Le Bal des Pompiers

It was a hot summer night and the beach was burning. There was fog crawling over the sand.

No wait. That's a song.

This was a real hot summer night- back in Paris in July. July 13 is the day before Bastille Day and has become a special occasion in its own right. Le Bal des Pompiers. Held as a fundraiser for the firemen (pompiers) on this one special night of the year every firestation throws open its doors and puts on a party (although some stations have a second party on the 14th as well)! And what a party it is.

After dinner I headed down to my local station on rue de Vieux Colombier in the 6th.

Thankfully I'd left my bombs and tanks back at the flat
 and so didn't have any trouble getting in

I got there earlyish, 9.30 or so, but it was already humming

Mais oui!

Any cry of Tout Le Monde by the DJ and the crowd goes OFF

There was plenty of on bar dancing
by all ages

Classier than beer debris (although that was there too)

The queue for entry as I left about midnight

went well around the block

Le Bal des Pompiers usually goes from 9pm-4am. It's a great night out if you're lucky enough to be in Paris (or elsewhere in France) in July. A great celebratory atmosphere. And wonderful value- this one was free entry. There may have been somewhere for donations, but I didn't see it. The drinks were very reasonably priced too.

Dreaming of France is a wonderful Monday meme
from Paulita at An Accidental Blog

Putta Bucca Wetlands

During my recent trip to Mudgee for their Readers' Festival I was keen to find some local birds too. A trip to the local tourist information helped greatly, and the staff told me about the new Putta Bucca Wetlands on the edge of town. Perfect.

Click on the photos to see them in larger format. Well worth it for the bird shots.

Thankfully no snakes on my visits!

 The entrance into the car park is only open Monday to Friday 8-4. All of my visits were outside these times. There is another parking area just outside, and it's a short walk in.

There are two areas, one a creek off to the left from the car park.

Where I saw this most attractive fellow. An Azure Kingfisher! Alcedo azurea, a new species for me. Not a perfect picture because of the difficult light, but you can still appreciate how gorgeous that blue is. Off to a great start.

And this young fellow. I think this is an immature Black-faced Cuckoo-Shrike (Coracina novaehollandiae). Which can apparently be difficult to distinguish from a White Bellied Cuckoo-Shrike. 

If you keep walking around the track you get to the main water area. A filled in quarry. Where there was an astonishing variety of birdlife.

A pair of Red-Rumped Parrots (Psephotus haematonotus) taking a drink

The sky reflected in the water

Three Little Black Cormorants (Phalacrocorax sulcirostris) taking a rest

A male Red-Rump Parrot showing off his assets

 There were three predominant species of ducks on my visits. Grey teals. Australasian shovelers (new for me! Woo hoo). Hardhead ducks.

Grey teals (Anas gracilis)

I was very excited to get this shot of a White plumed Honeyeater
Lichenostomus penicillatus

I visited three times over the weekend. Each time was lovely, and I saw something new. Like ibis roosting in the morning. 

Straw necked Ibis (Threskiornis spinicollis) and
Australasian White Ibis (Threskiornis molucca)

Then heading out for the day.

One lonely pelican seemed a bit out of place

A pair of Australasian Shovelers (Anas rhynchotis)

Australasian Grebe (Tachybaptus novaehollandiae)

On an early morning visit the ducks were having a party!

Grey teals

A reminder of the former quarry. 

Putta Bucca Wetlands were opened in 2010. A week later they were almost destroyed by a flood! There are two great bird hides, and more plans to keep expanding and improving the area and facilities.

Saturday Snapshot is a wonderful weekly meme now hosted by WestMetroMommy

Thursday's Child

For some reason I was vaguely apprehensive approaching Thursday's Child. I'm not sure why. I know and respect Sonya Hartnett, and I've even seen a stage production of Thursday's Child a few years ago- it was an extraordinary piece of theatre, very moving. Perhaps it was the cover, which I don't think I like? I don't know. 

Any concerns I had were swept away in the first few pages as I was immersed in the world of the Flute family, primarily through the eyes of Harper Flute, who is 4 when we meet her. Her family eek out a marginal existence in rural Western Australia in the 1920s. Harper's father is a returned soldier and now supporting the family by trapping rabbits and selling the pelts. Da has been injured physically and mentally by the war, and now he drinks a bit more than he should, and we see the start of the Depression unfold through Harper's eyes. We see the day to day struggle to survive through very realistic words. 

