To A Dear Friend...

Bonjour!

Par où commencer? Chacun d'entre nous en Angleterre est choqué et consterné par ce qui est arrivé à Paris vendredi soir.  Je me suis réveillée à une heure du matin et j'ai décidé de regarder sur facebook.  J'ai vu les commentaires sur les attaques à Paris et je me demandais ce qui se passait donc je mets les informations à la télévision. Je ne pourrais pas croire ce que je voyais. Tant de gens qui sortaient juste pour s'amuser un vendredi soir étaient morts ou blessés.  Les gens de toutes nations. 
J'étais sous le choc et j'ai pleuré pendant que je regardais.  Je suis en état de choc depuis.
Avant d'aller au lit la nuit de vendredi nous parlions d'aller à Paris pour Noël.  Quand on considère, nous étions là il y a seulement un mois et étions pas loin d'où ces atrocités ont eu lieu.  Ma belle ville.
Nous avons eu une minute de silence hier à 11h et nous avons prié pour votre nation merveilleuse dans l'église le dimanche.

J'espère seulement que les mêmes personnes qui portaient un coquelicot dans leur revers le 11 novembre auront le courage de faire en sorte que ce qui est arrivé le 13 novembre ne se reproduise jamais.
Je suis désolée d'apprendre que tu as été malade et que le maladie de chron est mauvais.  Ma cliente a la maladie aussi, donc je comprends ce qu'il est.  Je suis coeliaque qui fonctionne dans le sens inverse de la maladie de chron.  Je ne peux pas manger de blé, d'orge ou de seigle.  Parfois, cela rend la vie très compliquée.  Je mange beaucoup de riz et de pommes de terre!
Je lis un livre en français en ce moment et je suis très heureuse d'être en mesure de le faire. 

Il s'appelle L'Allée du sycomore par John Grisham.  J'adore ses livres. J'en ai lu plusieurs.

Il est toujours avocat comme le personnage principal. J'ai acheté ce livre à la Gare du Nord.
Je vais penser à toi ce soir quand l'Angleterre joue contre la France à Wembley.  Je crois que le stade sera allumé en bleu, blanc rouge.
FLUCTUAT NEC MERGITUR!
Prends grand soin de toi. Écris bientôt.
Amitiés et bises.
Jane

A Letter To A Friend

Coucou!

Comment ca va?  

Oui, j’ai regardé tout le rugby, sauf le match l’Irlande contre la France en marche lorsque nous étions à Paris.  Je vivais en Afrique du Sud pendant deux ans quand j’avais une vingtaine d’années où je suis tombée amoureuse du rugby qui ne m’a jamais quitté.  J’était très déçue que l’Angleterre est partie du tournoi si tôt, surtout que nous étions le pays hôte.  Quelle honte!

La situation est améliorée pour ma cliente enfin.  Je lui rendais visite toutes les deux heures. Les infirmières sont allées à sa maison pour l’équiper un cathéter.  Maintenant, je peux aller à sa maison quatre fois par jour au lieu de six fois.  Cela veut dire que je peux aller à la piscine ou faire du shopping, donc je suis beaucoup plus heureuse maintenant.  

Dimanche soir nous sommes allés voir le nouveau film de James Bond au cinéma, qui s’applle Spectre.  L’as-tu vu?  Il est, à mon avis, absolument génial du début à la fin.  Je pense que Daniel Craig joue le rôle principal très bien.  

Mon mari doit travailler chaque week-end entre maintenant et Noël donc je fais les courses de Noël par moi-même. Nous avons six petits-enfants, donc il ya beaucoup à faire. Je ne conduis pas, donc je dois aller en ville en bus et transporter tout le dos, qui est un travail très difficile.

Je suis impatient de passer un week-end à la maison de ma sœur à la fin de novembre. Elle habite sur la côte sud. Nous ne nous sommes pas vues depuis quatre ans. Elle est venue nous rendre visite quand nous avons vécu à la ferme, mais pas depuis que nous avons déménagé au village. Je suppose que quand on parle au téléphone et écrit sur facebook, il est facile de se sentir comme on s’est vu l'autre, et le temps passe très vite!

 Je suis impatient d'entendre toutes vos nouvelles bientôt.

Amitiés

Jane

A Sunday in Paris? Don't Mind if I Do!

