Thursday, February 08, 2007
Friday 2 February 2007
After arriving back from Germany on Monday, I had just two days turn around before leaving for Ipswich on the Thursday. There were all the usual maintenance tasks to be done; washing, ironing, e-mails and phone messages plus a visit to the cinema - my programme was waiting in the post and I found I could go and see "Volver" the following day at 6.00 pm, which I very much enjoyed. I also went to the hairdressers in Saint-Denis, having decided it would be too long to wait until I got back to LNL; they were surprised when I said yes, I had been there before about a year ago, and I ended up having a long conversation about Normandy with the manager. The haircut was good but not as short as usual, so no doubt I will be back at my village salon again before too long.
A less pleasant experience was having my shopping trolley broken by two little urchins while wheeling it back from Carrefour full of shopping - they thought it would be a joke to creep up behind me and pick up the back axel and drop it, and one of the wheels broke off. I think they were a little aghast at what had happened, and then tried to make out they thought I was the mother of one of them, as from behind, I looked just the same, they said. I was surprised at my ability for fierce telling-off in French, and asked where they lived and vaguely threatened to speak to their parents. When I got home both N and I agreed that it wasn't worth it; I was about to go off again in a couple of days, it had been quite a cheap trolley anyway, and the best thing to do was just to replace it. Ironically, the next day I was coming home from fetching the bread and there were three gendarmes walking down that street! They are never there when you need them.
I set off via Eurostar on Thursday morning, and was in Ipswich by 5.00; I am getting quite used to the Saint-Denis - Ipswich journey by now. I stayed for a long weekend until Tuesday; helping my brother and sister tidy and sort my mother's house and what was left in it, discussions on various things, what should be kept and what sold and so on. On Saturday daughters Madeleine and Caroline came to help, and the whole family went out to tea. I brought some smaller pieces of china, cutlery and photos back with me, but packed larger items in a cupboard destined for me (originally belonging to my great-grandparents) which - if all goes well! - should be driven to LNL by my brother and brother-in-law next April when they come to visit. On Sunday we visited various places of family interest in Felixstowe where we had lived as children, and then on Monday I had a complete change of activity when my friend Gill from Cambridge came to Ipswich and we spent the day sitting in restaurants and catching up. By the time I returned on Tuesday I was very tired - talking, remembering and reminiscing is hard work! and slept most of the train journey home. N was there to meet me at the Gare du Nord, all the nicer as I hadn't expected him, and being driven back to Saint-Denis reminded me of when I used to come and visit, before I lived here.
We had originally planned to drive back to Normandy the next day, as we seem to have been away for so long, but accepted an invitation for Saturday (tomorrow) for a musical afternoon at Livilliers, where we went on a similar occasion in January last year, where together with two violinists and his cellist friend Jean) N will play a Beethoven quartet. So this means I have had another few days catching up here again this week; without the cinema and the hairdresser this time, but I did go to the chorale yesterday evening. We spent most of the time - very enjoyably - on the Fauré Requiem again, plus two other shorter Renaissance pieces. No news whatsoever of a performance date; the chef says the next concert will be all Renaissance pieces (including some from last year, which we all know, even me!) and it will take place when we are ready. No mention of when the Fauré performance might be. I gave Marie-Christine my e-mail address and asked her to let me know if and when there is any news of a date; she said if we had any new music she would scan it and send it to me; we shall see!
The most important happening while I was away was the arrival in the post of the corrected proofs of the Lexique (Dictionary of French/English property terms.) N had checked them and found about a dozen mistakes; I spent all Wednesday afternoon reading through and found about 30 or 40. As before, he didn't know whether to be pleased or sorry. I even found errors in his list of corrections. At least I feel I am earning my share of the royalties (if any) and the right to have my name on the cover, even if it was spelt wrongly twice! What's more, he had made an appointment for us to go and see the publishers and take them the corrected proofs in person, at 10.00 this morning. As I have never had An Appointment with My Publisher before, I found it all extremely interesting.
