Live from my IKEA Office at Home

You may remember that I blogged back in June about my wife ordering office furniture and at IKEA, so we could both work from home in proper office environments. Well, for weeks we struggled to make headways building them, we barely managed to build our two desks. As we were about to go on holiday, our friend (the mother of Blonde Tickler) offered to help and to build the stuff with her partner while we were away. We accepted, as we were getting desperate. So long story short, we got back yesterday and our friend did an amazing job with it and completely reorganised the house in the meantime. I was very impressed. So for the first time since working from home back in 2020, I have a proper desk and actually don't feel like I'm guerilla working. So yeah, it's cool.

Le chocolat aux bleuets

Des fois,mon père m'envoie sans me prévenir ni même me dire pourquoi des photos de bouffe. Il y a quelques jours, il m'a envoyé celle-ci, du chocolat aux bleuets des Pères trappistes. Avec en plus un énorme panier de bleuets sauvages. Comme food porn, c'est difficile de faire mieux. Je ne sais pas trop si je dois commenter, c'est sans doute superflu. Par fierté régionale, je partage la photo. je me sens très saguenéen aujourd'hui.

Back from the Isle of Wight

If you were wondering why I was not blogging this last week, well, as I mentioned in my French post, we were on the Isle of Wight on holiday. We got back today. So expect a few posts about it in the upcoming days, with plenty of pictures. This one was taken at Sandown where we stayed. The town was a bit rundown at apparently has seen better days, but hey, we were right in front of the beach and we had plenty of attractions to visit. We didn't do nearly as much as we could have done, but on holiday sometimes you just need to chill out. And it was our first holiday away from home since 2019, so just for that they were very enjoyable.

Michel Delpech- Wight Is Wight (1969)

Si quelqu'un se demandait pourquoi je ne bloguais pas, c'est que jusqu'à aujourd'hui j'étais en vacances dans l'Isle of Wight. Plus connue en français à cause de la chanson de Michel Delpech. Jusqu'à récemment, je ne savais pas qu'elle parlait de l'île. Je l'ai fredonnée durant tout le séjour, au grand découragement de ma femme.

About August

Today is the first of August. I guess everybody noticed. I used to dislike August: the month of end of summer melancholy, the end of holidays when I was a kid. It is not the first time I blogged about it. Now I consider it a prelude to autumn, so I have learned to appreciate it, to my surprise. Yes, I still feel the melancholy, but it is mixed with a certain anticipation and impatience. I excitedly look for signs of autumn around me and I truly start preparing myself for Halloween. So August is still a bittersweet month, but thankfully no longer a painful month. I have learned to live with and to appreciate my August melancholy, if you will. What about you?

Citons Prévert

Petite citation de Jacques Prévert apprise récemment. Je devrais vraiment me discipliner et me forcer à le lire, comme du temps de mes études universitaires. Enfin, je digresse, voici la citation: "Dans chaque église, il y a toujours quelque chose qui cloche."

Comme quoi on peut être anticlérical et avoir le sens de l'humour.

Ending July

This is the last day of July and am I glad the month is ending. I am one of these rare breeds of people who don't like summer (you know this by now) and July is the peak of summertime. It is generally when the temperature gets way too hot for comfort. Surely enough, July this year hs been the worst July I had in,well, decades, with the worst heatwave on record. It felt here like living through an inferno. Things might get bad come August, but generally it is not nearly as terrible (touch wood). Otherwise, this month has been expetedly exhausting, stressful and generally unpleasant. So yes, that was my month of July. How was yours?

Ah les fraises (encore)...

C'est encore le temps des fraises et mon père m'a envoyé cette photo, alors je la partage rien que parce que. Je n'ai pas grand-chose à dire sur le sujet, ce sera la dernière photo du mois de juillet (sans doute). Je dis souvent que Vraie Fiction prend l'image et la couleur des saisons et du temps de l'année. Et de juin à août, c'est le temps des fraises, peut-être plus que tout autre fruit, enfin que toute autre baie. Alors c'est de circonstances.

Bloodfeud of Altheus

 My brother PJ made a great purchase recently. We've always been fascinated by Greek Mythology, so we were happily surprised to find when we were children a gamebook freely based on the myth of Theseus, titled Bloodfeud of Altheus. The first of a trilogy called Cretan Chronicles. In this version,Theseus got killed by the Minotaur and you play his brother Altheus, who goes on a revenge quest. From memory, if the rules were often iffy and difficult to apply (but we never really played the rules in a gamebook), the story was great fun, allowing the reader to live many Ancient Greek stories. The writing was also pretty good and trying for a pseudo epic feel. Anyway, that is how I remember it. Sadly, ina foolish moment I gave the book away in exchange of another one. But thankfully, PJ corrected this. We never played the other two entries of the Chronicles, apparently they are much weaker. We should still try to get our hands on them, of course.

Mafalda siempre!

Je partage encore une fois aujourd'hui un gag de Mafalda, parce que c'est dans ces temps-ci de l'année que j'apprécie Mafalda le plus, quand j'ai tendance à me sentir plus mélancolique (enfin encore plus que d'habitude). Je me rappelle vaguement de sa signification en français, mais je crois qu'on peut comprendre ce qu'elle veut dire même si comme moi on ne connaît pas l'espagnol.

