The chill in the air

Sometimes, one counts his blessings, knowing it will not last. We had one dreadful heatwave and another one is forecast, starting this weekend. But since the end of the last one, we had surprisingly cool weather. With lots of rain, but not only rain: I actually had to wear long sleeve shirts and light jumpers to stay warm. It struck me a few days ago: my wife had opened the bedroom windows, it made the whole place feeling chilly and cool, and oh so fresh, it truly felt wonderful. Almost autumnal, although not quite (my favourite season has a different smell). Still, it made me forget that summer has only started. I'm really enjoying this.

Les longues journées d'école

Je n'envie pas Wolfie ces jours-ci. Dans les semaines d'été (parce que bon, juin c'est l'été) qui mènent aux vacances, c'est de plus en plus pénible d'aller à l'école et de devoir y passer ses journées, beau temps mauvais temps. Je me rappelle de moi à son âge, comme les vacances semblaient s'éloigner à mesure qu'on s'en rapprochait. Au moins, lorsque j'étais enfant, on terminait l'année scolaire beaucoup plus tôt, à environ un mois d'avance. Donc, je ne l'envie pas, parce que je vois comme il trouve le temps long.

"Mad about... Sharks"

Last year, as I had suddenly turned unemployed and had plenty of time on my hands, I spent a fair deal of it in charity shops. I fumbled upon a children book about sharks, aptly titled Mad about... Sharks. As I explained to the cashier: "For £0.50, it's in my price range." Which I think deserves to be a great unknown line. Anyway, it's cheap, but it's educational, and of course it's a great opportunity for me to read it with Wolfie. We both love to learn about sharks. Especially at this price.

Limoilou

Photo prise par mon père à Limoilou en 2021. C'est tout. Je ne l'avais pas partagée à l'époque, alors je le fais maintenant, rien que parce que ça donne de la couleur à mon blogue. Pour la petite histoire, je n'ai aucune idée de ce que ça représente.

The Hunted (Elmore Leonard)

 Well, it's been long overdue: I am currently reading a crime novel by Elmore Leonard. I have been wanting to get back to Leonard since January 2025, it was one of my reading objectives that year: add one of his novels to my TBR list. Well, better late than never, I recently bought The Hunted, among a number of his books I was pondering on. I'm reading it now. The hunted of the novel is hero Al Rosen. I say "hero", but maybe it's more fitting to say protagonist, although he is as heroic as one can be in a Leonard story. He is hiding in Israel from Detroit mobsters, drifting in the Holy Land out of trouble, until he saves some tourists from a hotel fire, which gets him his picture in the press... and the attention from the mob. It's a neat thriller so far, with nasty criminals, a sleazy lawyer, great dialogues and plenty of atmosphere.

Un vrai orage

 Bon, il ne se sera pas trop fait attendre: nous avons eu droit à un orage électrique en bonne et due forme la semaine dernière. J'ai pu prendre une photo, mais elle lui rend pas justice. Bon, je dis ça à chaque fois que je partage une photo d'un orage, mais c'est difficile de montrer quand il tombe des cordes, encore plus de saisir les éclairs. Ce que je n'ai jamais réussi jusqu'ici. Mais bon, c'est le plus orageux des orages que l'on a eus depuis le début de l'été.

Seeing a Deer

We saw a rare sight a few days ago, last Thursday n fact, when we picked up Wolfie from school. We were walking back to the car when we saw a shape moving, like running in the alleyways. At first I thought it was a dog, but then we saw it was a small deer. I tried to take a picture, without any luck: the deer was just way too fast. He ran from the alleyway to a park near the school, disappeared a moment out of sight, then ran back towards us, jumped away on a front garden, then he ran further away and disappeared. And that was it. Apparently, there have been sighting of a similar animal, maybe the same, elsewhere in town. It could be a muntjac, possibly, at least it has been speculated. I will keep you posted if we see the critter again and I will try to take a snapshot this time.

