2017 MARCH is here !
European crafts days
2017 03 31
The "journées européennes des métiers d'art" start today ! You know how much i love crafting but not enough to be a master in one or another technique.
This week-end, many "ateliers" will be opened and masters will performe ans try to explain to us their "tour de main". Once, i learnt how to put on gold décor on wood using a make up pencil, another time i was fascinated by a sugar exhibition : they succeded to realise a weddding bouquet but not in flowers, in sugar-flowers ! i also met a "calligraphe médiéval" who decorated in inks chapels and église coming from medieval ages ... Each year is a surprising "découverte", mostly when you come in an atelier and tchat with the artist in charge !
What would you like to be ? a sculptor, a writer, a "plumassier" (the one who work with feathers to create hats or outfits for the Bluebell Girls ? Maybe you would rather be a jewelry maker ?
Whatever, we would not be as creative as Mother Nature could be. Photographers can bring us to the Big Show ! I can see it everyday. I love nature. It inspire us everytime. Do you know our brick roofs are created by copying the feathers of ducks (to be waterproof) ? And feather is the best way to obtain "marble" when you are a talentous painter.
To lay my stone on the building (google translate for " pour poser ma pierre à l'édifice") and to say "hello !" to the next month, i will create a "poisson" (by drawing and painting), the one you could put in the back of someone you love on april 1st, the day everybody try - or not - to be funny.
To be continued on page "April" !
I AM SO HAPPY MY WEBNODE BLOG SEEMS TO BE FIXED i can use with my comfortable firefox ! I feel like coming back home after a long long way in an unknowned country ...
2013 03 30
Soon april ... Everybody would like to be in summertime but there is a lot to enjoy next month ! Mine will probably be outside, gardening, watercoloring, discovering museums i do not know yet, and mostly i would like to be on beaches. I saw "sauveteurs en mer" starting to improve. Be curious but be warned if you are coming for the first time on seaside beach !
Next week, parisians will be on vacancy, everybody is on the run here to open : nice restaurants (new "cartes"), expos, brocantes, sportives meeting. We would do so and FIRST BARBECUE ! Maybe i will try new recipes easy to prepare outside or in a "camping" way ...
I am waiting for long to taste my favorites fruits and vegetables of the season : "asperges violettes" made in Loir-et-Cher and berries ( i will have to wait a little more for these ones).
Flowers are opening, trees are in blossom, paradise.
Do you know where it is ?
2017 03 28
TOMORROW ON PAGE "GARDENS" !
"Blues en Rade" festival : RDV next year !
2017 03 27
Just in case you did not see on page "artist", i was in "Blues en Rade" festival last days. Music memories. Ready for new adventures ! WORK IN PROGRESS : jardins "à la française". Chuttt ! keep the secret secret ...
A perfect day to draw outside
2017 03 25
Sunny weather, little wind blowings in trees around, and nothing special to do, just to enjoy the perfect journey.
As you could see on photos, i realized i made a mistake : the notebook was "upside down" ! i understood that with my spider visitor as we used to say : spider saw at lunch, troubles ! but i do not believe in that "dicton" except in "arraignée du soir, espoir" (spider in the night, hope) because i know spiders catch mosquitos ...
"Blues en rade" festival
2017 03 24 + 2017 03 25
Yesterday at night started the festival : "Blues en rade" - As you can imagine, everything is about this way of life !
In "avant-première", we could watch a movie, a canadian prize winner road-movie : " I am the blues". How amazing are the singers and players, all 70 or 80 in age ! They were all famous and still performing ... even if sometimes it is very hard to be on the road 200 days per year and find no one where you are to perform, except your old buddies. These guys are "on" each times someone is listening, their lives are dedicated to music, and they are memories of something in beetween coton fiels in the past century and new technologies.
In the film, you can see their Louisiana traditional party where everybody eat "écrevisses". So at lunch, i was very happy to eat a seaside meal with a" tourteau" before going to a "live" concert in a medical care for oldest. The band played in french and in american langages.
