les Davey de France

 At the top of our road is a large crossroads where four roads meet and the tram crosses. The recent buildings have been built at an angle to the crossroads making a rather twisted open air called Place d'Armagnac. Over the past couple of months this square has been paved, trees planted, benches installed, lighting placed and a drinking fountain added. It's not quite finished. But yesterday was the inauguration of the square. the Mayor of Bordeaux, Pierre Hurmic, a lawyer who belongs to the Green Party, was to open it, accompanied by the chairman of Bordeaux Metropole - kind of the like the Super-Mayor of the whole city. That means speeches. In addition there were to be animations - a food truck serving kebabs and drinks, a bicycle-driven roundabout, the street-band of the medical school Los (Téoporos) and a classical trio of violin, cello and marimba who would play Spanish ad Latin American music in the library adjacent to the square. A demonstration was scheduled, too, by the...

 The Welsh for ‘resurrection’ is atgyfodiad. To say ‘he was resurrected’ you’d say ‘atgyfodwyd ef’ and the Apostles’ Creed claims belief in the resurrection of the body, ‘atgyfodiad y corff’. I just wanted to reassure you that these words do exist in Welsh. I’m praying that Archbishop Justin Welby will tell the whole wide watching world that Jesus has conquered death by His resurrection and that He promises bodily resurrection to eternal life to all who trust in Him, however great or insignificant.  This is the faith of the church. (But the music was awesome) 

Récent events - end of Boris Johnson, beginning of Liz Truss, loss of the Queen - have largely left me without much comment to make. However I will note the following :  We met the Queen once when she came to open the Flintshire Bridge on a damp and overcast day around 1998. Catrin was a babe in arms. Pat was working at a day hospital and they decided to take the patients down to see the Queen arrive at the civic centre in Connah’s Quay for lunch. I went down with Catrin for moral support. We were stood, or seated in wheelchairs, at the corner of the square. The Queen’s car arrived and she got out. Immediately she scanned the scene and, as soon as she could, she made a beeline straight for us to chat with the patients. It was brief, it was small-talk. We thanked her for coming and talked about how we hoped the bridge would help reduce traffic through the town centre (it didn’t) and she said how much she appreciated coming to open something useful.  One friend from years ago go...

  https://youtu.be/qsiqtXciIKA

 So over the summer while we were in the UK we were able to think a little about our decision to stay here for retirement. It’s a hard-headed decision, based on where we can most easily afford to live, where we already have a life to live and where we might conceivably be most useful in the future. But of course, that means that we are not retiring to the United Kingdom, and we are not retiring to Wales. Had we returned to Wales I envisaged getting my Welsh back up to a reasonable level. Years ago I read contemporary novels with little difficulty. Now I struggle.. a lot..As for conversation, I don’t know any Welsh-speakers here in Bordeaux. But then I haven’t looked for them. So I can tackle, and am tackling my reading by getting the old familiar books off the shelf and getting books from Amazon in kindle format. I’ll also make a few trawls for Welsh-speakers in Bordeaux and see if they come up with anyone. I continue to work on my French, of course, and hit situations still where ...