Christmas And After

The Festive Period
It wasn't so very festive this year. My mother had a heart attack just before Christmas, which blew all planned arrangements out of the window and extended my stay in England to a few days into the new year. Then, on returning to France, I crashed my car after hitting black ice on leaving the motorway at Bollène at the end of my journey. I have to hope that the new year has something better than that to offer me.

My mood wasn't helped by the weather, which two days after my return decided to snow and did so solidly for 3-4 days and nights and then produced leaden skies which totally failed to remove the snow. So, not so different to the England I had left. But that is unusual for here; there is usually a day or two of snow but that generally is it for the winter and the snow disappears as quickly as it arrives, in the village. All around, the hills are often covered in snow for weeks or months, but not at the level of the village. Anyway, my gloomy mood was lifted today when the sun came out and I was able to put out the pots (blue of course) that I had brought back with and plant them with blue pansies. I have now ransacked the shops in the area for blue pansies and there are now no more to be had. I also planted a climbing rose I had brought back (White Cloud) in the pot in the front that contains the plumbago so it should start to climb amongst the honeysuckle and the Dublin Bay rose already established.

Inspiration for that, if any were needed, was supplied in the post after my return. It was a certificate nominating my house for special mention in the “balconies and terraces” category in the Fleurir La Drôme competition, effectively a county-wide competition for the best shows of flowers. As nobody in the villages and towns around got anything similar, I took that as a compliment. It was only seventh prize in the category but still much better than a kick in the pants. Neighbours Jean-Pierre and Monique were kind enough to say that it was “bien mérité”. The certificate arrived in the post because I hadn't gone to be presented with it at Valence, the county town, in November. I vaguely remember the invitation to attend the awards ceremony. However, as Valence is a good 90 minutes drive away, I don't think I would have gone even if I had known they were going to present me with a certificate; maybe next year, if I feel I can achieve something better.

Translation (Again)
Daniel wants some more stuff translated, a piece he's written for this year's festival of the Rue des Granges and some extracts from the play La Partie de Pétanque n'aura pas Lieu. Our conversation over dinner at his house threw up another word difficult to translate: apprentissage. The obvious translation, apprenticeship, can serve in some situations but the French use of the word is much more general than that English equivalent. “A period of learning” gets the sense in most cases but is a bit clumsy and doesn't really have the flavour of the French word. So, for the moment, that's one to mull over.

After dinner at Daniel's, incidentally, we watched a film on French television (on the Arte channel, the only one really worth having) entitled Les Choristes. It was good. I had immediately thought of the English title the choirboys and was expecting something about the Mafia but in fact it was a fairly close equivalent to the English film The Dead Poets' Society. So, if you liked the latter look out for the former. The English title for the English film was translated into French as Le Cercle des Poètes Disparus. OK, “cercle” is a good translation of “society” in that context but why “disparus”? Did the poets suddenly all vanish? Then I thought that if you take the view that poets live on through their work, which in a way was intrinsic to the film, then “disparus” was in fact a very good and subtle translation. It's difficult, this translation business.