Heat wave in Normandy

Tags

climate, Normandy, postaday2012, rain, sun, weather

Francoise still can’t believe that just the day before the baby girl and I came to town, it had been raining for three months straight. We have had clear blue skies and 82 degrees for the past four days and tomorrow promises to be a scorcher as well. Normandy I’d say is beautiful in the rain and fog, what with its vast forests but add a whole lot of sun in the mix and it transcends beautiful, it jumps to glorious.

However, this heat makes one tired and lethargic, especially when a strong summer sun is beating down on you while you are visiting various sights. So today, we took a day of rest and stayed in the cool interior of Francoise’s beautiful house. While the baby girl was lounging about, Francoise and I were in her office, caught up in a project of hers.

When I was at Pierre and Isabelle’s house, Isabelle introduced me to the latest variation on the good old photo album, it’s called the “livre de photos” or photo book. I  don’t know of any website in the States that offers photo books but I’m sure that they must. This was the first time that I had seen one. Pierre and Isabelle go to Venice with their children annually, so with all the digital pictures of several years of trips left on the computer, Isabelle wanted to showcase the pictures and the memories so she went on the photo website and produced her own photo books. She has been doing it for a while and has gorgeous books illustrating their travels.

Given that introduction to photo books by Isabelle, it was a nice surprise to spend the afternoon helping Francoise do the actual layout for a photo book that she is putting together as an important family gift due in a few short weeks. Working on the website with Francoise and getting the feel for what was possible, what was hard to do and what was visually appealing was a lot of fun and a huge learning experience in the French terminology of computer language. I learned so much in this one afternoon, I am looking forward to getting back to it tomorrow.

If upon waking up, you could speak a new language, which would you choose?

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fluency, German, language, postaday2012

Just for kicks, I would choose German. There is something very attractive about German and its commanding tones, at least to my ears. I guess that since I am timid about asking people for help and I’m horrible at giving direction, that perhaps being fluent in German would help me overcome my reticence. My logic here comes from my experience with the French language, I find that the language is built around politeness. The pronoun “you” is specified to be either formal or informal and the speaker makes a conscious choice when he addresses a person, thus the formal “you” which is always used with strangers and acquaintances tends to create a polite atmosphere. Hence, that is why I am making my assumptions with regards to German, a direct and commanding language. I do not mean in any way that it is therefore callous or disrespectful, just direct and strong. I would be tickled pink if I woke up tomorrow saying Guten daag and immediately could launch into a full blown conversation. As of this moment, I would have to track down some German tourists since I’m in France, but that shouldn’t be too hard to do, they love vacationing over here.

Battleship, the movie; a review

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Arby's, Battleship, Brooklyn Decker, Liam Neeson, movies, postaday2012

Tonight was movie and dinner, this time dinner was before the movie and it was Arby’s. I had my usual, a small roast beef sandwich with horseradish sauce and black pepper with a large order of curly fries, mega salty and spiced with a 30 oz chocolate shake. My daughter ate with my hubby and myself, she decided to forgo the movie instead, she chose to go see her boyfriend and she decided that she wasn’t feeling her chocolate shake, so I made a glutton of myself. To top it off and make it worse, I even had Nestlé bunch a crunch during the movie. I am sitting here on the couch typing this with my belly looking as if I’m five months pregnant, gluttony I tell you.

Anyway, the movie wasn’t bad. It is based on the Hasbro game Battleship, a game that I really loved playing. It took a bit of time for the movie to show how it related to the board game and when it did, it wasn’t silly or contrived, it made sense. I was hoping that Liam Neeson wouldn’t be wasted and for the length of time he was on screen he served his purpose and his role well. It was a decent movie, the only critique that I have is that the previews were poorly done. The movie leaves you thinking it was a lot better than I thought it was going to be, and that means that the previews stunk, which is horrible for the box office receipts because most movie goers aren’t as easy going or as forgiving as my hubby and I.