50 Things to Try in Autumn

I know we are still early to think about it, but after last week's heatwave it got considerably cooler and this got me in an autumnal mood. It feels like the weather is giving me a sort of promise of autumn, if that makes sense. Anyway, I'm preparing myself for it. So last year, I bought 50 Things to Try in Autumn at the Wallingford Bookshop. I love of it is called an adventure journal. I bought it for Wolfie, but truly for myself as well. It is a book of games and ctivities to do through the season. As I had bought it quite late last year, we didn't do any of it Wolfie and I. But I hope this will keep us busy at weekends. I intend to start the journal it as soon as September kicks off.

Chocolat aux bleuets: trouvez votre point de vente

Photo prise sur la page Facebook des Pères trappistes. Je la partage ici parce que leur chocolat aux bleuets sont disponibles à nouveau et vous trouverez votre point de vente grâce à ce lien. Ne me remerciez pas. Je vous envie.

Camping Jammies

A couple of years ago, my wife bought me pajama trousers in a new year sales. She bought it in the local FatFace before it closed down. For some strange reason in this country, they can sell pj trousers and the top separately. So anyway these pjays, or jammies as they often call it here in the UK (and if you didn't know that term before, keep it in mind, it is our new word of the day) quickly became my favourite pair of trousers. Even though they were not right in many little ways: a bit too long, a bit too wide, not quite warm enough for winter, a bit too warm for summer. Oh, and I always needed to find a tshirt or a top when I wanted to wear it. But I loved the design on it: it had images of tents, campfire, logs, fish, trees, as if the trousers were designed for camping trips. I never did proper camping, except a few nights in the back garden when I was a teenager. So the trousers are all worn out now, too worn out so I won't take them on our holiday, even though I am very tempted. It is funny, because I think it is the design that made me like them, even though I'm not into camping at all. And I feel like I never did my ol' jammies justice.

Spaghetti tunisien

Il est assez rare que je fais à manger, mais quand je le fais, c'est en général apprécié pour toute la famille. Enfin bref, j'ai préparé un spaghetti tunisien il y a quelques jours. Je crois que c'est le repas préféré de ma femme, enfin celui que je sais faire qu'elle préfère. Sauf qu'elle ne veut pas trop de harissa, Wolfie pas du tout, alors je rajoute la harissa dans ma portion. Et il faut que je fasse cuire les champignons, car ma femme ne les aime pas crus. C'est un peu plus d'ouvrage, mais bon. Mais enfin bref, je suis quand même assez fier de mes talents pour faire un spaghetti tunisien qui a de l'allure, alors je partage ici une photo rien que pour la food porn.

What's in Any Old Iron

I recently finished reading Any Old Iron by Anthony Burgess. One of my favourite novels from my favourite writer. I first read it some 25 years ago or so. I had not forgotten how great it was, but I had forgotten a lot about it. It has many great lines, but one near the end struck me in particular. Here, the main character Reginald Morrow Jones sums up his experience with rediscovering in the middle of the XXth century legendary sword Excalibur: "I had to grasp a chunk of the romantic past and find it rusty. I had to fit myself to the modern age." This is, in essence, what nostalgia is all about. So I found it both moving and profound.

Cueillir les framboises

Photo prise par mon père d'un casseau de framboises achetées il y a quelques jours. Les framboises sont énormes. Quand je vois des framboises, surtout ce temps-ci de l'année, ça me rappelle lorsqu'on allait les cueillir chez mon oncle. Lire ce billet de 2014 et celui-ci de 2019 pour plus de détails sur cet épisode de mon enfance. Je m'en ennuie encore. J'aimerais bien ramener cette tradition au goût du jour pour Wolfie et en faire un nouveau rituel familial, comme c'était le cas dans mon enfance. Mais il faudra me trouver des plants de framboises, ou en faire pousser.

Jigsaw Puzzle Tag

 In preparation for our upcoming holidays, I recently ordered (and received) new tags for our luggages. The old oness were getting, well, old. And these are colourful, so they are easily identifiable. Each one has a different motif on it. I let Wolfie decide which one should go to why and he decided that I should have the one with the jigsaw puzzle. I'm not sure why. My wife is far more into jigsaw puzzles than me. All the same, it's a cute tag.

"C'est le raisin de chez-nous, fils du feu..."

 "À la Sainte-Anne les bleuets sont mûrs. C'est le raisin de chez-nous, fils du feu; du sol humble et pierreux c'est l'offrande; c'est le miel des crans sauvages, le frère des éricales dans le royaume infini des sphaignes et des tourbières."

Les lecteurs qui suivent mon blogue depuis quelques années savent que c'est la Sainte-Anne et qu'à Sainte-Anne, je cite Menaud maître-draveur, de Félix-Antoine Savard. Mon père a acheté ces bleuets sauvages il y a quelques jours. Tout ça pour dire que je me sens très Saguenéen aujourd'hui.

Billy the Black Bear

A few weeks ago, I bought Wolfie a teddy bear, a black bear to be precise. For two reasons: 1)I had been wanting to buy him a black bear, just like the bears we have in Québec and 2)he had asked me for a black bear. So I ordered a small one from Amazon, who looks very cute. Wolfie named him Billy, not sure why. Like many of his teddy bears, Billy has the power to chase away nightmares, so when he sleeps next to Wolfie at night, he keeps his mind at rest.

Ah les fraises, les framboises, les bleuets...

Mon père m'a envoyé des photos de fruits qu'il a acheté d'un kiosque dans le stationnement de Place du Royaume (pour ceux qui peuvent y aller). Des fraises, des framboises, des bleuets et... un oignon? Les bleuets sont des bleuets sauvages, m'a-t-il dit, pas des bleuets de serre. A! les fraises,les framboises, les bleuets et le temps des récoltes...