Alan and Pat live and work in Bordeaux. Alan is a pastor and Pat was a nurse. Now we work with UFM worldwide. Read on! (If you'd like to know what took us to Bordeaux, then start with the archives from September 2004)
It's been hot today, so everyone has their little bottle of water
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OK - some people have an ENORMOUS bottle of water. Strangely, it seems the smaller the person, the bigger the bottle of water.
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Anonymous said…
Friday - it's 18 degrees indoors here! We're still in Winter clothes and it's pouring with rain here in North Wales, with gales last night in the South. Apparently there are drought orders in the South of England though. Maybe it's the North / South divide! Or maybe we look after our rain better up here. Thank the Lord for rain.
Anonymous said…
Something to do with the inverse law of relativity no doubt!
Yes. Some thoughts on rain. A wine grower from down river tells me that they're OK for water now till August. A bit of a drought helps the grapes. Like it or not, that's important for the economy of this area. ALSO if we have a normal dry summer then our garden will go crisp and brown and we will not need to mow it. At present we have baking hot days alternating with overnight rain, which is making the grass and weeds grow VERY FAST!
They're really different. I think I have already mentioned that while in the UK people generally find a private teacher for their instrument, or do it through a school scheme, here there are municipal music school, conservatoires and so on. The situation is a little more complex than I had first understood, because the schools vary in the rigidity of their organisation: the most, the conservatoires, next the municipals, then the associations. Our music school is an association, but it tends to apply the standards of the municipal schools with its programme of cycles, etc. Britain - grade 1 to 8, grade 8 being roughly equivalent to A-level, pre university/conservatoire. France - 3 cycles, each taking about 4 years, with 3ème cycle being roughly equivalent to grade 8. Theory of music - UK to take grade 8 you need theory grade 5. In France you study theory alongside your instrumental studies, very slowly. Catrin's flute music is MUCH more difficult than the stuff she does in theor...
Yesterday we went over my script from August 13. There really wasn't much she had taken exception to. Once or twice she wondered quite what I was getting at (they had the same problem at Deeside, I think...) and I do have difficulties with the word " de ", but then she said "Who doesn't?" So I felt very encouraged. I also took the opportunity to ask her about one or two things: 1) Direct preaching. Like I used to in Britain, I preach saying you - using "vous" when I am talking to the whole wide world and "tu" when I want it to feel as if I am addressing each person individually. French preachers tend to say rather "What will we do, what will one do". So I asked her if she felt my way was too direct, too brutal for the French ear. She said "I think you can get away with it with your English accent". In fact several people have commented on how much they appreciated being spoken to directly in preaching. 2) Liaisons Last...
Following the Great Keswick Debacle, when our volunteering at the Keswick café was sabotaged by our assorted indispositions, we had airline tickets to use up. Yes, we had not taken travel insurance, so we paid even more money to change our tickets to fly for a short visit to North Wales. This time we were able to go. We passed extremely slowly through a very crowded Bordeaux airport but in good time to get our plane. All seats in the terminal were taken so we leaned against whatever we could find while waiting to board. Hey, bags need seats, too! though sometimes pointing out to Pat, "No, that's a bag seat", makes the bag find a new refuge on the lap of the person sitting next to it... Once on the plane we quickly found our allocated seats - right at the back on the left hand side - stowed our bags and the flight was smooth and uneventful. We had 30 minutes in Manchester to disembark, get through immigration , hustle off to the station and board our train for Shotton. I...
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Thank the Lord for rain.