T.Bone Dubagou
"I am the blues" - a film by Daniel CROSS
"Ceili" on St Patrick's Day in Lorient
2017 03 13
It is growing and becoming phenomenon : 43 years of love between Lorient and Galway ! During these next days, we will live here "en mode irlandais" ! How to dance in pubs ... or at home with friends ? click on the video !
Wedding too !
GALWAY by "Monkey traveker"
"semaine internationale de la courtoisie au volant" :
please, be polite :
- C...anard !
2017 03 12
St Patrick's evening in PLOUHINEC was great !
2017 03 12
Yesterday at night, i was in Plouhinec as many other festives women and men, to celebrate St Patrick's Day, with irish and bretons dances.
Two bands enjoyed our evening - "Sinn" and "Danserion Bro Pleneur" and we learned how to dance celtics hits while chating and dining ... HUGE moment ! The band "SINN" put photos on facebook. They will play next days in others places, let me tell just one word : GO !
Irish dances as i remember AFTER drinking beer with celtic harp :
- 1,2,3, moving forward
- 1,2,3, moving back
"tiroir" right and left
mill for the 4 in center/ waltz for 2 couples on each side
and on final, something to change of dancer - just follow the group .. animated by "Maryse" and "Korollerien Ar Scorv".
Great to observe too.
And of course, polka, andro, ridée and others "must have" dances in a mixed celtic evening !
On march 17, i will copy and prepare a green/white/orange table with avocado or salad, cauliflower, and carots to start. I must confess i asked a professional "Chef" if he would prepare "irish stew" but i do not have the answer yet. Whatever my husband and i will go to an irish pub in Lorient to celebrate !
Irish dance is better with a friend !
A beautiful day for ... gardening !
2017 03 10
SPRING is here ! 17 C° yesterday afternoon, so ... it is time for "toilette de printemps" in my yard !
I would like to be "Edward aux mains d'argent"s girl next door, but i have to do it by myself : roses buds, brambles of blackberries, Iris and others plants suffocated by ivy and whatever is under my "sécateur" ...
TO BE CONTINUED WITH PHOTOS when it will be done - Good afternoon !
Restos du coeur : on 10 and 11, everywhere in France !
Tits - Anne Super Besse
"Journée des Femmes" :
a painter named Rosa BONHEUR
2017 03 08
On this Special day i would like to introduce you Rosa BONHEUR. Just in case you did not know her...
Could you imagine a friend of Buffalo Bill but not his girlfriend, a female painter, a lady who earned her living painting and exhibiting her own subjects ? She was famous for her rustics animals and rural scenes. You can still see her style in Musée d'Orsay in Paris in "Labourage nivernais" and "le marché aux chevaux" is in New York at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and "sultan et rosette ..." in Warsaw.
In her "atelier de peintre" in Le Château de By, you could see originals paintings and imagine how she worked. It was the only place i know with an access ramp for horses and cows she loved so much.
"les vaches écossaises françaises sont l'héritage de Rosa BONHEUR"
Rosa Bonheur imported from Scotlands the "Highlanders" but the herd was locked in customs. She never succeeded to send them to her studio of painter. The herd was sold to farmers, long long time after they came in, and increased ! So we could say that in a certain way, she made us her heirds with these cows !
Bill CODY asked her to paint his portrait and sent her native american tribe costumes. She received a Sioux suit.They were exposed in the "atelier" too. But now the place is closed.
She was the first artist woman to be decorated from "Légion d"honneur", by The Empress Eugénie herself. She was invited as french painter in Chicago in 1893, for the World Exhibition. She lived with Anna Klumpke and their are together buried in Cimetière du Père lachaise.
"World book day" is coming for french speakers on ... APRIL 23rd !
2017 03 06
Sorry folks !