This time, however, she hauled me to my feet and, with her free hand, slammed Da over the head. 'Don't you take your miseries out on a child,' she snarled. 'You're a coward,  you are, taking on like an infant. Do you think you're the only one living this life? You aren't. The children and I didn't ask for this. Get to your feet, you disgust me.'

We also see the subterranean world of Tin, Harper's younger brother, and the Thursday's Child of the title (Thursday's child has far to go), who takes to digging tunnels under the family house (always described as a shanty), spending more and more of his life underground. An impossible, improbable story that would be ridiculous in the hands of a lesser writer,  but Sonya Hartnett draws us effortlessly into the rather bizarre home life of the Flute family. Each time I picked up this book I found it compelling all over again, and was immediately drawn back into the Flute world.

Yet Tin's story isn't real. It can't be real, can it? But in Hartnett's hands I can easily suspend disbelief and not be worried by that too much. I generally don't like stories with magic realism elements, and I'm not sure it's that either. Thursday's Child somehow defies classification for me. I've read a few Sonya Hartnett books before, she has written for children and adults, and they often don't seem to be easily classified reads- it's almost like she creates her own genre, and that changes slightly with each new book. It's not all grim and depressing though, there are moments of great humour. 

I talked to him to keep him distracted, ....... and what would the baby be, a new boy or a new girl? We had two of each already, not counting Mam and Da, so things were pretty equal as they stood and it would be a hard blow to the side that came away the minority. I thought it was a shame that only babies could be born,whichever it turned out being. I could think of plenty of other things I would have preferred to get for nothing. 

Thursday's Child is such a powerful, moving story. Beautiful writing stopped me in my tracks on many, many pages. 

My heart is calm now, although it is an uneasy, fitful calm, like the sleep of an ailing person.

I should start a list of books that I mean to reread, and I should put Thursday's Child on that list. 

Wondrous Words Wednesday 4/9/13

Wondrous Words Wednesday is a fabulous weekly meme hosted by Bermuda Onion, where we share new (to us) words that we've encountered in our weekly reading.

Todays words come from my recent reading of The Secret of Hanging Rock. It's only a slim little volume, but you can find new words anywhere.

1. Raddled (Adjective)

Used twice just a few pages apart, both times to describe the same character.

It was a woman with a gaunt, raddled face trimmed with bushy black eyebrows- a clown-like figure dressed in a torn calico camisole and long calico drawers frilled below the knees of two stick-like legs, feebly kicking out in black lace-up boots.

The raddled face was radiant. 

i) Worn-out and broken-down
ii) (esp of a person) unkempt or run-down in appearance. The free dictionary.

2. Rebus (Noun)

A rebus-model accounts for the brain full of intelligence and the heart full of understanding that the McCraw claims to perceive; (the rest of this sentence which I don't pretend to understand gives major spoilers for The Secret of Hanging Rock so I will omit it here).

A representation of words in the form of pictures or symbols, often presented as a puzzle. The free dictionary. 

Picture source, includes the solution

Lost Cat

Sometimes the perfect book lands in your hands at the perfect time. I especially love it when that book is one you've never heard of before, but just have to read it immediately. Lost Cat is such a perfect book. I found Lost Cat on a recent trip to the National Portrait Gallery in Canberra. I'd never heard of it before, but bought it after a very short browse and started reading it in the car on the way home- such is the power and allure of bookshops. The next day I'd already finished it.

Lost Cat starts with a bang, literally, as author and cat owner Caroline Paul, falls back to earth when an experimental plane that she was piloting fails. We never know why she was piloting an experimental plane, but it doesn't really matter. Lost Cat is the story of the time after her accident, when during her recuperation from a number of serious injuries one of her two cats disappears. Naturally Caroline is devastated.

Picture source

Her relationship with her cats, Tibby and Fibby, has been the longest of her adult life. She worries that her anxious and shy boy Tibby has befallen any number of terrible ends.

When your cat goes missing, you panic. You imagine catnappers, vivisectionists. You have visions of the hole he is trapped in, the wounds that are keeping him from crawling home. 

Is he drinking box wine with the rough and tumble feline crowd at the feral cat colony? Tibby does come home after a five weeks absence, but it is then that our story really gets going. Tibby comes back a "swashbuckling adventurer" who isn't eating at home. 

Where do our pets go and what do they do, when we're not around? And why? Aren't we enough for our furry companions? For animal lovers, these are the ultimate questions. 

And so begins Caroline's quest. Cat stalking really. She contacts psychics, invests in GPS technology, and even takes an animal communications class in a non-stop quest to find the lost five weeks of Tibby. Lost Cat is a beautiful, funny and moving exploration of what it is to love, but not only how to love cats, about modern life, and how we live in cities. 

