A ramble through my Provence neighbourhood

After my talk of strikes yesterday, turns out my daughter's maternelle school is closed for the day. Yep, on strike!

A photo-heavy post today as I record something we love to do in our little neighbourhood - just walk around. I got up early the other weekend and headed off alone with my camera, it was a great morning.

This is the first view I come to, about 200m up the road. I love it.

After a 500m stroll through a pine forest, I pop out at our local vineyard, which I have shown you before. 

You can just see the colours starting to turn.

A few of the rows had obviously been machine harvested.

But some of the rows had dried out fruit, what I would have thought was ruined.

And still others had this. So I'm not sure what the owners are up to.

From the vineyard I head down this track and then up the road to the old part of the village.

Along the way I find festive hedges:

Lovely cottages:

An abandoned building:

I love the little peek of autumn coming in through the roof:

The old church stands on top of the hill:

I think these ruins are from an older part of the church:

Can you see all the bulbs down there? I thought it was too early for these, I'm obviously wrong. 

I head down the hill, past my son's primary school:

I arrive in town, delighted to realise the market is on. The market is on every Saturday, I don't know why I forgot. 

Overjoyed at being so clever, I decide I deserve a coffee and pain au chocolat while I buy bread for lunch.  

I love my local bakery, it has a chandelier (of course)!

Fully caffeinated, I tour the market and buy some fresh ham for lunch (cut from the bone as I wait) and a fresh goat's cheese (chèvre), recommended by the man tending the stall.  

Then it's back over the hill again, heading for home. This is the view on the way home:

This field is just before our road:

I take a quick tour around our yard, seeing how autumn is treating it. A bit of colour here:

Some olives fruiting there:

We have a huge vine growing up the side of our house, so I lay on my back in the grass and get a shot. 

Then I roll right and see the kids' playhouse in the back yard - it always looks so cosy.

Then I roll left and see this fab view of our front yard. Everything looks so fresh and bright, I can't believe it's all about to die and drop off. *sniff*

Last of all, I head inside to show off my spoils to the family. A torsade (twisted pastry with custard and chocolate inside) and a brioche glacé for second-breakfast. Baguette and chèvre pays for lunch (with the ham). 

Okay, so I just check the chèvre is all right. 

Yes, okay, and I may have tried the ham too. It was scrumptious. 

This is why Victoria's Secret aren't calling me back (stuff them, I'd rather eat cheese). 

The National Pastime

En grève. On strike.

It's the French national pastime. I'm not being smart - they will tell you this all the time, usually with an eye roll and a goofy shrug.

Readers living in France know what I'm talking about, but for those overseas you may not know that France is in the grip of some hefty strike action at the moment.

Why? Well, the French retirement system, amongst other things, is sending the country broke. To help rectify this President Sarkozy announced that the national retirement age will rise from 60 to 62, and the eligibility age for a government pension will rise from 65 to 67. Folks are not happy.

It's odd because all the people I've spoken to about it agree the retirement system needs to be fixed, but no one wants it to happen on their shift. There have been considerable transport strikes (airports and the rail system) which have been a pain in the derrière for those going about their daily business. The mister needs to get to Paris today for work but only 1 in 4 TGVs are operating. Not to mention whether he will be able to get home again on Tuesday.

French truck drivers have also joined the strike. They participate by driving in slow convoy down the national highways, causing massive traffic jams that infuriate the very people they are trying to help - regular punters. I must admit I have trouble with the logic behind this one.

But the strikers have have done well this time, they are hitting the country where it hurts. Oil refinery workers have been on strike almost two weeks and workers are blockading the fuel depots (where fuel stockpiles are kept). This teamed with panic buying means fuel shortages. There is no fuel left in our town, or in Aix I have heard. I can't drive around and verify this as I only have 68km left in my tank. After this, if the strike hasn't resolved, I am walking the kids to and from school. Sadly for the mister, he still has enough fuel in his car to get to work for a good 10 days.

This is all very strange to me - the only thing I can equate it to is the Stevedore strike we had in 1998. It was inconvenient for some, but nothing on this level. We won't be going anywhere next weekend (and really we shouldn't have gone to Cassis on the Saturday just gone either) unless we can get some fuel. Things are starting to grind to a halt, it will be interesting to see how the government reacts.

Do you like the cushion panels I made from some of my US spoils? I love the colours, but haven't yet sewn them together as I strongly believe white piping is required for this pillow to attain its full potential.

The picture below shows all the piping I have left. And I can't seem to find anything suitable online in France, the few I've found on eBay are all too thin.

There is a store in Aix that has exactly the piping I need to finish my cushion. But I can't drive there because I don't have enough fuel in the car.

Sh*t just got real, y'all. 

When a girl can't drive herself down to Eurodif for some chunky white piping, something needs to be done.

I'm just not sure what, yet. 

P.S. Don't look too close at my zipper stitching. My zipper foot and I had a nasty fight and obviously I lost. 

To the traveller go the spoils.

Before I took my short trip to the US from France I did some shopping at some of my favourite online fabric stores:

Hawthorn Threads
Cotton Thread Fabrics
Fresh Squeezed Fabrics, and
Fabricworm

Quilting fabrics cost around €4-5 here in France. That's for 25 centimetres.

So €16-20/metre.

Or US$20-25/yard.

Even with US$12-13 for international postage to France, I come out in front. Even better with domestic postage to my sister's house. So I had four fat packages waiting for me upon arrival. Happy days.

I bought myself some staples. No not those sort of staples, these ones:

Kona solids in (from top) Ash, Natural, Snow and White. 