Your phenomenon "world book day", which took place on March 2sd for all english tongues readers will cross the borders and will arrive, only on april 23rd, for french readers all over the world. Can anybody tell me why ?
- Do we have to translate english words ?
- Do we we have to print new books for that special events ?
- Are we all and only concerned by presidential elections ?
- As women will stop to work at 15:40 on march 8, to struggle against sexist discriminations, we did not have enough time to work on this event for march 2sd ?
IN REALITY, READERS ARE "PHIL COLLINS" players
THEY WANT TO GO TROUGH THE BORDERS TO PARTICIPATE TO EACH EVENT BECAUSE THEY ARE INTERESTED IN WHATEVER THE LANGAGE IS ! A BOOK IS AND WILL ALWAYS BE A TRESOR. EVEN BETTER WHEN SHARING.
"Bonne Fête" Grand-Ma !
2017 03 05
Grand-Ma's Day is on the first sunday of march : that's TODAY !
Usually, you sent a message to her "with love" by postcard or internet, you send flowers when you are grown to much to pick yourself a small bouquet of wildflowers and busy enough not to be there with her. And when you are older you realize how sweet it was to kiss her and you remember all these little moments of kindness she brought you.
Is this why "brocantes" are so many today ? To remember us our past ?
- regarde, on avait le même !
One day you throw away, the other you buy it again... that is the miracle in flea-markets !
DAFFODILS AND BARA BRITH
2017 03 01 + 2017 03 04 + 2018 03 17 NEW VIDEO !
On St David's Day celebrated in WALES, i will try a new recipes. Please, click on the link below to learn how to prepare a typical cake named "Bara Brith" or how to succeed "welsh cakes" of your own.
To ppreciate all the savour of "bara brith", add some butter on a slice to taste with a cup of tea. I will replace "mixed spice" by "4 épices" (cannelle, clou de girofle, noix de muscade et gingembre râpés).And as the rain would stop, i will try to photography opened daffodils. Yesterday they were still closed around here !!! Maybe i will put some in a cute vase on a table with an embroided tea tablecloth and invit some good friends to chat about needlework, who knows ?
And we would listen music : OFELIA BAND ! i discovered them in Celtic Festival in Lorient 2017.
They are great performers : 17 minutes MORE by calling back on stage !
Oh guys ! as i was looking for a male choir i listened in Lorient during the festival, i found these hundred talentous youngs guys coming from Wales ! They were selected in the "Britain's got talent". Remember the name :
ONLY BOYS ALOUD
I tried the Welsh cakes recipe
I followed the Wesh cake recipe on the video from Hidden Wales.
I put cranberries in because i did not have currants - i change "mixed spice" and replace by "4 épices" - It was easy to prepare. Until the heat - I chose a big stove and cooked on "induction". I had a hard time trying to hot but not to grill, i did not succeeded as well as i would like to, so ... i obtained charcoal cakes and when i wanted to return 3 minutes later on the other face, it falled apart ... BUT AND THIS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT : IT WAS SO GOOD THAT I WILL TRY AGAIN !
Tasty hot and sweet cold. I LOVED IT !
Next time, i will prepare the same except that :
1/ i will prepare a "boudin" (see the roulé technique on my "bûche") and put it about 1/2 hour before cutting in egual pieces
2/ i will not put butter only but butter AND sunflower oil
3/ i will not full my poêle, i will put only 4 cakes in a time so i would be able to move cakes during the cook
4/ i will keep 3 minutes by face
All i have to discover now is the right number for induction cooking ...
WE CAN WRITE THIS RECIPE ON OUR ECONOMICAL ENERGY LIST. Good choice. Thanks Hidden Wales.
To celebrate in March !
on 1st : David's Day from Wales
On 5th : Grand-Mother's Day (first sunday in March)
On 8th : Women's Day
On 17 th : Patrick's Day from Ireland
on 24/25/26 th : "Blues en rade" festival