It was pathetic that Tibby knew my neighbours better than I did. He knew the state of their fences, the layout of their patio furniture, their gardening skills, the fights they had with their loved ones, the hours they rose, the hours they went to sleep, their tots, their dogs, the aromas of their meals. 

Laugh out loud funny and wonderfully illustrated by Caroline Paul's partner Wendy MacNuaghton's clever and fabulous illustrations, Lost Cat is simply a delight. 

Picture source

Leaves and Dust- Paris Style

For the first 6 months of this year I was in training for Paris. I went on a diet (Curves Complete, which is a fabulous program), I bought a pedometer (walking 10-20,000 steps per day) and I started eating leaves and dust. I lost 21kg. And it still wasn't enough training for Paris! No not the Paris marathon, just a sensational Paris holiday. Seems I'm not the only one to be inspired by Paris.

In Paris I walked 15-30,700 steps every day- and didn't my feet and legs know it? A marathon of sorts I suppose.

But I ate astonishing things. And didn't hold back. Sometimes, just to be good, I ate leaves and dust too. Naturally it was Paris style, and it was amazing.

I adapted my typical Curves Complete breakfast for Paris. At home I have 150gm plain Greek yoghurt, some fruit (a small banana or 100gm berries most often), and 25gm muesli. In Paris I had to adapt and cope with rhubarb and rose yoghurt, or lemon sheep yoghurt, or lychee. And top it with Pierre Herme's Ispahan Granola.

Tough, but someone has to eat it

Sometimes though the yoghurt was
confiture de lait with English granola

I'm moderately intrigued by the French love affair with radishes. So on a visit to the incredible Le Comptoir in St Germain (9 Carrefour de l'Odeon, 75006, arrive early for lunch to avoid the queue, although it is worth waiting, some dinners are booked out months in advance), I ordered the Radis Beurre a Notre Facon (Radish Butter done our way) knowing that butter, radish and salt was a classic combination. I wasn't expecting this, however:

But it was Absolutely Incredible. The brown dust was cocoa! Under the dust layer was a delicious green sauce, apparently a blend of radish tops, butter and cream. A sensational entree, and all for a meagre 6 euros. 

I backed it up with the most expensive dish on the lunch menu, the sensational lobster salad. Soft, sweet, luscious lobster. 

It seems I like a salmon salad. But I did know that already. 

Salmon Tartare at Paris, London

Salmon agrum salad in Fontainebleau
an incredible day excursion with ParisBreakfast

Salad Composee at Sip Babylone
Perfect mache!

Although not every salad was salmon. 

Salad Campagnarde at Sip Babylone
More mache, roqueforte and poached eggs
Fabulous!

There may have been any number of warm goats cheese salads too, but I suspect that they don't quite qualify as leaves and dust. 

Dreaming of France is a wonderful Monday meme 
from Paulita at An Accidental Blog

Australia's Top 100 Favourite Homegrown Reads

I do love a good book list, and always enjoy checking off how many I've read on any new list I find. Although it tends to be more how many I haven't read. So many gaps!

This week the Get Reading! initiative published Australia's Top 100 Favourite Homegrown Reads, the results of a survey undertaken earlier in the year. Nearly 6,000 votes for more than 1100 titles is quite impressive. As with any list there's some books (and authors) I've never even heard of- there's always more to read.

1. Tomorrow, When the War Began - John Marsden
2. The Book Thief - Markus Zusak
3. Cloudstreet - Tim Winton (I gave up half way through)
4. A Fortunate Life - A.B Facey
5. Possum Magic - Mem Fox
6. Ice Station - Matthew Reilly
7. Jasper Jones-  Craig Silvey
8. Jessica - Bryce Courtenay
9. The Harp in the South - Ruth Park
10. Where is the Green Sheep? - Mem Fox
11. The Power of One - Bryce Courtenay
12. April Fools Day - Bryce Couretnay
13. Breath - Tim Winton
14. The Thorn Birds - Colleen McCullough
15. Looking for Alibrandi - Melina Marchetta (see my review)
16. Dirt Music - Tim Winton
17. The Secret River - Kate Grenville
18. Snugglepot and Cuddlepie - May Gibbs
19. You Wouldn't be Dead for Quids - Robert G. Barrett
20. Shantaram - Gregory David Robert
21. Seven Little Australians - Ethel Turner
22. My Place - Sally Morgan
23. My Brilliant Career - Miles Franklin
24. Obernewtyn - Isobelle Carmody
25. Jillaroo - Rachael Treasure
26. Playing Beatie Bow - Ruth Park (see my review)
27. The Magic Pudding - Norman Lindsay (see my review)
28. The Shifting Fog - Kate Morton
29. The Slap - Christos Tsiolkas (see my review)
30. Heart of the Dreaming - Di Morrissey
31. Blinky Bill - Dorothy Wall
32. The Light Between the Oceans - M.L. Stedman
33. A Little Bush Maid - Mary Grant Bruce
34. Picnic at Hanging Rock - Joan Lindsay (see my review)
35. The Potato Factory - Bryce Courtney
36. Mallawindy - Joy Dettman
37. Hade's Daughter - Sara Douglass
38. Wombat Stew - Marcia K Vaughan, Pamela Lofts
39. I Can Jump Puddles - Alan Marshall