Hello all!  It's Sunday, it's warm and I'm in Paris.
Got up quite late for once, and had a nice breakfast.  My first croissant here.  The first one is always the best one, isn't it?
We leapt on the metro and bimbled along to the Panthéon in the 5th arrondissement.  This is in the Latin Quarter and I'd really planned to go here another day, but actually it worked out really well.
I've been dying to see this building (pardon the pun, just realised) as so many famous people have been interred here.  But as usual, because it's french, the architecture itself is pretty stunning, too.  Look:

Statue of Voltaire

We also saw Marie Curie (Sklodowska) and her husband, Pierre, as well as Alexandre Dumas and Louis Braille (which was, oddly enough, written in Braille!) 

I was absolutely thrilled to see this on the wall:

I was no idea it was here.  I have a copy of le Petit Prince in French and English.  So lovely.

We turned into another corridor in the crypt and were suddenly met with an inscription, which I believe is called The Just (don't mind at all if I'm wrong, just leave me a comment and let me know please) which honours all those french people who aided or hid Jews during the war.  Obviously it's in French, and as I read it out to John in English I could barely get through it without a lump coming to my throat.  John actually turned away before I'd finished reading it and I thought, 'he's not interested,' but actually it was because he'd got his hankie out.  So sad.

During these blog posts I'm going to stick to the facts about where we're going and what we're seeing, but there will be posts afterwards where I can go into more detail on certain things, and this will be one of the topics I'll elaborate on.

Had lunch in a nearby café.  I had an enormous galette, with an egg in the middle.  It was so filling I could hardly move afterwards.

The Luxembourg Gardens weren't very far away, so we decided to go and explore.  It was really warm and sunny actually, which was lovely.

People really were sitting around having picnics, reading, drinking coffee and playing with boats on the pond.  This really is a beautiful place.

Who wouldn't want to sit here on a Sunday afternoon, soaking up the sunshine?

There are pony rides here, tennis courts and a lovely café.  I so wish I could live here and I'd come here all the time.

John and I love exploring when we go on holiday.  We followed the map and soon found the beautiful church of St Sulpice.

Bear in mind that we've been to Paris before, so on this trip we aren't planning on going up the Eiffel Tower, inside Notre Dame or the Louvre as we did all that last time.  Just Google those if you want to have a look.  I really wanted to see as much as possible that we'd never seen before, and this is definitely the sort of thing I had in mind.

Another beautiful church.

After this we went to the church we'd planned to worship in today.  I was nervous as we approached as I wasn't sure what it would be like, but it was brilliant.  Lots of Americans, Chines and Japanese, and many others, all worshipping God together. 

The website is here:  http://trinityparis.com/  

 It was an english speaking church but one of the worship songs was in French, though.  I had that amazing feeling again, that only comes from worshipping God in a foreign language when your brain understands the words - surreal! I love the realisation that I am part of something massive. I took notes of the sermon, which started off in english but ended up in french.  Okay then...

We set off for Notre Dame afterwards but never made it.  Got side-tracked by the Place de la Sorbonne and then found a side-street full of cafés and restaurants.  We looked at all the prices and found a three course meal for 10 euros, which seems like a bargain to me.  I had moules marinière (because you have to, at least once, don't you?), l'escalope de dinde and mousse au chocolat.  Gorgeous.

It was lovely in there while the owner was there, but once he left and the other waiter took over, he was being horrible to the other waiters, it was quite strange.  John drank cidre.  He says it's part of his five-a-day.  Who knew?

I'm going to bed now, because I'm very tired indeed!

More tomorrow folks!

Jane x

Off To Paris... Again!

For the last few days I've actually been feeling sick with excitement!  You know the feeling you get in the build up to Christmas?  Like that... only worse!
Just a side note that I normally pack my suitcase a week before we leave.  How else do you get time to make sure you've got everything you need?  You might need to wash and iron something, right?  John, on the other hand, likes to pack at the very last minute, so the washing machine was hard at work at midnight before we were due to leave.  You have to ask yourself sometimes, don't you?!