Gâteaux

 Photo prise il y a plus d'un mois, en avril, lors de la réunion familiale chez la cousine de ma femme. C'était dans un pub de village. Nous célébrions deux choses: 1)les cinquante ans de la cousine et 2)son second mariage. Il y avait donc deux gâteaux: un à la mangue et un autre au Biscoff ou au caramel (ou les deux?), je ne sais plus trop. J'ai essayé de ne pas trop exagérer, j'ai eu un morceau de chaque et c'était délicieux.

FCB Coffee

Here is one happy discovery we made during our stay in Brighton. I noticed it when we set foot in the train station: I saw a Flying Coffee Bean, or FCB Coffee stand. I thought at first it was a Flying Bean Café, which I always liked. But no, it's a completely different company. On the way back home, we stopped there for a drink and a snack for the journey. I love discovering these kinds of shops when I travel by train. Not necessarily big chains, but smaller ones which makes a railway station a little bit different than the others. It's one of the little things I enjoy when travelling.

Pizz@ïoli?

 Un court billet en forme de questionnaire et d'appel à tous: je bloguais le mois dernier sur la fin de Pizza Royale à Chicoutimi. Depuis 2013, il semblerait qu'une autre pizzeria ait pignon sur rue à la même adresse: Pizzaïoli. Ou Pizz@ïoli, avec un a commercial, à en croire leur logo. Quelqu'un y a déjà été? Si oui, c'est comment?

Looking for Devil's Peak

You may remember that I have been desperately looking for the TV series adaptation of Deon Meyer's Devil's Peak. I love his crime thrillers and of course I want to see all the adaptations of his work on the screen, whether they are movies or series. South Africa is such a great atmospheric setting for crime dramas and seeing it on screen adds a new perspective to the experience, like an extra layer. I thought it would screen on the BBC, eventually, but apparently it never did. I recently did a Google search and thought I could find it on Tubi, but again, no: it's available in the US and Canada, but not in the UK. I have started to wonder whether I should just subscribe to a streaming service that has it.

Les longs dimanches

Tout d'abord, un lieu commun: nous sommes aujourd'hui dimanche. Comment va votre dimanche? Est-il court ou long? Je transformerai peut-être cette question en question existentielle un de ces quatre, mais je voulais juste faire une observation sur les dimanches. J'ai des rapports ambivalents avec dimanche: c'est encore la fin de semaine, mais comme c'est aussi le dernier jour de la fin de semaine, à mesure que le temps passe, on sent pointer le lundi qui s'en vient. Dimanche est souvent monotone et mélancolique. Il l'était quand j'étais enfant en tout cas. Et il semblait alors très long. En même temps, si on avait un dimanche actif, avec beaucoup d'activités, il passait vite, il semblait court et alors la fin de semaine terminait trop vite. Donc, d'une certaine façon, je préférais parfois m'ennuyer un peu le dimanche, pour que le temps ne passe pas trop vite.

An Evening of Murder (pulp style)

 I am blogging again about An Evening of Murder, the murder party series which I really enjoyed when I was younger. This is the back cover from Beyond the Grave, the second box we played, but the very first game of the series. I will share its front cover another time, this post is not about the specific plot, but about the art on the back cover. I always loved its aesthetic, but it is misleading. The games are all whodunits, yet this image calls back to pulp fiction and hardboiled stories, with private eyes, gangsters and femmes fatales. I love it to bits all the same, but it is misleading. Anyway, my two cents.

Préparer la Saint-Jean

 Nouveau billet sur la Fête nationale, que je fêterai ici pour la vingtième fois, si je ne me trompe pas. Le plus gros de la célébration, nous la célèbrerons à Londres le 20 juin, puisque la Délégation générale du Québec à Londres prévoit quelque chose pour les expatriés comme moi. Ce sera ma troisième participation cette année. Je vais me répéter sans doute, mais fêter la Saint-Jean en expatrié nous fait vraiment prendre la mesure de notre québécitude. 

