Craving a ploughman's sandwich

There is one delicious thing I discovered in England which I think I have not blogged about yet: the ploughman's lunch, which I usually eat in sandwich form. I have been craving ploughman's sandwich recently. I had some today, but it was one of the cheap brands you find in convenient stores and petrol stations. I love a ploughman's sandwich with quality ingredients to maximize taste: an old cheddar, top quality chutney to go with it and of course good bread. Hand made ideally, or least industrialized as possible. I bought the one you see on this picture a few weeks ago during one of our visits to the hospital. There was beer in the chutney. It was the best ploughman's sandwich I had in ages. Sadly, I did not take note of the brand.

La vue du train de Mirabel

Cette photo a été prise par la blonde de mon petit frère Andrew et publiée sur Facebook. Comme à mon habitude dans ces cas-là, je l'ai volée sans gêne aucune. Je crois comprendre que ma belle-soeur prend le train de Mirabel occasionnellement. Elle a écrit sur Facebook qu'elle ne se tanne pas de ces voyages. Je comprends pourquoi. C'est un peu tragique que le voyage en train ne soit pas plus développé au Québec: on a des paysages saisissants que l'on ne peut vraiment apprécier qu'à partir d'un chemin de fer. Je prends le train régulièrement et moi aussi je ne m'en tanne pas. Et juste pour le plaisir de voir ça, j'aimerais bien prendre le train de Mirabel.

"Can't sleep, clown will eat me"

Fans of the classic seasons of The Simpsons will remember that this is what a young Bart was saying in Lisa's First Word when Homer had built him a clown-themed bed, as his old pram is going to be used by his yet to be born sister Lisa. The episode was hilarious and confirmed my belief that clowns are creepy and scary. The line is now part of pop culture, it is also the one I had in mind and kept repeating to myself when I was trying to sleep, in the little hours of the morning, while my wife was still in labour. So for no better reason, I thought to share it here tonight:

20 septembre 1792: Bataille de Valmy

Je l'ai souligné une fois sur ce blogue il y a trois ans, j'ai songé à le commémorer encore une fois cette année: nous sommes l'anniversaire de la Bataille de Valmy, première victoire militaire française après la Révolution et a donné assez de confiance à la France pour abolir la monarchie et proclamer la République. Parce que j'aime l'histoire et que je suis républicain, j'ai voulu souligner aujourd'hui encore la bataille et mettre ici l'extrait dramatisé de la minisérie La Révolution française.

On the scary read program

Maybe I am getting ahead of myself, but it is now and has been since about mid-August or so my officious countdown to Halloween. Which means that I have started reading horror stories and as time goes by I will read more and more. As much as my status as a new daddy allows me, of course. This year, I have added to the reading program the stories of F. Marion Crawford. I recently bought this book with some (all?) of the supernatural stories he wrote. And no, I did not choose this book because of its cover (albeit what a great scary picture!). I discovered Crawford reading The Upper Berth in The Oxford Book of English Ghost Stories, which was one of my favourite of the anthology. I then read in another anthology For the Blood is The Life, a vampire story which confirmed my interest in Crawford's work. In both stories, the horror is not merely psychological: it has plenty of borderline gory elements that convey not only unease, but good old horror, if not terror. The evils in his stories can be as physically violent as they are malevolent. So I will read eagerly.

"Popotame"

J'ai acheté cet hippopotame de Button Bears and Friends à l'hôpital où est né mon fils. C'était leur plus gros toutou disponible de toute la gamme de produits et la raison première de mon achat était que c'était un animal tout mignon qui méritait de faire partie de la ménagerie de mon fils. La seconde raison est biographique: hippopotame est le premier mot que j'ai prononcé. Je vous jure. Mon petit frère PJ avait un toutou d'hippopotame et ma gardienne préférée avait réussi à me faire associer le toutou avec le mot avec le toutou. Ma mère était revenue du travail et j'avais fièrement pointé le toutou en disant: "popotame". Bien qu'elle fût fière de mes capacités linguistiques, elle était déçue que je n'aie pas d'abord su dire maman. J'ai aussi arraché les dents du toutou de PJ, mais ça, c'est une autre histoire.