We jumped in the taxi and sped to our local station and got on the train to London.  We had a fair wait there so went into Le Pain Quotidien on St Pancras Station.  We checked in for our trip on the Eurostar, which takes a bit of time, I didn't realise it was the same as going through an airport check-in.
We'd decided to go on the Eurostar because I hate flying, and all I want to say about the train is that it's absolutely awesome.  It was so relaxing and easy, I would definitely do it again and would highly recommend it to anyone.  I did have a moment of wondering if I'd like actually going through the tunnel, but to be honest, I was absorbed in a magazine and didn't even realise we'd done it when suddenly John said, "We're in France!" and that was it.
I'd checked before on how to get to our hotel from Gare du Nord and it didn't take long at all.  Our hotel is a bit of a disappointment, the room is very small (and the walls are very thin!)  There isn't even a bath, only a shower.  Hmmm.  We're also in the 20th arrondissement, which is a bit far out of things, but I don't mind.
We dumped all our stuff (tiny wardrobe, so I am living out of my suitcase!) and decided to go out.  Last time we came to Paris (two years ago) I know I was ill, but we were so tired when we arrived we fell asleep for two hours, so it was lovely to hit the ground running.
I did a lot of research before this trip and have made a massive list of things I want to see.  I thought, to save walking too much, the best thing to do would be to make a list of every single thing I want to do, then group everything into arrondissements so we get to see as much as possible without too much time on the metro or walking (I'm not averse to walking, but I'd rather be walking around inside a museum, not the outside).
After a lengthy discussion, we decided to jump on the metro and get off at Les Halles and go to St Eustache and look around.  It looks like this:

We were actually very fortunate as there was a special service going on.  The singing was amazing.  This is such a beautiful old church, and we've never been here before.

This is outside, and the main reason why I wanted to go:

 I just love it.  I could quite happily sit here (with a coffee!) and stare at it for hours.  How sad am I?  The other thing is, if you look up St Eustache in the guide books, it shows loads of grass in front of it, whereas in reality it is still surrounded by the building works for Les Halles station, just like it was when we came in 2003.  Les Halles will look fabulous when it's done though.

Notre Dame Cathedral isn't far from here, so we decided to take a walk.  We'd actually come on a mission to buy a Chat Noir umbrella and we found one practically straight away, for 13euros, so we were really pleased.
Off out to find somewhere for dinner now.
Back tomorrow 
Jane xx

Rentrer/Revenir/Retourner

This has been bugging me for a while because the words seem pretty interchangeable when you read them in French.  Yesterday, Pascal Dherve made a brilliant video explaining the difference, so I took some notes.  You can see the video here



Thank you so much Pascal, your videos are amazing, I learn something every time I watch one.  If you're serious about improving your french, I can't recommend this site enough.  Pascal also has a facebook page.


Back soon
Amitiès
Jane 

Questions

So now I have two french tutors, which is marvellous, but it's keeping me on my toes.  They are both quite different.  Sally is a bit too far away to come and give me lessons now so I post work for her to mark, which she is absolutely brilliant at.  We also skype once a month, which makes me really nervous, because I just want to talk.  I get so nervous I get tempted to cancel it, but I'm usually as high as a kite afterwards and we don't stop rambling.  Here are the questions I want her to ask me this week:

La lecture

1.  Qu’est-ce que tu aimes lire?

2.  Qui est ton auteur préféré?

3.  Quels magazines est-ce que tu lis?

4.  Tu as un livre préféré?

5.  Tu achètes des livres ou des magazines?

La radio

1.  Quelle station préfères-tu?

2.  Tu écoutes souvent la radio?

3.  Quand est-ce que tu écoutes la radio?

4.  Quelles sortes d’émissions écoutes-tu?

5.  Tu as un animateur/une animatrice préféré(e)?

Là où j’habite

1.  Tu habites en ville ou à la campagne?

2.  C’est loin de la ville?

3.  Il y a des magasins près de chez toi?

4.  Tu préfères la ville ou la campagne?  Pourquoi?

5.  Tu habites dans une maison ou un appartement?

6.  Il y a combien de pièces?

7.  Tu as un jardin?

8.  Tu aimes ta maison?  Pourquoi?

9.  Décris les chambres.  Tu l’aimes?  Pourquoi?

Once I've had the skype session I'll put some answers in.  Can you answer all the above questions?  They're from my brilliant GCSE book.

My other french teacher, Gillian, lives very close by.  I go to her once every two weeks and we just talk and talk, nearly all in french, and I love it.  I am going to practise some 'restaurant french' with her soon as we are going to Paris again in October (so excited I don't know where to put myself!)

Must dash, off to see a client!

Jane xx

Restaurant Review

I was so excited last week to see a restaurant on the Paris Insights blog.  This is where we had dinner one evening on our very first trip to Paris.  I didn't take any photos at the time, and have regretted it ever since, as I'd really like to go back there. It was June then, and we were seated in a window, but all the windows open, so you are straight out onto the street, which gives it a lovely atmosphere.
 So here we are, as an aide memoire pour moi:

http://terranera.fr/

18 rue des Fosses Saint Jacques, 75005 Paris, France

http://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Restaurant_Review-g187147-d5267551-Reviews-Terra_Nera-Paris_Ile_de_France.html


Back soon
Jane x