Snow. Quite important snow!


We have about 6 inches (according to the radio). I'd say 4 in our garden. Of course, 15 cm sounds much more than 6 inches, and 10 cm more than 4 inches.

We are listening keenly to Radio France Bleu Gironde to try to find out if the schools are open but frankly, I drove home through the snow from Floirac last night and I am not keen on driving in it this morning. The roads had not been gritted before the snow and it was really quite slippery, even when fresh!

No trams are running. Some buses are running but only inside the boulevards (inner ring roads). Otherwise there are no school buses and all is at a standstill.My bigger concern is the Bible Study this evening. If the buses don't run then I can't get in to the centre. We'll see.

In Bordeaux it doesn't take a lot of snow to bring things to a standstill. One of our lecturers explained that it makes more sense to accept a few days of disruption every now and again than to pay out a fortune for gritters and snow-ploughs that would simply not be used at all most years.
Posted by Picasa

Comments

Anonymous said…
AH! You have beaten us to it.You have snow before us, but you are further South, that shouldn't be so. Tell Catrin and Gwilym to get going and build a nice big snowman. Sorry if that's a bit infantlie, but it has to be done! If they want to be radical they could create a snow sculpture of something else. I'm sure you can believe that when I was teaching, at the slightest hint of snow in the air, I would take the whole class outside and we would be using all our senses to experience what we could. Well, you have to make the most of it when it comes. Then you go back inside into the warm, cuddle a radiator and have a warm drink. Lovely!
9:49 am
Alan said…
Well I made it into the Bible Study, though it took twice as long as normal! I was glad I went, too, because we were in John 8, and we were talking about the nature of sin - the woman and the scribes and pharisees - the "disease" and the "symptoms" - and how God can be just and justify guilty people. It was good and important for those who were there. And we were not a bad number.
10:49 pm
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A bit about music exams in UK and France

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...
Read more

Good news from my sermon buddy

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...
Read more

A brief sortie to North Wales

 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...
Read more