English Conversation And Autumn Gardening

English Conversation Resumes

Last Tuesday was the first of the new term of English conversation classes and, as expected, the tournout of participants was sparse; just four in fact. At this time of year some of the regulars are on holiday and some still have summer visitors. One of the absentees has definitely been helped by our efforts, though, as he has now achieved his goal of getting a job in England and going to live there for a while.

Steve and I hadn't thought much beforehand about what we were going to do this term but have come to the conclusion that the synthetic conversations we created and used a lot until the last term have a lot more mileage in them. No doubt we'll get more ideas when we question the class more closely about what they find most difficult, as we have before. Pronunciation is one of the items we can work on, as well as the tonic accent, but the amazing lack of rules for these in English doesn't help. Vocabulary is certainly another consideration but is as long as a piece of string and, without a definite context, is difficult to bound. Steve and I have taken the view that what a visitor to England, for a holiday for instance, might need is the best guideline we can have.

Another problem, I feel, is how far to take the class into the English use of prepositions to qualify the meaning of verbs. We are concentrating on colloquial conversational English so verb and preposition combinations (verb plus, in, on, up, down, over, etc) inevitably occur frequently and the temptation is to extrapolate when one such occurs. The problem is that the possible combinations and alternative, context-dependent meanings with a verb such as «to put», for example, are so many that the class could well end up losing patience or being totally confused.

Anyway, time will tell what challenges the new term will bring; the one thing I'm sure of is that we shall have some fun along the way. We now have our old room back, the salle de réunions, renovation of the Mairie now being almost complete, which is a bonus, even if it comes some eight months later than originally scheduled. That's just a normal delay in these parts.

Letter To The Mairie

My letter to the Mairie (see a couple of posts ago) suggestung a narrowing of my road and installation of a toll booth has now been circulated to friends and neighbours and we've all had a good giggle. One neighbour seemed to take me seriously, though, and was at pains to explain to me that the Mairie didn't have the authority to make the road a toll road. Pity about that.

Autumn Gardening

The autumn gardening is just about done. I've planted about 20 or so of the irises I culled from the back garden to make an extra row in the roadside opposite my kitchen window. I've also planted crocuses around the edge of the pot by the wash-house and more in a pot in the front, plus around 40 narcissi and daffodils that I've found space for here and there. So the front is done and looking pretty good, as in the photo below.

You can just about see the cyclamen high up on the balcony. The French marigolds in the hanging baskets are still blooming, as are the fuchsias either side of the front door, and the rose arching over the porch (Penny Lane) has decided to start blooming again.

I have a bit more clearing up to do at the back, one or two more irises to get out and a cistus to cut back. I went to the market in Vaison this morning to see if I could find any perennials I fancied and bought a white buddleia and a cassia. I'll get those in in the next couple of days, plus some bulbs. All in all I feel quite pleased with what I've done.