It's impossible not to write in clichés. It's September. The leaves are falling. The year is over and we're leaving. Ah, the apple trees, sunlit memories. Sorry. As I said it's impossible. I did warn you.
This is not the last blog, but it is the last but one. As the two or three of you who've kept up with me so far will have noticed, I've slackened over the summer months. Summer visitors, swimming, walking canoeing. But now the weather is really changing - west winds, swallows gone and going. Time to come home. Why, you may ask, indeed as many people have asked, particularly ex-pats and French people. As I said a blog or two ago, French people understand the concept of love of country extremely well, they just find it hard to understand how anybody can love any other country but France. Seulement une petite joke, mes amies. And ex-pats have something to prove. That they made the right decision.
Anyway. We are coming home. Libraries. Films. Radio 4. It's our country. We love it. We speak the same language. Our family and friends are there. It's beautiful. Weather is just weather after all.
We're trying to fit in all the things we've wanted to do and haven't managed - last weekend a trip to Toulouse. Lovely city - sunset on the river - all the students back and rampaging around - begging from idiot tourists [yes we gave them money] because c'est un tradition donner l'argent aux l' etudiants as they are tres pauvre - or, as we say in English - for extra beer money.
A group of students were singing socialist songs [imagine!] in the Town Hall courtyard, in front of an exhibition about Jean Jaurès an academic and politician, who campaigned for peace before the first world war and was assassinated in 1914. The city felt full of energy and radicalism - and also artistic advertising - a field of paper flowers sponsored by Kenzo Perfume. We loved it all.
This week canoeing, more walking, looking out of the window at the turning-brown trees. Saying goodbye- not just to the place, but to this year, the idea of a year as a break in the onward rush, the too-fast pace of a life. One of the odd things is that I feel younger than I did when we came last September. I can't really explain it, but maybe the truth is that I had been beginning to feel old. It could simply that I feel fitter - all the walking up and down hills - or that cities are places where you're constantly reminded of your age. Probably the sun has addled my inner metabolic clock- thingy. A good dose of Manchester autumn and winter weather should knock that right out of me.
However - here's a verse of a poem which kind of links trees and France (Finisterre) and the British Isles. And it's by Manchester's [adopted] own, Carol Ann Duffy. A secular prayer with Radio 4 in it. What could be better. Another reason to come home. A woman poet laureate.
Some days, although we cannot pray, a prayer
utters itself. So a woman will lift
her head from the sieve of her hands and stare
at the minims sung by a tree, a sudden gift.
Some nights, although we are faithless, the truth
enters our hearts, that small familiar pain;
then a man will stand stock-still, hearing his youth
in the distant Latin chanting of a train.
Pray for us now. Grade 1 piano scales
console the lodger looking out across
a Midlands town. Then dusk, and someone calls
a child's name as though they named their loss.
Darkness outside. Inside the radio's prayer -
Rockall. Malin. Dogger. Finisterre
This is not the last blog, but it is the last but one. As the two or three of you who've kept up with me so far will have noticed, I've slackened over the summer months. Summer visitors, swimming, walking canoeing. But now the weather is really changing - west winds, swallows gone and going. Time to come home. Why, you may ask, indeed as many people have asked, particularly ex-pats and French people. As I said a blog or two ago, French people understand the concept of love of country extremely well, they just find it hard to understand how anybody can love any other country but France. Seulement une petite joke, mes amies. And ex-pats have something to prove. That they made the right decision.
Anyway. We are coming home. Libraries. Films. Radio 4. It's our country. We love it. We speak the same language. Our family and friends are there. It's beautiful. Weather is just weather after all.
We're trying to fit in all the things we've wanted to do and haven't managed - last weekend a trip to Toulouse. Lovely city - sunset on the river - all the students back and rampaging around - begging from idiot tourists [yes we gave them money] because c'est un tradition donner l'argent aux l' etudiants as they are tres pauvre - or, as we say in English - for extra beer money.
A group of students were singing socialist songs [imagine!] in the Town Hall courtyard, in front of an exhibition about Jean Jaurès an academic and politician, who campaigned for peace before the first world war and was assassinated in 1914. The city felt full of energy and radicalism - and also artistic advertising - a field of paper flowers sponsored by Kenzo Perfume. We loved it all.
This week canoeing, more walking, looking out of the window at the turning-brown trees. Saying goodbye- not just to the place, but to this year, the idea of a year as a break in the onward rush, the too-fast pace of a life. One of the odd things is that I feel younger than I did when we came last September. I can't really explain it, but maybe the truth is that I had been beginning to feel old. It could simply that I feel fitter - all the walking up and down hills - or that cities are places where you're constantly reminded of your age. Probably the sun has addled my inner metabolic clock- thingy. A good dose of Manchester autumn and winter weather should knock that right out of me.
However - here's a verse of a poem which kind of links trees and France (Finisterre) and the British Isles. And it's by Manchester's [adopted] own, Carol Ann Duffy. A secular prayer with Radio 4 in it. What could be better. Another reason to come home. A woman poet laureate.
Some days, although we cannot pray, a prayer
utters itself. So a woman will lift
her head from the sieve of her hands and stare
at the minims sung by a tree, a sudden gift.
Some nights, although we are faithless, the truth
enters our hearts, that small familiar pain;
then a man will stand stock-still, hearing his youth
in the distant Latin chanting of a train.
Pray for us now. Grade 1 piano scales
console the lodger looking out across
a Midlands town. Then dusk, and someone calls
a child's name as though they named their loss.
Darkness outside. Inside the radio's prayer -
Rockall. Malin. Dogger. Finisterre
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