The office/shop was in Montparnasse, and deals only in dictionaries; professional and trade guides and dictionaries as well as all the most usual and the most obscure combinations of language dictionaries you could think of - apparently the latest is Serbo-Greek. We squashed into a very small office, three of us at one desk, and N went though the errors one by one with his contact Marie - including a large missing letter « I » from the front cover, spotted by me - and she seemed to think it would all be straightforward. It reminded me of the more exciting parts of my work in the office in Cambridge; editing and proof-reading the office newsletter over and over again until it was perfect, and of the exam papers which were stamped "Approved for Print". (In French: "Bon à Tirer".) I even briefly found myself wondering if I could get a job there, until I remembered the very long dull metro journey from Saint-Denis to Montparnasse, not to mention the fact that I live in Normandy.
It seemed a long time since N and I had been into Paris together, and when we came out of the office at 10.30 we wondered what to do next. We visited the nearby Maine-Montparnasse shopping centre where I used to go often when I lived here in 1973 and it was newly opened, but it didn't seem as comprehensive as the Forum des Halles, so we didn't stay long. My main requirement was a new shopping trolley and I remembered seeing a large selection at BHV and managed to get one in the sale, a little stronger than before, I hope.
N's main shopping requirements were a guide book and street map of Milan from FNAC, as while I had been away in Ipswich he had booked us a three-day trip there for the end of March. He also needed large rolls of strong sellotape for mending sheet music - it has all now been labelled together with the rest of his books, but much of it was falling apart. We had lunch at Tarte Julie at the Forum des Halles on the way back, a lovely little restaurant which, as the name might suggest, specialises in serving sweet and savoury tarts. Once we got back to Saint-Denis station I went on to Carrefour to try out my new shopping trolley; even though we are leaving tomorrow we shall go straight from Livilliers to Normandy as it is on the way and we need to take a contribution to eat, like last time. When I got back I found N playing some of his newly strengthened piano music; he said he had been playing Greig, and Greig had won.
After arriving back from Germany on Monday, I had just two days turn around before leaving for Ipswich on the Thursday. There were all the usual maintenance tasks to be done; washing, ironing, e-mails and phone messages plus a visit to the cinema - my programme was waiting in the post and I found I could go and see "Volver" the following day at 6.00 pm, which I very much enjoyed. I also went to the hairdressers in Saint-Denis, having decided it would be too long to wait until I got back to LNL; they were surprised when I said yes, I had been there before about a year ago, and I ended up having a long conversation about Normandy with the manager. The haircut was good but not as short as usual, so no doubt I will be back at my village salon again before too long.
A less pleasant experience was having my shopping trolley broken by two little urchins while wheeling it back from Carrefour full of shopping - they thought it would be a joke to creep up behind me and pick up the back axel and drop it, and one of the wheels broke off. I think they were a little aghast at what had happened, and then tried to make out they thought I was the mother of one of them, as from behind, I looked just the same, they said. I was surprised at my ability for fierce telling-off in French, and asked where they lived and vaguely threatened to speak to their parents. When I got home both N and I agreed that it wasn't worth it; I was about to go off again in a couple of days, it had been quite a cheap trolley anyway, and the best thing to do was just to replace it. Ironically, the next day I was coming home from fetching the bread and there were three gendarmes walking down that street! They are never there when you need them.
I set off via Eurostar on Thursday morning, and was in Ipswich by 5.00; I am getting quite used to the Saint-Denis - Ipswich journey by now. I stayed for a long weekend until Tuesday; helping my brother and sister tidy and sort my mother's house and what was left in it, discussions on various things, what should be kept and what sold and so on. On Saturday daughters Madeleine and Caroline came to help, and the whole family went out to tea. I brought some smaller pieces of china, cutlery and photos back with me, but packed larger items in a cupboard destined for me (originally belonging to my great-grandparents) which - if all goes well! - should be driven to LNL by my brother and brother-in-law next April when they come to visit. On Sunday we visited various places of family interest in Felixstowe where we had lived as children, and then on Monday I had a complete change of activity when my friend Gill from Cambridge came to Ipswich and we spent the day sitting in restaurants and catching up. By the time I returned on Tuesday I was very tired - talking, remembering and reminiscing is hard work! and slept most of the train journey home. N was there to meet me at the Gare du Nord, all the nicer as I hadn't expected him, and being driven back to Saint-Denis reminded me of when I used to come and visit, before I lived here.
