidouille (mot du jour)
Je partage aujourd'hui un mot du jour amusant, cordegidouille. Adverbe assez peu usité, qui exprime l'étonnement, la surprise et la stupeur. Il aurait été inventé par Alfred Jarry. Que j'ai par ailleurs très peu lu. Quant à cornegidouille, je l'ai peu lu, jamais entendu et, jusqu'ici, jamais prononcé, sauf en le lisant à voix haute.
Thursday, 24 April 2025
A sort of limbo
Well, Easter is over, we are back from our holidays, Wolfie is back at school, I am currently unemployed. I have a few interviews lined up, so far it has been a fairly busy period of unemployment, even though the job market is not great. Still, as I have no job offer at the moment and it is still early stage for all the interview processes I am in, I feel a bit like I'm in limbo. My mother's advice when I am unemployed is always the same: take it as a holiday. I try to and generally I succeed, however these days I find it a bit more difficult. Mostly because we have been on holidays, so this feels like a staycation interrupted by phone calls and house chores. So yeah, in other words, limbo.
Le temps de l'érable (et du cidre?)
Wednesday, 23 April 2025
Saint George's Day
I almost forgot: it is Saint George's Day today. So happy Saint George's Day everyone. Nobody notices it or cares about it in England, ironically enough, not even my son, who is a proud Englishman. I used to celebrate it a bit more, at least on this blog. But I have come to neglect it too. Which is sad: we talk about a patron saint who is associated with a fight and a victory against a dragon. It always appealed to me, because I love folklore, myths and legends and, well, dragons. I should really make something about it on Vraie Fiction, a real blogging event.
Le principe de l'oignon
Ceci est un nouvel épisode sur le proverbe "En avril, ne te découvre pas d'un fil". Parce que le temps est un tantinent schizo ces jours-ci. Et ce, dans une même journée. C'était encore pire à York et encore pire lorsque nous avons dû voyager de chez nous (où il faisait doux) à York (où c'était froid), puis de York (où il faisait toujours froid) à chez nous (où il faisait encore doux). Et puis aujourd'hui, on dirait octobre, soudainement. Pas que je m'en plaigne: j'aime le temps froid. Mais je dois donc appliquer le principe de l'oignon: je me mets plusieurs couches de vêtements que j'enlève dans la journée, pour les remettre quand le soir tombe.
Crime Routes
The articles I read on my news feed. So I recently found this BBC article about the routes of cocaine smugggling from Ecuador into Europe. Smuggling which is growing, by the way. Oh and the Albanian mafia is heavily involved. I have a macabre fascination for these kinds of stories and find them interesting for many reasons. First, it shows that organised crime is not merely an Italian thing. Second, because it gives insight to how the drug trade works at an international level. As you probably have guessed, when I read this, I think there's a couple of crime fiction stories to write from such source material. I will check if something has been written about it already, otherwise I just might have to write something myself.
Tempête dans un bénitier
Je crois que c'est de circonstances...