Glock (Signature Weapon)

This is a new post in my Signature Weapons series, about weapons that say something about the characters using them, especially but not exclusively in crime fiction. So today I am blogging about the Glock. This is the very first firearm of the series. And before I go further, a disclaimer: I know almost nothing of firearms, I'm not a gun enthusiast by any stretch of the imagination, I don't have a gun fetish either, so I am writing this as a complete outsider, but as an aspiring crime fiction writer. Now, I find Glocks interesting for a number of reasons: thematically, symbolically and practically. First, it is the service weapon of many police forces in the world, including the SQ (Sûreté du Québec). So this is often the weapon of choice of my characters. According to the TV Tropes entry on handguns, it has the reputation of being the boring but practical gun of all boring, but practical guns. It's reliable without being flashy. Also, it's an Austrian weapon, and the name is very close to the German Glocke, which means bell. I find it ironic that a weapon is thus linked to something often seen as delicate and playful, used to produce music. And yes, I am working to use this double entendre in couple of stories.

La collection de cocottes

 Vous ne le savez peut-être pas, mais petit loup aime les cocottes, pour une raison quelconque. Les cocottes, les bouts de bois, sinon les branches tombées des arbres, les cailloux, les roches, les fleurs sauvages et les cocottes. Il les collectionne: j'en retrouve dans son sac d'école et dans ses poches de manteau. Celle-ci, trouvée un matin d'avril alors qu'on allait à la gare, il ne l'a pas prise, parce qu'elle était trop grosse pour ses poches, mais j'ai pris une photo. Les cocottes me font toujours un peu penser à l'automne, je ne sais pas trop pourquoi.

Panda Babyccino

Sometimes, I go and pick up Wolfie from school by myself, when I have a free afternoon. We go and then stop at one of the local café, where we have a cake or a pastry to eat and something to drink. I drink a tea or a rooibos and he drinks a babyccino. They often make a design on them with the cocoa powder. It's often a panda, like this one. And that's it. It's just quite cute. It never fails to make Wolfie's day.

Chinoiseries (mot du jour)

 Photo prise au Royal Pavilion à Brighton. Vous y trouverez pleins d'exemples de chinoiseries, ces objets d'art européens qui évoquent la Chine. C'est une sorte d'exotisme qui est perçu comme un peu quétaine maintenant. Cela dit, tout exostisme est par définition quétaine, parce que c'est tout sauf authentique. J'imagine que les visiteurs du pavillon devaient trouver qu'ils plongeaient dans un autre monde. J'en avais aussi un peu l'impression, je le confesse, même si je sais que c'est un peu tomber dans un piège. Dans tous les cas, chinoiserie est le mot du jour.

A Spy at War

Back in 2024, I read A Spy Alone, debut novel of Charles Beaumont. He is a former MI6 operative, so he knows what he is talking about. I had decided to rediscover spy thrillers and read more of them. I quite enjoyed it, it was a neat suspense, set in our time and Beaumont's professional background gave the book authenticity and believability. I discovered recently that he wrote a sequel A Spy at War. I have a lot on my TBR list, so I might wait a bit to buy this one, but I am tempted to get my hands on it all the same. Besides, as I am blogging more and more about the world of espionage, it might be good to have this novel as a reference.

Pâté chinois (une idée pour la Saint-Jean)

 Ceci est un morceau du dernier pâté chinois que nous avons mangé, avec des betteraves bien entendu. Il date de mars dernier: ma femme avait trouvé où acheter du maïs en crème, fa que... Or, il m'est venu en tête une idée: pourquoi ne pas un pâté chinois pour le 24? Me semble qu'il serait temps et quee ça serait approprié. C'est notre plat national après tout. Bien entendu, il y a un problème potentiel: il risque de faire chaud pour un plat qui va au four. Mais bon, on verra dans le temps comme dans le temps.