We had originally planned to drive back to Normandy the next day, as we seem to have been away for so long, but accepted an invitation for Saturday (tomorrow) for a musical afternoon at Livilliers, where we went on a similar occasion in January last year, where together with two violinists and his cellist friend Jean) N will play a Beethoven quartet. So this means I have had another few days catching up here again this week; without the cinema and the hairdresser this time, but I did go to the chorale yesterday evening. We spent most of the time - very enjoyably - on the Fauré Requiem again, plus two other shorter Renaissance pieces. No news whatsoever of a performance date; the chef says the next concert will be all Renaissance pieces (including some from last year, which we all know, even me!) and it will take place when we are ready. No mention of when the Fauré performance might be. I gave Marie-Christine my e-mail address and asked her to let me know if and when there is any news of a date; she said if we had any new music she would scan it and send it to me; we shall see!
The most important happening while I was away was the arrival in the post of the corrected proofs of the Lexique (Dictionary of French/English property terms.) N had checked them and found about a dozen mistakes; I spent all Wednesday afternoon reading through and found about 30 or 40. As before, he didn't know whether to be pleased or sorry. I even found errors in his list of corrections. At least I feel I am earning my share of the royalties (if any) and the right to have my name on the cover, even if it was spelt wrongly twice! What's more, he had made an appointment for us to go and see the publishers and take them the corrected proofs in person, at 10.00 this morning. As I have never had An Appointment with My Publisher before, I found it all extremely interesting.
The office/shop was in Montparnasse, and deals only in dictionaries; professional and trade guides and dictionaries as well as all the most usual and the most obscure combinations of language dictionaries you could think of - apparently the latest is Serbo-Greek. We squashed into a very small office, three of us at one desk, and N went though the errors one by one with his contact Marie - including a large missing letter « I » from the front cover, spotted by me - and she seemed to think it would all be straightforward. It reminded me of the more exciting parts of my work in the office in Cambridge; editing and proof-reading the office newsletter over and over again until it was perfect, and of the exam papers which were stamped "Approved for Print". (In French: "Bon à Tirer".) I even briefly found myself wondering if I could get a job there, until I remembered the very long dull metro journey from Saint-Denis to Montparnasse, not to mention the fact that I live in Normandy.
It seemed a long time since N and I had been into Paris together, and when we came out of the office at 10.30 we wondered what to do next. We visited the nearby Maine-Montparnasse shopping centre where I used to go often when I lived here in 1973 and it was newly opened, but it didn't seem as comprehensive as the Forum des Halles, so we didn't stay long. My main requirement was a new shopping trolley and I remembered seeing a large selection at BHV and managed to get one in the sale, a little stronger than before, I hope.
N's main shopping requirements were a guide book and street map of Milan from FNAC, as while I had been away in Ipswich he had booked us a three-day trip there for the end of March. He also needed large rolls of strong sellotape for mending sheet music - it has all now been labelled together with the rest of his books, but much of it was falling apart. We had lunch at Tarte Julie at the Forum des Halles on the way back, a lovely little restaurant which, as the name might suggest, specialises in serving sweet and savoury tarts. Once we got back to Saint-Denis station I went on to Carrefour to try out my new shopping trolley; even though we are leaving tomorrow we shall go straight from Livilliers to Normandy as it is on the way and we need to take a contribution to eat, like last time. When I got back I found N playing some of his newly strengthened piano music; he said he had been playing Greig, and Greig had won.
# posted by Chez Katherine @ 6:26 AM 
