Blogue d'un québécois expatrié en Angleterre. Comme toute forme d'autobiographie est constituée d'une large part de fiction, j'ai décidé de nommer le blogue Vraie Fiction.
Sunday 7 July 2024
À quand les chocolats aux bleuets?
Camping and Mountain Warehouse
Yesterday, we went to a camping activity organised by Wolfie's school. We only did the day/evening one, we did not spend the night there. I might blog in more details about the camping activity itself in another post. But I digress. We learned that the local Mountain Warehouse was offering a 10% discount for the families doing the school camping, we just had to go there and say a word and that's it, we would get a discount. As we did not have outdoors chairs anymore (the old ones, bought at Mountain Warehouse too, incidentally, having brolen down), we stopped briefly to the local shop for a quick purchase, before going to "Camp Night". Wolfie already had a chair for outdoors, so I bought two, one for my wife, one for me. They were dark green, the kind of colour my wife loathes, but at least they were quite cheap. And beside, the green chairs were the only ones left. So we are now the happy new owners of green outdoor chairs, perfect for camping and for spending relaxing time outside. If we ever need a tent, we will go there again. I am amazed of how much I now rely on Mountain Warehouse for, well, everything. I am a sedentary man, so it always comes off as a bit of a surprise.
Chaloupes
Saturday 6 July 2024
"Stop for Traditional Tea"
Ô Petit Paris
Friday 5 July 2024
The Rainbow Cake
Opéra du Royaume
Thursday 4 July 2024
Rovos Rail Bears
La crème glacée des Pères trappistes
Wednesday 3 July 2024
Train Fights!
Who loves trains here? I sure do. I also loves stories set in trains, whether partially or entirely. Especially crime fiction and spy thrillers. So I was happy to see that Overly Sarcastic Productions posted a full video about action scenes set in trains. I think it sums up very well why the train is such a great dramatic setting. I hope one day to try writing a crime story set in a train. There are just so many dramatic and thematic possibilities.
Juillet et septembre
Petit billet à la fois historique et scientifique. J'ai lu cet article dans La Presse, qui explique pourquoi septembre n'est pas le septième mois de l'année, malgré son nom. Je savais déjà,enfin dans les grandes lignes, mais j'ai quand même trouvé ça intéressant. Comme bien des choses que l'on tient pour acquis, nous devons les noms de mois à l'Antiquité et plus précisément aux Romains. Petite note personnelle et ironique: même si juillet et septembre ont en commun d'être/d'avoir été le septième mois de l'année, juillet est un mois que je n'aime en général guère et septembre est l'un de mes préférés.
Tuesday 2 July 2024
The Burton loyalty card
You may remember that I once discovered I had plenty of loyalty cards from various businesses that were out of date. Coffee shops and bookshops, mostly. Well, I also found one from Burton, the men's fashion brand. Which I have not been to since 2014, I think. I rarely bought anything more than black t-shirts to wear underneath jumpers and shirts, but I bought plenty of them, enough to fill a couple of drawers. I guess I found them particularly comfy for plain t-shirts. They remain my favourite (yes, I do have favourite plain tshirts, because it's all about comfort). I might have bought a belt or two, maybe. I think I might have bought a black summer coat there too, on the cheap, heavily discounted, because my wife hated the brown coat I had at the time. But maybe it was somewhere else. Be that as it may, I used to go there often enough to have a loyalty card. Maybe I should revisit it, check if the card still works.
Feu mystérieux
Monday 1 July 2024
I saw an Aston Martin
Well, as the title says. Yesterday, I saw an Aston Martin. We were coming back from a petting zoo, there was a car haead of us, it pulled into a driveway. I didn't recognise it at first, but right before it turned, I saw the name. And that was it, that was my encounter with the classic car. Of course, I know it because of James Bond, especially Goldfinger. It was not the classic model, or indeed any I have seen in movies. The Aston Martin I saw did not look like a luxury car. All the same, it felt pretty cool seeing one "live", I mean not in a museum or on display in an exhibition, but being driven in a town close to home. So yes, it made my day.
Anniversaire d'un déménagement
Nous sommes le premier juillet, ce qui veut dire, pour tous les Québécois le... Jour du Déménagement. Ici, ce n'est pas un jour férié, mais quand même, c'estun anniversaire pour notre famille: c'est aujourd'hui il y a huit ans que nous sommes devenus propriétaires, quelques mois avant l'arrivée de petit loup. Je le souligne à chaque année. Nous avons emménagé le lendemain, mais je souligne à chaque année le premier juillet même. Enfin, je le souligne ici. Je ne le célèbre pas avec de grands sparages comme je le faisais avec les anniversaires de notre ancien appart. Sans doutes parce que la grosse affaire, en 2016, c'était la naissance de petit loup quelques mois plus tard. Devenir propriétaire, c'était important, mais sans commune mesure. Tout de même, devenir propriétaire de sa propre maison, cela mérite d'être souligné.