And I went a bit crazy with the greens:

These are going to be a cushion cover I think:

Monaluna for Birch Fabrics Circa 50

These too:

Cosmo Cricket Early Bird (with Robert Kaufman Quilter's Linen in taupe [centre])

This is going to be for my favourite little gal:

And this is just for fun:

Holiday Happy Santa Softies by Monica for Lecien. Snip, sew, stuff, shazam!

And these were for no other reason than they look real purty and I wanted them:

Actually, that's not completely true. See the light blue floral print third from the right? That's going to be a new lampshade cover. It's Lecien Isso Ecco & Heart's Dancing Dandelion (of course). 

And I got it all home with a few kilos to spare. 

You lost me at No Reply Comment...

Thanks to the wonderful Keith at A Taste of Garlic, I've had the most comments on my blog evah (which given it's only 5 months old isn't saying much, but hey I'm excited).

And I emailed replies to every one of them. What's that? You didn't get yours? Hmm.

Did you know that when you comment, blogger sends your comment to me in an email? It's ace*!

It's ace because I can rest assured I won't miss any comments (particularly on older posts which I don't check anymore), and I get to enjoy them in the comfort of my own inbox.

AND I can just hit reply and say something back to you, which is even acer**!

Unless you haven't set your blogger profile up to allow replies to your comments.  In these cases your emailed comment says "no reply-comment", and tiny part of me dies. *sniff*

But there is an easy solution to this - just change your profile to allowed the person on who's blog you've commented to reply to you by email.

How do you do this? Easy-peasy. Just:

1. Go to your blogger dashboard

2. Click on 'Edit Profile'

3. There's an orange header that says 'Privacy'

     In this section check the 'show my email address' box

4. Make sure there actually is an email address in the 'Identity' section a bit further down

5. Scroll down even further and make sure you click 'save changes' otherwise they won't be!

I have an email address with the word 'bonjour' in it which I set up for use with my blog.

I also set my 'display name', in the 'Identity' section, to show Kirsty@Bonjour. This hopefully helps people relate my comments (and emails) to me/this blog.

Setting up another email address is also good for those who feel a bit squeamish about using their personal email out in the www. There are a lot of fruitloops out there, I hear.

So please, update your profile. If you posted in the last few days and haven't received an email from me, this means you!

Many thanks to Karen at Sew Many Ways, who took time out to explain this to me when I first started this blog.

A picture I took in Bonifacio, Corsica, earlier this year that has absolutely nothing to do with this post. 

* 1980s Australian slang for totally awesome

** Totally awesomer.

French KISS

This morning as I scoffed down my porridge in front of the computer (bad habit, both the surfing and the scoffing), I discovered my blog had been reviewed on A Taste of Garlic. Thanks Keith!

Given that my last post was about America (oh, the irony) I thought I'd better get another French-themed post up lickity-split.

Just a quick one as the kids are underfoot today (no school on Wednesdays in France), but I thought I would put up this great videoclip.

I heard this song on the radio for the first time during our first week in France. As the iconic opening played we all started bopping along and were then pleasantly surprised to find it was a French cover version.

Since living here almost a year and watching a lot more French video clips, I've now realised that most (maybe all?) of the people in the clip are actually French popstars.

C'est cool, non?

The U S of A

My quick trip to the US didn't start on the best foot - delays due to a workers' strike at Marseille airport made me miss my flight from Paris to Dulles.

So I spent the time waiting for the next flight at Charles de Gaulle airport looking at lovely things I couldn't afford:

And enjoyed a wine under the fancy ceiling:

But I got there eventually and most importantly spent quality time with my little sister, her husband and their brand new baby boy.

I think he liked his gift. He was certainly comfortable enough on it.

My brother-in-law pulled babysitting duty over the weekend so the girls could go shopping and get pedicures (of course) and visit the Eastern markets. The days when my brother-in-law worked we hung around home, reading and gossiping in between baby Q&A sessions. With only one baby between the 2 or 3 of us, I found the trip to be incredibly relaxing (but then again, I wasn't doing the night feeds!)

Speaking of feeds. Of food. I have to mention how well we ate the whole time I was there. My brother-in-law could put Iron Chef in a pinky hold with his cooking skills. We had pork, we had lamb, we had a champagne brunch with eggs benedictine (or should that be florendict? All I know is there was bacon AND spinach, just as nature intended.)

And the desserts. Mon Dieu, the desserts.

Behold the chocolate soufflé  with berries.

Marvel at the crème caramel.

Ruminate on the fact that he made double batches so I got to eat each dessert twice. Plus the cheesecake they brought back from the restaurant for me (I had to babysit to earn my desserts).  I'm still amazed I didn't have to buy a double seat to get back home.

Plus the man brings home flowers. Definitely a keeper.

What else did I love about my stay? Well, I loooooved this mirror my sister had on the wall in the guest bedroom.

And I loved the nursery that my sis put together.

In the nursery I found a friend from my brother-in-law's childhood.

Isn't he natty? He was very obliging and happily posed for me. Love the tail.

As soon as I saw him I thought of you, Eva! I bet this old monkey would have some tales to tell Herman.

I have some more pictures from the week, but they can wait for another day.

The trip home was uneventful compared to the trip out. I don't get away often but I think it's important (and healthy) for mums to have some time away - it makes everyone appreciate everyone else again. I certainly appreciated seeing my lovely little family again, not to mention coming home to a tidy house, fresh flowers and some lovely handmade letters (the mister's a keeper too).

I missed you too, sweetie.