Woodland theme

I blogged about the subject before in French: in a moment of inspiration, my wife and I had the idea that our little Wolfie would have a woodland themed bedroom. And, in extension, a lot of the objects we purchased for him, from the car seat to the feeding cushion, also started to be woodland themed. The car seat you see here has for motives trees and foxes.The funny thing is, the bedroom has not been painted or truly prepared yet, as our little wolf is sleeping the first few months of his life in his parents' bedroom. But when it is, expect it to be in a forest fitting a little wolf cub.

I don't know if my parents-in-law have told friends and family of our decorating project, but we were surprised to find in the mail this present, which wrapping paper was also woodland themed. It had trees, mushrooms, bears, foxes (always foxes, with their lovely fiery colours), badgers and others. It is very autumnal, which is also fitting, as we have an autumn baby. Anyway, I found the wrapping so pretty that I took a picture of it and decided to share it here. I am a very enthusiastic new dad.

Question existentielle (291)

C'est une question existielle inhabituelle, car je la pose à ceux parmi vous qui ont vu notre bébé, en photo ou en personne. Alors la voici:

-Est-ce que notre petit loup ressemble plus à son père ou à sa mère?

Dislike thy neighbour

There has recently been a rather unpleasant sight at the entrance of the back garden: a few cigarettes butts on the porch. The main suspects are our next door neighbours: late at night, I have seen a few young adults/old teenagers hanging around the garden, speaking and chatting. At least one of them was smoking. So now I have a legitimate grudge about some of the people living next door. I have been a bit busy recently so I have not confronted my neighbours about this, but I intend to do it, although I do not know the tone I should take. I tend to be rather aggressive with these matters and lack of sleep can make me nastier. My wife tells me to take a diplomatic approach. After all, these are most likely the kids of the house next door, not the adults. All the same, I now officially dislike and distrust my neighbours. Some of them anyway.

Tourtière et coleslaw sur le patio

Ça faisait longtemps que je n'avais pas blogué sur la vraie de vraie tourtière, notre met régional. J'ai mangé cette assiettée de tourtière (des restes du souper de la veille) avec coleslaw maison en septembre dernier, comme lunch, sur le patio chez mes parents. C'était une journée fraîche d'automne, juste assez pour que l'on puisse encore manger dehors et manger un plat consistant comme de la tourtière. La tourtière est un plat idéal sur cette saison, la manger dehors comme ça c'est une expérience gastronomique qui se rapproche du bonheur parfait.

The new dad's look

You will obviously read more posts about my newborn baby and parenthood on this blog. I hope you don't mind. Anyway, I noticed today how much the arrival of Wolfie's had changed my look. I don't look tired, not as much as I thought anyway, but I have a certain softness that I don't think I ever truly had before. This is due to my beard, which I have left growing. Not because I want to grow a beard, but because with all the new things I need to do surrounding my child, most importantly bonding with him, shaving is one of the things that I had to let go with. As I summed up on Facebook: "I haven't shaved for about a week because I'm a new dad and can't be bothered." I think this deserves to be a new great unknown line.

V'là l'bon vent

Mon père s'en va à la chasse aux canards aujourd'hui et ici il vente pas mal et les températures automnales sont enfin revenues. J'ai donc en tête V'là l'bon vent. J'ai déjà blogué sur cette chanson en 2008, presque jour pour jour. C'est une chanson délicieusement automnale et pleine d'atmosphère, l'une de mes chansons traditionnelles préférées. J'ai donc pensé la mettre aujourd'hui sur Vraie Fiction. J'ai trouvé cette interprétation de Lizzy Hoyt, que j'ai beaucoup aimée. Alors la voilà...

