French Time Travel

My duel existence in France and the UK is currently full of amazing coincidences. It seems as though my two worlds are getting muddled; the spheres of time are overlapping.

It started on my first return to the UK. I had met Ashley Hutchings (80s folk fame) in Carelles ,whilst he was tutoring on a music course Sept 2012.Then, by pure chance again in my one & only visit to a pub folk group in Cheddleton June 2012.”What are you doing here?” was his response, “well I live here “.Bizarre!

The next week I took a call from some Hawaiian friends, who we met via an art forum on line and who own a holiday home south of us in the Pay de la Loire. We have met several times but now they were in England and proposing a visit. Three days & delightful guests, but it felt surreal, as if I’d muddled the images in a dream.

Days later, out house hunting, I meet people actually looking to do the reverse of what we are planning. We are downsizing in the UK with an emphasis on France. They were similarly downsizing, but considering a move to France. Later that day I viewed a property with our daughter Jane, which, it turns out by chance is owned by, a ‘not so popular’ and distant relative, who I’ve not seen for many years. Jane was brilliant, kept her cool and we left in the knowledge of no sell and having taken the ‘moral high ground’, result, but bizarre. Space continuum is having trouble with my timeline!

Then Thursday, responding via Facebook to my old mate Rene (not seen since about 1980& living in New Zealand), she mentions an acquaintance in NZ who came from Longton & was a biker. Several messages later, turns out this guy is the same age and fellow motor head as Ron (ever patient husband) also said husband that knew him in the 1960s. So it comes as no surprise that he is visiting France this year. Invitation to Carelles sent…other worlds colliding!

And only Friday, waiting for a friend at the hospital in Stoke & sitting with a random group of women, I find another bizarre coincidence. One lady knew the village of Carelles, inhabitants 300, and in particular one person, me! It turns out that she is one the village council of the Moorlands school that I have built a link with & the children in both countries re writing to each other. Seems this lady heard the presentation given by David the Head teacher about the school twinning work. Amazing, what are the odds?

Not sure about fate, or whether my stars are in some strange cosmic alignment, but I keep getting this image of ‘the gods’ looking over a pool which is my life & laughing at the ripples they make that muddle my duel existence. Perhaps it’s simply a small world and eventually you will meet those people and places that stand on the edge of your existence. The lesson to learn is that everything is linked, we are all counter balances to each other.

However I have a further theory, it’s called Ryanair…

Now for those of you who have not booked on line through this budget and reputable firm, here’s the low down. Throughout the booking process they bombard you with adverts & services, car hire, suitcases, extra insurance, seat preference hotels and even lottery tickets, all designed to make you spend more money with them. You must complete the obstacle course by checking & declining every step of the way. Now here’s the theory…I reckon at some point in my recent frequent travels I failed to click ‘no thank you’ on one of those sections.

Note to self: Next Ryanair booking check no to…’Time Travel’ option…it’s all getting too bizarre!

My duel existence last year, in France and the UK, was full of amazing coincidences. It seems as though my two worlds were getting muddled; the spheres of time are overlapping.

It started on my first return to the UK. I had met Ashley Hutchings (80s'Steeleye Span' folk fame) in Carelles ,whilst he was tutoring on a music course.Then, by pure chance again in my one & only visit to a pub folk group in Staffordshire.”What are you doing here?” was his response, “well I live here “.. " What both, that's bizarre" was his response!

Later  I took a call from some Hawaiian friends, who we met via an art forum on line and who own a holiday home south of us in the Pay de la Loire. We have met several times but now they were in England and proposing a visit. Three days & delightful guests, but it felt surreal, as if I’d muddled the images in a dream.

Days later, out house hunting, I meet people actually looking to do the reverse of what we are planning. We are downsizing in the UK with an emphasis on France. They were similarly downsizing, but considering a move to France. Later that day I viewed a property with our daughter Jane, which, it turns out by chance is owned by, a ‘not so popular’ and distant relative, who I’ve not seen for many years. Jane was brilliant, kept her cool and we left in the knowledge of no sell and having taken the ‘moral high ground’, result, but bizarre. Space continuum is having trouble with my timeline!

Then Thursday, responding via Facebook to my old mate Rene (not seen since about 1980& living in New Zealand), she mentions an acquaintance in NZ who came from Longton & was a biker. Several messages later, turns out this guy is the same age and fellow motor head as Ron (ever patient husband) also said husband that knew him in the 1960s. So it comes as no surprise that he is visiting France this year. Invitation to Carelles sent…other worlds colliding!

