After work comes play
Fiona, Liz and David came round on Saturday to discuss some aspects of the student work and specifically Thursday evenings and what best to do. We decided to start Christianity Explored from February 4th (which will actually be when Liz leaves), and rather than use the French translated one directly we'll do our own thing with the talk outlines like we used to do some years ago (the one with the film clips from Titanic, Good Morning Vietnam, Les Misérables, etc.)
Afterwards the Davey family dispersed a little - first Pat took Gwilym to see his good old friend Pierre. Gwilym took his guitar as Pierre is a songwriter and who knows, one day maybe our boy will be famous and we can stay in his luxury penthouse in Cap Ferret.
Then I took Pat and Catrin round the periodically blocked rocade to Bassens (the traffic jams were at the exits leading to the shopping centres - It's Sale Time !) where Dik and Hetty had invited everyone for a Galette des Rois. This is not related to a crazy galoot in any way. It is a special cake eaten in January as an excuse to get together and eat... It may be of pastry with almond paste stuffing, or my favourite - brioche flavoured with orange water - this is made in a ring and called a Couronne des Rois. They had a vry agreeable time.
I then high-tailed it to the music school to help shift the matos (piano, drums, amplis, music stands) for the PJB concert at Le Pacha in Pessac. We were part of a weekend of Tap and Swing that had been organised by Tap, Swing and Co. Bordeaux - a swing themed dinner-dance. I think basically we were playing for our supper and for the publicity. All went very well !
A couple of linguistic items - there's always one or two...
On Friday after our last rehearsal someone said "eh oui, c'est quoi knotty sing ?"
As people enjoy teaching me the darker side of French vocabulary - I now can recognise a wide variety of words used to describe the various parts of our bodies below the waist - I suggested "naughty things ?", but this as a false assumption !
The vocal part for Blue Skies cleared up the mystery : noticing... Alan, you SHOULD have realised...
Then last night one of my colleague trombonists said "Après on bois des penntes !" It was clear that this had some reference to Britain, but I was being dim again. "Oui, des penntes et des boques". A bit of discussion and I realised they were speaking of pints. I explained that France doesn't have anything that any self-respecting Welshman could drink by the pint and tried to describe what bitter is. People liked the names that I dredged up from my memory of the shelves in Asda : Bishop's Finger, Old Peculiar, Spitfire. Guinness is as close as anyone gets here. I rashly promised to bring back some bitter from the UK next time we go. Could we fit in some cans of Brains, I wonder... It doesn't really matter because we aren't due to return to Britain till July and by the time we see people again in September they'll never have remembered the promise of a boque of Brains !
Oh yeah - apparently a boque is a half. Spelling unverified.
And of course after the concert we packed up the matos, took them to the music school and dispersed, tired but happy !
Afterwards the Davey family dispersed a little - first Pat took Gwilym to see his good old friend Pierre. Gwilym took his guitar as Pierre is a songwriter and who knows, one day maybe our boy will be famous and we can stay in his luxury penthouse in Cap Ferret.
Then I took Pat and Catrin round the periodically blocked rocade to Bassens (the traffic jams were at the exits leading to the shopping centres - It's Sale Time !) where Dik and Hetty had invited everyone for a Galette des Rois. This is not related to a crazy galoot in any way. It is a special cake eaten in January as an excuse to get together and eat... It may be of pastry with almond paste stuffing, or my favourite - brioche flavoured with orange water - this is made in a ring and called a Couronne des Rois. They had a vry agreeable time.
I then high-tailed it to the music school to help shift the matos (piano, drums, amplis, music stands) for the PJB concert at Le Pacha in Pessac. We were part of a weekend of Tap and Swing that had been organised by Tap, Swing and Co. Bordeaux - a swing themed dinner-dance. I think basically we were playing for our supper and for the publicity. All went very well !
A couple of linguistic items - there's always one or two...
On Friday after our last rehearsal someone said "eh oui, c'est quoi knotty sing ?"
As people enjoy teaching me the darker side of French vocabulary - I now can recognise a wide variety of words used to describe the various parts of our bodies below the waist - I suggested "naughty things ?", but this as a false assumption !
The vocal part for Blue Skies cleared up the mystery : noticing... Alan, you SHOULD have realised...
Then last night one of my colleague trombonists said "Après on bois des penntes !" It was clear that this had some reference to Britain, but I was being dim again. "Oui, des penntes et des boques". A bit of discussion and I realised they were speaking of pints. I explained that France doesn't have anything that any self-respecting Welshman could drink by the pint and tried to describe what bitter is. People liked the names that I dredged up from my memory of the shelves in Asda : Bishop's Finger, Old Peculiar, Spitfire. Guinness is as close as anyone gets here. I rashly promised to bring back some bitter from the UK next time we go. Could we fit in some cans of Brains, I wonder... It doesn't really matter because we aren't due to return to Britain till July and by the time we see people again in September they'll never have remembered the promise of a boque of Brains !
Oh yeah - apparently a boque is a half. Spelling unverified.
And of course after the concert we packed up the matos, took them to the music school and dispersed, tired but happy !
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