Blog

Snippets of French history: Louis Pasteur in a nutshell. Great French men.

Louis Pasteur (1822-1895) was one of three children, born in the small town of Dole in the Jura (central eastern France) in 1822.  The town was a tannery town and Louis’ father was a poor man and a tanner.  The family were simple and devout Roman Catholics with no particular aspirations and nothing in their […]

Posted 12 years ago

Aboriginal Art, Australia and a young traveller.

Our guest blogger today is Megan Jerrard, a travel blogger from Australia Bio Megan is an Australian Journalist who has been travelling and blogging around the world for the last 7 years to inspire others to embark on their own worldwide adventure!  Her husband Mike is an American travel photographer, and together they have made […]

Posted 12 years ago

My sailing career. Sailing with French friends from La Rochelle.

The big question was whether or not it would be considered murder.  And if it was considered murder, would the murder be justifiable ?  Would the woman die anyway, how long would it take or would some annoying person go and rescue her ?  These are very important questions you need to ask yourself when […]

Posted 12 years ago

People in my books: Kirsty. A bizarre story set in Cyprus.

Kirsty was in her early-to-mid twenties, a post graduate with a degree in English.  She moved to Cyprus with Tom, also an English graduate and, like him, had been to some minor Uni somewhere in the Midlands. She was a clever enough girl, but no intellectual.  She had acheived her degree simply by reading and […]

Posted 12 years ago

… and you STILL think you can speak French ? Learning a language.

I so often tell people I am fluent, or near-as-damn-it fluent.  Or as fluent as you can get as a foreigner living in a non-French household.  Yet almost every day I learn a new word or a new expression.  Sometimes they are things I have indeed heard before but had forgotten about; quite often they […]

Posted 12 years ago

Into the Coal Mine, Into the Past, Canada.

This week’s guest blog comes from Heather Sinclair.   As the abandoned coal mine’s metal gate shuts behind me, a shiver runs down my spine. Not because the mine is dark and spooky (although it is both of those things) but because of how cold it is. I was sweating in the summer sun, but […]

Posted 12 years ago

People in my books: Stella. An English expat in Cyprus.

There was something utterly exhausting about Stella.  It was difficult to put a finger on it, for there was no one specific thing.  It was partly that she was just so loud – no, not her voice, but her way of dressing, with vastly too much make up and too much colour.  Her clothes, from […]

Posted 12 years ago

So you can speak French ? Language learning.

Just as they pop in to my head, a few things you may not learn at your evening class:-  (accents missing)   to rob Peter to pay Paul – deshabiller Paul pour habiller Jacques jet lag – decalage horaire alarm clock – le reveil the News – le journal, or sometimes les actualites homeward-bound – […]

Posted 12 years ago

Montessori. Education for toddlers and tweenies.

Our guest blogger today is Teresa Elliot.   I first discovered Montessori when my own children were young. I had been a stop at home Mum and decided it was time to go back to work. I got a Job working in the Montessori and to be honest, it all seemed a bit weird. I […]

Posted 12 years ago

Words of wisdom from Churchill, one of Britain’s great men.

– an appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile hoping it will eat him last – success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm – a joke is a very serious thing – The truth is incontrovertible. Malice may attack it, ignorance may deride it, but in the end, there it […]

Posted 12 years ago

Books now available on Amazon:

A Call From France
French Sand
Kefani: An African Childhood
The Man With Green Fingers
Saying Nothing