Singing and Dancing to Summer

« Il n’y a pas eu mort d’homme » the French say ruefully after complaining about something or bracingly when someone else has been complaining about something. “Nobody died.” I’ve been saying it a lot since mid-May when the electronic devices that make my life comfortable began falling apart one after the other.
My printer went first; it was only 8 years old. I decided it was time for a new computer too. My 6 year old Dell, while still working, was showing definite signs of wishing to retire. Go to the store and buy a new printer – which also photocopies and scans or will as soon as I figure out how --; call Dell and order a new laptop; hire a guy to come transfer the insides of my old computer into the new one. An efficient day’s work.
Except the computer didn’t. Work that is. I entered into a 2 week long customer service nightmare with Dell. I now have a perfectly working laptop. But only after I e-mailed an American Dell executive whose name and contact details a friend had. His response resulted in my call being followed to completion by the Director of Technical Support Europe and a phone call of apology from the Director of Customer Service Europe. It was hard to go back to my normal, anonymous life.
In the midst of my Dell crisis, my 7 year old cable box stopped functioning. One electronic problem at a time seemed more than sufficient. So, having called the cable company and found out where to buy a new one, I decided that could wait. Now every evening a message pops up saying “Soon France will switch to digital TV and your set will stop working.” Sigh.
By the beginning of June, serenity was returning to my life -- when my internet access failed. At least I thought that was the problem until I picked up my phone to call customer service and heard … nothing. It turned out the water company had cut through the telephone cable while performing some mysterious and disruptive task “to make your life better”. Guess again. Five long days without cable TV’s international channels, the internet, e-mail and international long distance made my world seem very small.
Fortunately, June is a month of music and dance as we move joyfully towards summer so I got some relief from my electronic woes.

My choir’s two concerts were successful and well-attended.



There were other concerts to go to.













the pre-school’s end of year festivities












and, of course, la Fête de la Musique
























Life gradually looked good again.


Welcome summer.

Happy Anniversary "Double Life" !

A year ago today, I began my foray into bloggery. My optimistic intention had been to post once or twice a week. I didn’t always do that (the month of December is non-existent though I caught up in January). Aside from that lapse, I wrote between 3 and 6 times a month – close enough to my goal to satisfy me.
Along the way I experienced writer’s block and the occasional surprise of sitting down to write one thing and ending up with a different story. I also suffered the necessary pains of editing. As I once wrote to a journalist friend “Sometimes editing is easy and sometimes it’s like cutting off a finger.”
In my desire for accuracy, I learned some fascinating facts about the different events, holidays and customs I described. I feel richer for that.
The most unexpected revelation in my year of blogging was becoming aware of the intricate weave of my Third Culture Kid-ness – especially when I described holidays which evoked not only childhood, adolescent and adult memories for me but my childhood country, my adolescent country, my adult country – and my passport country.
Bloggers, like all authors, hope -- to paraphrase Ray Kinsella in "Field of Dreams" -- "If you write it, readers will come". Here, too, I made a number of discoveries. Friends I thought would eagerly peruse every word within hours of my posting have proved lackadaisical and sometimes downright resistant. My two most faithful readers – the only people besides me who have read every post – are my best friend from childhood (you can always count on your childhood friends ) and a French friend from choir whom I didn’t even tell about my blog for months because I wasn’t sure she read English well enough to enjoy it. Françoise not only reads every post but sends me comments in an e-mail afterwards.
I have a small but international following. People from 20 different countries have clicked on at least one of my blog posts – including countries where I know no one.


Some arrive accidentally. I chuckled when I discovered that my blog post about French school vacations, which I humorously gave a Latin title, has been on page two of a google search ever since – as students seek help with their Latin homework. Sorry guys. Yesterday, I had a hit from the town where I spent my childhood – Oakville Ontario – where I no longer know anyone. I discovered the person’s google search words were “Margaret Sproat Oakville piano teacher”. My blog comes up as number 10 in that search even though I do not know and do not mention Margaret Sproat. I did, however mention taking piano lessons in one of my posts. And I mentioned Oakville in at least one other. I hope my accidental reader managed to connect with the piano teacher.
"What now?" I hear you ask. I’ve decided that my blogging experience has been worthwhile enough that I’d like to commit to another year. I still have things to share. And, no doubt, new events will crop up in the next 12 months. I hope you will commit to another year, too.
On to more adventures!

Tennis Anyone?

The day the Festival de Cannes ended, my next harbinger of summer began -- the French Open, which the French simply call Roland Garros, after the venue where it is played.


