Tuesday, March 4

Ten of us had made it, for this first English meeting after two weeks OFF.

We managed to speak and/or to listen to others for the whole hour, nearly without a single "en-aparté" in French. Congratulations.

Humour was back too, and we enjoyed a lot Christian’s plays on words, called puns, (Scottish small peas) as well as Aline’s ones, for example "whales" for umbrellas’ ribs.

Paper-dictionaries as well as on-screen ones were often needed for the whole hour : such good friends of ours, along with cameras !

Current weather was of course the starting theme-of-the-day :
 a gale = a short strong moment of wind
 a shower = a brief fall of rain (un "abat d’eau" à Bordeaux)
 a hail = a shower of frozen pellets

M. remembered her first trip to Toronto when she had to decipher a real riddle : "Straight on the QEW" : that Queue actually meant Queen Elizabeth Way.

 I beg your pardon ! = Plaît-il in Posh (=BCBG) language.
 to be finished = to be broke / to have finished = to be through.
 to be miles away = not to follow a conversation, to be lost in one’s thoughts.

We spoke about two exhibitions in the Aquitaine Museum :
 one about aboriginal art : Vivid Memories
 and the other one about slavery and the history of the Port of Bordeaux.

BIRCH SAP

Chantal spoke about a very interesting moment of nature discovery she had thanks to an association of hers : they tasted birch sap extracted from silver birches in Cestas wood collected in early spring, before bud development.

Drinking a bit of birch sap makes one look ten years younger : a tonic.

Drinking a lot of birch sap makes one constipasted (bowels).

Birch sap collection is done by tying a bottle to the tree, drilling a hole into its trunk and leading the sap to the bottle by a plastic tube.

Closing of the hole in the bark at the end of the season, with a plug

We weren’t successful in finding a way of translating une balade végétale : Strolling Tours ? Botanic Trail ?

CINEMA

We spoke about several movies :
 12 years a slave,
 Philomena,
 Lulu femme nue,
 The lunch-box : This movie shows us everyday life in BOMBAY, the running of « dabbawallahs », and trains without doors completely full with workers ; but above all the Indian way of life for women.
The moral is told during the movie : « Sometimes the wrong train will get you to the right station. »
 Pompéi.

• Annie spoke about three paintings of the Vesuvi she saw in the "Musée des Arts Décoratifs" by P. F. BARRIGUES, dit de Fontainieu (Marseille, 1760-1850).