And only Friday, waiting for a friend at the hospital in Stoke & sitting with a random group of women, I find another bizarre coincidence. One lady knew the village of Carelles, inhabitants 300, and in particular one person, me! It turns out that she is one the village council of the Moorlands school that I have built a link with & the children in both countries re writing to each other. Seems this lady heard the presentation given by David the Head teacher about the school twinning work. Amazing, what are the odds?

Not sure about fate, or whether my stars are in some strange cosmic alignment, but I keep getting this image of ‘the gods’ looking over a pool which is my life & laughing at the ripples they make that muddle my duel existence. Perhaps it’s simply a small world and eventually you will meet those people and places that stand on the edge of your existence. The lesson to learn is that everything is linked, we are all counter balances to each other.

However I have a further theory, it’s called Ryanair…

Now for those of you who have not booked on line through this budget and reputable firm, here’s the low down. Throughout the booking process they bombard you with adverts & services, car hire, suitcases, extra insurance, seat preference hotels and even lottery tickets, all designed to make you spend more money with them. You must complete the obstacle course by checking & declining every step of the way. Now here’s the theory…I reckon at some point in my recent frequent travels I failed to click ‘no thank you’ on one of those sections.

Note to self: Next Ryanair booking check no to…’Time Travel’ option…it’s all getting too bizarre!

Making your destiny

Recent events and the need to remain in the UK have made me review people & things. Its strange how peoples reactions do not always match your prediction of their response or even the words they actually say. Even silence can be as highly effective tell and makes you wonder about that person.

 I my life sometimes destiny just blows you down, bowls you away, for good or bad and you are just left standing there in confused awe at the situation you find yourself in. My granny used to say that everything was sent for a purpose, but its sometimes hard to see that when you don't get the job, friends are left wanting, or you miss the good deal. But like wise when you get that peace of mind at promotion, that qualification, that property,its just as mind blowing.

That's when destiny rolls right by & makes a path for you to follow; things you've worked to achieve over years just suddenly seem to come together. The outside world sees you as lucky, fortuitous, in the right place, its easy for you. They don't always see the time given, the sacrifice, the saving and denial hours of work the dedication of friendship, the depth of empathy, the subjugation of self and all the many attributes that you have put you where you are. 'Nought comes from nought' as the saying goes!

Heavy stuff, I know, but sometimes reassessment is the key to understanding and from now on I am not going to waste my time with those people, places and practicalities which judge me by their own shortcomings.

You are so lucky means you have generally worked very hard to make it so, so here's my language definitions when people say things so glibly.

Happy marriage =love, dedication, honesty, joint work and openness. Emotional maturity & accepting the past
Close family = selflessness and letting go. Ability to love without chains.
Serious health issues= resilience, determination, hard emotional decisions and openness.
Extended family= accepting the errors of the past & understanding/ weaknesses the failings of parents.
Property in France= courage, thrift, hard, physical graft & ongoing dedication to language & people
New UK property= years of not having the latest, hours of study & application, determination and effort to find the right property.
Great careers= years of study, delayed gratification, adstinence, pereverence, fortitude sometimes with little reward.
Good friends= giving time & effort to keep in touch, honesty and real empathy.
Stable pensions= the result of sixty plus years of hard work and sacrifice.
Financial security=thinking of the future, planning and saving. Sharing the financial burdon. Hard graft.


" Success is built sequentially; you need to decide which task, when done will make other tasks easier, even unnecessary"
So that is why,despite feeling rough, post operative unpleasantness I went with my husband to visit our 'Art Vacances' clients who are due to stay with us in early June. We spent a wonderful hour sharing their artistic hopes and enjoying their creative home. It was delightful and now we can provide a customised product for their holiday, they can really get what they want from their stay with us.

That hour  was hard work, I felt ill and in a difficult place, but it was a lovely time. We were given the privilege of sharing people dreams and this task, well done, has given us,and in turn will give to them, a special experience.
Its not always easy, but I think  destiny is, to a greater or lesser manner, made.
You can be dealt many hands of cards, its not the lottery luck & turn of the next card, its about how you play those cards and how much work you are prepared to put in.

Life is about living, so I say live it to the full...

Judging a book by its cover...Ode to Emily

Sometimes it takes extraordinary events to crystallise the ordinary!

Finally back in France & on holiday with our 17 year old grand daughter, I learnt just how much the inquisitive mind of a young adult can inspire. She listened, she joined in, in fact she engaged with every event and all things French..it was delightful. We grappled with the nuances of pop culture films of super heroes and the over reaction to anything equine. But beyond the super confidence of youth and certainty of everyday life, we found a deeper  young lady 

She showed more maturity than some of the adults we encounter & greater empathy for situations than many another far more advanced in years. This was most pronounced in her response & understanding of some of my recent health issues.