I was first introduced to tennis through books. Various British authors wrote books where child protagonists played tennis. People in Agatha Christie novels were always organizing tennis parties. In a teen romance novel whose title and author are long forgotten the young heroine, having beaten all her rivals, walks out of Wimbledon as her name is being called to start the Women’s Singles Final and into the arms of the boy she loves. Even at the time I thought that highly unlikely!
When we moved to Jamaica, I got a chance to learn to play tennis at school -- until my long-suffering games mistress gently suggested I try something else that required less eye-hand co-ordination. I never got to play a match or understand the scoring until many years later, when I spent a rainy weekend visiting friends near Poitiers in west central France. Their local tennis club was having an indoor tournament and, since it was too wet to do anything else, we stayed there all weekend cheering the players. My friends, knocked out in the first round of mixed doubles, were happy to answer all my questions and, by the end of the weekend, I was able to watch a match with some understanding of what was happening.
Two or three years later, home with a broken leg all spring, I watched every game of every match of Roland Garros on TV. I was hooked.



The next year I tried to get a ticket to a day’s play. In vain. Roland Garros tickets are put on sale in December and January to members of tennis clubs. You must give your membership number and the official number of your club when you reserve your tickets. General Admission sales begin in February. In those pre-internet days, it was almost impossible. If you sent your request for tickets in too early, it was ignored. If you applied too late, there might not be a seat. One year, disappointed again, I was told that there was a charity event the day before the Tournament started. All you had to do was show up, stand in line, pay a modest entry fee and you could see a series of exhibition matches. For several years, I happily did this and saw all the top tennis players of the early 80s

Eventually, I got tired of getting up early, taking an hour-long metro ride and standing in line for several hours in order to spend the day surrounded by people I didn’t know. Some events should be enjoyed in the company of friends and none of mine were interested.
So, for the last twenty years or so, I’ve had my own private seat.


Sure I miss the atmosphere and the excitement of the crowd.


But I can attend every match for free – even the Finals. I never get sunburned and, if there is a rain delay I don’t get wet.
The internet has made buying tickets easier and every year, I think that maybe next year I’ll go again in person. All I have to do is be at my computer the morning of February 2nd, my credit card at the ready, dreaming of summer.

Every Weekend a Holiday

This year, each weekend in May provided something to celebrate or commemorate.
May 1st and May 8th fell on Saturdays. The weekend after that was the four day Ascension holiday so Pentecost or Whitsun (celebrated one week afterwards) also came in May rather than in early June. Since there were five Sundays this May, there was one left for "la Fête des Mères" (Mothers’ Day), celebrated here either the last Sunday in May or the first in June -- depending on the date of Pentecost.
We almost lost Pentecost to the heat wave in 2003. People were distraught at the 15000 deaths, mostly of the elderly, that year. The government decided to institute a National Day of Solidarity for the Elderly and Handicapped. Employees would work one day more per year and employers would pay one day’s salary per employee into a special fund which would make grants to various institutions that cared for this segment of the population. I believe, perhaps naively, that if the law had been passed in September 2003, there would have been little protest. But, when it finally was -- on June 30th, 2004 -- people had had nearly a year to forgot how shocked they had been -- and a year to remember how much they really needed every holiday they had been used to.


The law named Whit Monday as the day people would work. I’m sure it seemed logical to the legislators, because of the other holidays in May. But there was a huge outcry. The unions cried exploitation. The area around Nîmes foretold economic disaster as its 5 day Whitsun bull fighting festival would suffer greatly without the long weekend. I, too, thought it was a shame to destroy a centuries-old tradition – until I discovered that this Festival, started in 1952, wasn’t even as old as I am!
Confusion reigned until March 2008 when the law was – no, no, not repealed but amended. Whit Monday was re-established as a public holiday AND the idea of a National Day of Solidarity was maintained. Employees must still work one day more than they used to – but it can be any day their company decides. (I think most give employees one vacation day less per year – no hardship for any but the most principled fighters against capitalist exploitation of workers.) This year people felt particularly fortunate that the holiday had been re-established. It was a gloriously warm weekend – the only one of the month.


The "Jeunes Agriculteurs" (a farmers’ union for younger agricultural workers and farmers) were, no doubt, especially thankful for the weather as they had prepared a treat for all those spending that weekend in Paris. On Saturday night (May 22nd) , the entire length of the Champs Elysées was transformed into a showcase of French agriculture which 1.9 million people (including me) visited on Sunday and Monday.
At the Arc de Triomphe end, 650 trees from all regions of France were displayed





Young agricultural workers and students greeted us and answered any questions.


The trees were followed by sections of flowers and plants – 150 different varieties.

The sea is part of French agriculture -- providing salt


And oysters.



We got to see those too.
There were a number of animals

Though only the ovines came with their own shepherd and sheepdog.


A kilometer later, near the Place de la Concorde, we could buy the fruits of the farmers’ labors to refresh us.


I came home,exhausted, with my first sunburn of the season. I’ll never think of the Champs (“champs” does mean “fields”) Elysées the same way again.