Ready for Autumn

One of my friends published this meme on her Facebook wall. I absolutely loved it, as it sums up my state of mind regarding the season and make a nice list of what autumn is for me and I am certain for many people. After moaning last Tuesday about the lousy (hot) weather, it seems today that the temperature is a bit more fitting, a bit more autumnal. Well, compared to the higher 20s temperatures we had, it is radically different. So anyway, instead of sharing it on Facebook, I decided to share it on my blog. I invite you to do the same.

La patte du petit loup

On m'a assez souvent demandé de publier des photos de mon fils. Je ne pense pas le faire sur blogspot, mais j'ai pensé quand même vous donner un petit aperçu de lui, alors je vous montre sa quenotte qui sert mon doigt. J'espère que vous trouvez pas ça trop quétaine, mais en tout cas, voici la patte du petit loup.

The hour of the (little) wolf

Quick announcement: as my francophone readers know my wife and I are now parents of a beautiful little boy, the one I refer to on this blog as Wolfie. With his hair and his pointy ears, he does have something of a little wolf cub. He is absolutely adorable and after an epic time to bring him to the world (which I might blog about in parts some day) he is finally here and now ready to go home. I will obviously blog more sporadically and most likely will write shorter posts but I will keep blogging. About him and also other subjects so as not to bore you in the role of the new daddy. So watch this space.

L'arrivée de petit loup

Comme je le disais hier, je blogue en mode guérilla. Il y a bien entendu une raison pour cela: visites et finalement séjour à l'hôpital pour cause de naissance, dans des circonstances épiques que je raconterai peut-être ici un jour, de petit loup. Je vais bloguer plus sur le sujet, mais sachez pour le moment qu'il est beau comme un cœur, avec des oreilles pointues comme un loup (ou un petit lutin dirait sa mère) et déjà des cheveux. Et il est pas mal la coqueluche de toutes les infirmières et sages-femmes avec qui il a eu affaire. Alors voilà vous en saurez plus dans les prochains jours.

O Autumn, Where Art Thou?

I am asking the question as today was the hottest September day on record in the UK. And that is not fun for someone like me who longs for cooler days. I wonder where autumn is, but I can see it is here, even though it is too hot for the season. At least the leaves have started changing colours. And what goes around comes around, so it will eventually change. Still, it is too sticky too comfort right now.

Un, deux, test...

Ça fait un bout que je n'ai pas écrit de billet, parce que j'ai une vie très occupée ces temps-ci. Le blogue n'est pas en hiatus, mais il entre à nouveau en mode guérilla. Les billets risquent d'être plus courts et plus irréguliers pour un temps.

This Friday's sandwich treat

I blogged about sandwiches recently, but it has been a while since I did not blog about my Friday sandwich treat. Remember them? You can read about this tradition on this post from November 2011. Anyway, instead of going for chicken mayo in a baguette, which I usually do, I decided to vary a bit and settled for smoked salmon with horseradish sauce. The rest was the same: lettuce, onions, tomatoes... and green olives. And as for every Friday I had a Coke to gulp it down. I threw the staff off guard with this change as I am a man of habits. But anyway, the mix of smoked salmon, horseradish sauce and green olives is I think even better than my usual choice. Friday being the day to eat fish, it might become my new Friday treat for a while.

Citation d'Alfred de Vigny

J'ai encore une fois et toute honte bue chipé ce meme de la page Facebook de la Bouquinerie du Plateau. De Vigny (de de Vigny?), je ne me rappelle avoir lu que Chatterton, du temps de mes études à mon alma mater. Comme j'avais 80 ouvrages à lire cette année-là, en plus du reste, je ne me rappelle plus du tout de ce qui s'y passe. Il faudra bien que je revisite mes classiques un jour. Je ne lis guère plus de grande littérature, mais je me rends compte que de Vigny a raison: même maintenant, j'aime les livres qui me font travailler intellectuellement. À défaut de grande littérature, je n'en lis plus guère de petite non plus, ce qui est toujours ça de gagné. Et mes neurones fonctionnent à merveille, enfin je crois. Je ne sais pas pourquoi j'ai pensé à ça ce soir. Peut-être parce que je me rappelle justement de mes débuts d'étudiant universitaire?