Hence the visit by an acquaintance who is fighting brain cancer for the second time and yet made time and considerable effort  to come & see us and the visit from another acquaintance who came to announce she her village status; elicited some very different responses from the incisive young mind.

Made me think of something I read on line recently:

'The best thing about the worst times in your life is that you get to see the true colours of everyone'.
 So in a small French village, at a small French farmhouse I learnt a small,but fundamental truth. Expect the unexpected!
Keep stepping outside the box my young friend...

 



Fluency versus Creativity...The French Conundrum

Apologies to all those who have so kindly read and even commented on my scribbling, because I have not posted a blog since well before Christmas. Problem is returning to the UK, selling a house, buying a house, medical stuff, Christmas and now waiting for solicitors to do what they do, has kept me from the keyboard.

But yesterday a chance conversation, whilst out walking with some English acquaintances (ex Anglo/Francophiles) made me consider again the  French teaching system. Apparently the couple had reared their children mostly in France & so both children, now adults, were bilingual. Choosing to capitalise on their linguistic abilities they chose their current university studies accordingly . However one offspring, combining Business Studies with French, had failed  his first year in French, mostly due to a lack of creativity. Grammatically & technically he was fluent, but in  application in a creative process he was not.

This so fits what I keep seeing in the teaching & learning within the French classroom, there has to be a correct & definitive answer, alternatives are not on the curriculum. What I experience  is a lack of creative thought, either taught or displayed, seems to be a commonality, quite something when you consider France is the nation of artist & romantics, seeming free thinkers.


 
Not so perhaps: Picasso was Spanish; El Greco was Greek (if that's not too obvious);Van Gough, Dutch...seems you just have to have painted in Paris and become famous and hey presto you become an honorary Frenchman. And all that café culture and absinthe made for a great mix of ideas and the avant-garde philosophies  were born.

But where did the romantic bit come from? Well maybe it was the Bonaparte & Josephine myths; the shape  of the champagne glasses and all that. Or maybe its what my granny might have said  "its all that sex in the language", which was her naïve & unknowing way of explaiing the genders of French nouns.
As far as she could see, "if they have all those 'le & la' and they do all that kissing when they meet, its going to cause problems". Now there is some free thinking...

I'm mindful of the fact...

I have recently completed an NHS Chronic Pain Rehabilitation course, based on ‘Mindfulness Theory’ Four weeks, eight days, of group cognitive therapy to give us a greater understanding of long term pain and strategies to deal with its effects on our lives. Chronic pain is long term pain which in my case arose from a riding incident in 2005.

I had been a keen runner, a gym addict, a brown belt in karate, a passionate windsurfer, an ardent long haul traveller, a keen horse, motor and mountain bike rider and top of my professional tree. After the accident I battled back to fitness several times, each time to relapse, with hospital stays, lumber punctures, scans, facet joint injections, physiotherapy, increasing infections and depression. Finally in 2010 I decided to take early retirement from my senior advisory teacher post, managing a team of twenty on teachers and assistants. It was no light decision, I had worked all my life to build my education, skill and experience and was very proud of the Head Teachers role and the positive influence I could have on children and young adults, but felt I was no longer able to give of my best and I didn’t want to let people down.

So the multidisciplinary rehabilitation course was my chance to understand what had happened to me and learn strategies to relearn & cope with my changed persona and the frustrations of daily life often with pain or fear of pain. The Impact Team, from psychology, physiotherapy, nursing, neurology and anaesthesiology, worked with us to help us understand our damaged central nervous system, our autonomic responses, our physiological struggles, our values and goals. Through discussion and Buddhist relaxation, to Mindfulness and Tai Chi we each came to a different understanding of where we were and, more importantly, how we could re-engage with ourselves and re-find our values. The concept of Mindfulness; focussing on the present, living for the day and awareness of self was key to our learning and our final task was to examine our values and set ourselves paced goals to move on with.

My values have always been rooted in ‘being the best I can be’, in ‘sharing and caring for others’ and in having pride in myself and use my academic skills. Hence one of my first steps was to reengage with the gym and another to keep up with my creative writing, so here’s the outcome of those first small steps. Getting in touch with those values and I set out for the gym.
Now I was fully aware of the date (Nov 11^th) and did notice the time (10.55am) as I got to the building, but what happened next blew me away. This was the moment I’d avoided for so long and I mustered all my positivity to, ‘live for the moment’ as I opened the swing gym doors.