Yes We Cannes

The last two weeks of May in Paris always seem to be a gentle rehearsal for summer. Now, except in a very unlucky year, we can put away our heavy warm clothes and wear our light colorful ones. The numerous long weekends help us prepare for the soon-to-come time when we’ll be able to leave on a real vacation. Special May events which most of us see on TV help put us in a lazy summertime mood.

The first of these is the Festival de Cannes – 12 days of international art, politics, business, controversy and glamour with a backdrop of palm trees and beaches – like a very successful holiday conversation on a café terrace.
Since I am not a night owl, one of my favorite things about the Festival de Cannes is that its televised rituals take place from 7 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. every evening – just in time for an aperitif after the day’s activities. These include, of course, the opening ceremony and the awards ceremony but also the daily “montée des marches” (when the director and actors of the film to be shown in competition that evening walk ceremoniously up the 24 red-carpeted steps lined with photographers and TV cameras -- and into the Palais des Festivals et des Congrès.)
Before and after the “montée des marches” each evening, actors, directors, journalists and critics tell us about the films of the day and we get to see the trailers. For, unlike the Academy Awards or other national film award ceremonies, le Festival de Cannes films, at least those in competition, have not yet been released to the general public. Some won’t be released until late fall. Some of the more exotic ones, unless they win a prize, may not be released in Europe at all.
Ten years ago, I spent a morning in Cannes during the Festival, while I was visiting friends who live nearby. It was exciting to see the places I’d only seen on TV. Now, it’s fun to recognize the places I briefly saw that day.





This year’s Palme d’Or (Best Picture) was surprising and controversial. It was a Thai film called Lung Boonmee Raluek Chat (or Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives) directed by Apichatpong Weerasethakul – whose name gave the French news presenters a new tongue twister to replace that of the Icelandic volcano.


Was it chosen because of the Thai political situation? Or because its fantastical tale appealed to Tim Burton, the equally fantastical President of the Jury this year?


No one can be sure but everyone has an opinion. I know. Let’s go sit in the sunshine on the terrace of a café and discuss it!

Les Saints de Glace

May is a month of contradictory folk wisdom. On one hand, the end of the proverb I quoted about April says “En mai fait ce qu’il te plait” (in May, do as you please). That suggests that cold rainy April is over and all should be warm and bright. But this is also the month of “les Saints de glace” (the icy Saints). Though Vatican II dismissed Saint Mamert (May 11th) Saint-Pancrace (May 12th) and Saint-Servais (May 13th) from the calendar of Saints, French farmers and gardeners – and even city dwellers who have never grown a plant in their lives – know that cold, even freezing, temperatures are still likely until these days are over.
This year the Saints arrived early and stayed late.
On May 4th there was enough snow to close airports and roads in the south of France. Later that day, a storm along the Riviera swept sand from the beaches, sunk boats and broke some beachfront cafés into matchsticks. Since then it’s just been cold and cloudy everywhere.
Perhaps in reaction to the weather, I’ve been in somewhat of a state of hibernation since the end of April -- doing all the things that are on my calendar but not seeking anything extra. I’ve been “doing what I please” in the comfort of my home and waiting, like a hothouse plant, for the “Saints de glace” to be on their way.
It’s not like nothing happens during the first two weeks of May.
May 1st is always fun – especially because two very different celebrations take place that day. It’s an ancient custom to give people sprigs of muguet (lily-of-the-valley) for luck on May 1st. People in the country can gather it themselves; others have to buy theirs. Of course, florists are happy to oblige but, on every street corner, ordinary people sell sprigs and bouquets, too – the only time of the year one can sell without a pedlar’s licence.





Since 1941, May 1st has also been the Fête de Travail (Labor Day) leading to another ritual – the May Day March. There’s always something the government is doing wrong and members of all the different trade unions as well as thousands of ordinary people march for hours on the afternoon of May 1st to let them know about it.






I went out to buy my muguet this year – luck is always good to have – but I skipped the March. Those pictures are from last year.
One week after the 1st of May is another holiday marking the end of World War II in Europe. It’s only been a public holiday since 1981, though commemoration ceremonies were held before then. Such a young holiday has no rituals except among people who remember the end of the war. But everyone is glad to have a day off. This year, it fell on a Saturday and was just another weekend for most. It happened to be our choir’s spring weekend choir practice. The evening of May 8th we sang and danced, though few were remembering World War II. Hopefully those who fought for our freedom were happy to know we were enjoying it.




Last weekend was Ascension. The holiday is on Thursday but most people also have Friday off – the famous French “pont” or “bridge” when there’s one day between a holiday and the weekend. Not a fortunate bridge this year as you can see.




But this morning the sun is peeping out and part of the sky is blue.

By the weekend, it will be sunny and 24° (that’s 73°F for you Americans). Time to stop hibernating!