It was silent, figures frozen, machines still, eyes lowered; the only sound from a single bugle being played on the wide screen. I had stepped out of my fearful universe into that two minutes silence in honour of all those who gave their lives in two World Wars. Now you can’t get a better example of ‘Mindfulness’ than that! Today I was taught by men, long dead, the meaning of life.

“Be kind to yourself”, those voices from the past asserted, “stay in this present moment!”As an old Moorlands farmer said to one of my new mindful friends “Eh lass, just be!”

So there it is; in mind and in print...I count that a small success!

Pumpkins past and Magical moments...

Halloween, has all but finished and, as the fireworks of November 5^th fade and the price of pumpkins drop, I’m left speculating on this, one of our stranger festivals.

 

As a child there was no ‘trick or treat’, no fancy costumes or parties, because Halloween melted under the greater English celebration of Bonfire Night. ’Remember, remember the 5^th of November. Gunpowder, treason and plot!’ and all the excitement of saving for fireworks & gathering round the communal bonfire put the carved turnip head lanterns to shame.

I was reminded of how bizarre the celebration of November the 5th actually was, a few years ago, whilst attending a village bonfire in the UK, with a young French friend. “Tell me again why you celebrate not killing a king, by burning an image of someone who was only a puppet in a conspiracy?” Put like that it sounds completely different, but I felt sure she too must have similar strange celebrations. “Quite possibly”, she replied, “but we killed our royalty and if we did have such a celebration it would be with fine food & wine”. Made my plastic cup of indifferent cider and over cooked sausage seem rather insipid...point taken!

So it started me musing about the whole Halloween thing, why it’s gotten so big and what now makes it a firm family favourite. I think it’s something to do with dressing up, wearing masks and carving pumpkins that appeals to our inner creative selves. When else would we encourage our children to roam the streets (albeit with an adult) and knock on complete strangers doors shouting ‘Trick or Treat’? Indeed a friend was taken with the concept of Halloween she took her border collie with coat laden with treats round the neighbours’ houses to deliver the goodies, such a lovely idea and how delighted those children must have been. Children like to be a bit frightened, look a bit scary and maybe, as adults, we too like the excuse to join in. Maybe it’s this ability to act out the powerful, scary or dark role that appeals; its escape from the ordinary and we get to play out late!

Now teachers and, in particular primary teachers, know this only too well and utilise any excuse to enliven children’s work with colour, description or imagination. We can add up broomsticks, describe witches and print with pumpkins, all in the name of education. And, if we are lucky we get to join in and dress up, because any teacher worth their salt is in touch with their childhood self.

At a friend’s school recently, the children were involved in the work of a local artist who had completed a mural entitled ‘The Magical Tree’. Children & staff were asked to dress up as something magical to create a colourful fantasy around Halloween. Two staff members, suitably attired were hurrying to join the fun when they were caught, mid sentence discussing their relative costumes;

“Well look at us”, one said “Never thought I’d see it, the drag queen bunny and the pregnant fairy!”

Now that’s an image to savour!

 

(With thanks to Neil Pumpkins and Sandra's Schooldays)

Its a French mind set...

The Colmont is a tributary of the Mayenne river which lazily winds through the sleepy villages and picturesque hamlets of the northern Pay de la Loire.
 It is here, close to the village of Brece. that an area for picnics, petanque and play has been made. A place of quiet, children's voices, babbling water and seasonal fishermen. In true French fashion it is simple, well planned and family friendly and affixed to one of the trees is a sign which states that parents are responsible for their children in this location.

Yesterday afternoon, walking in the area I watched as three young boys, between about six and eight years old, played in and around the riverside . Completely unaccompanied, they watched each other, never went too far and finally, holding the youngest ones hand, walked homeward. Attending to road safety and thwacking the passing vegetation, they carefully wound their way back to the village. French children are expected to be aware, act safety and generally be responsible, just as children did years ago in England.
Makes me think me of a conversation I had with a head teacher in 2009 in a township in Malawi (charity educational work). There was a a rough roadway down from the school, one side of which had a substantial drop.The children ranged from 4 ~ 14 years and daily several hundred children ascended  this track. So we asked the Head why there was no fence, no safety rail and his response was simple, " Why would they children go near the drop? They know that its dangerous so they don't go near the edge?"

Yet back in the UK we carefully guard, even cosset our children. Soft playgrounds, prohibitive signage and continuous supervision. Instead, IT, screens, technology, all very essential commodities replace real experience. if children learn to fear the outside world and  distance themselves from reality we encourage dependence and  isolation. Certainly children in the Pay de la Loire seem self reliant and engaged with their environment. And,though its very different, do the children in the suburbs of Marsaille or Paris I suspect. Their self reliance and engagement will be the same. Its a French mind set.