40. My Brother Jack - George Johnston
41. Poor Man's Orange - Ruth Park
42. The Rosie Project - Graeme Simsion (see my review)
43. The Silver Brumby - Elyne Mitchell (see my review)
44. The Messenger - Markus Zusak (see my review)
45. Eucalyptus - Murray Bail
46. The Forgotten Garden - Kate Morton
47. Oscar and Lucinda - Peter Carey
48. Pearl in a Cage - Joy Dettman
49. Two Weeks with the Queen - Morris Gleiltzman
50. Koala Lou - Mem Fox
51. The Riders - Tim Winton
52. The Ancient Future - Traci Harding
53. For the Term of his Natural Life - Marcus Clarke
54. Magic Beach - Alison Lester
55. A Town Like Alice - Neville Shute
56. All That I Am - Anna Funder
57. Matthew Flinders Cat - Bryce Courtney
58. Diary of a Wombat - Jackie French, Bruce Whatley
59. True History of the Kelly - Gang Peter Carey
60. Ranger's Apprentice - John Flanagan
61. Storm Boy - Colin Thiele
62. Cry of the Curlew - Peter Watt
63. Poor Fellow My Country - Xavier Herbert
64. Bliss - Peter Carey
65. Once - Morris Gleitzman (review coming soon)
66. Adam's Empire - Evan Green
67. The Sound of One Hand Clapping - Richard Flanagan
68. Foal's Bread - Gillian Mears
69. Monkey Grip - Helen Garner
70. Voss - Patrick White
71. Power Without Glory - Frank Hardy
72. All The River Run - Nancy Cato
73. The Happiest Refugee - Anh Do
74. Burial Rites - Hannah Kent (see my review)

75. Four Fires - Bryce Courtney
76. Year of Wonders - Geraldine Brooks
77. Schindler's Ark - Thomas Keneally
78. Saving Francesca - Melina Marchetta
79. People of the Book - Geraldine Brooks
80. On the Beach - Nevil Shute
81. Battle Axe - Sara Douglass
82. The Fortunes of Richard Mahony - Henry Handel Richardson
83. The Man Who Loved Children - Christina Stead
84. On the Jellico Road - Melina Marchetta
85. Hating Alison Ashley - Robin Klein (see my review)
86. Animalia - Graeme Base
87. Scarecrow - Matthew Reilly
88. Tandia - Bryce Courtney
89. The Tree of Man - Patrick White
90. The Muddle-Headed Wombat - Ruth Park
91. Rhubarb - Craig Silvey
92. Salvation Creek - Susan Duncan
93. Wake in Fright - Kenneth Cook
94. Candy - Luke Davies
95. Wilfrid Gordon McDonald Partridge - Mem Fox
96. Puberty Blues - Gabrielle Carey and Kathy Lette
97. Hope's Road - Margareta Osborn
98. We of the Never - Never Anaes Gunn
99. Joe Cinque's Consolation - Helen Garner
100. Mao's Last Dancer - Li Cunxin

36.5/100, my usual rather dismal result. I have read 6.5 of the top ten though, that's not too bad. And I have meant to read at least 80% of these books at least once. That must count for something.

I was somewhat surprised not to see Cloudstreet in the typical top spot. I really must try it again some time. I tried reading it 10 years ago when I was working night shifts and permanently jet lagged- I've always wondered if that was why I couldn't get into it, I've liked every other Winton that I've read. I do wonder if this survey may have had a younger demographic than often vote in such surveys. There are a lot of YA and kids titles. Although I suspect it is parents and not toddlers giving Mem Fox two titles in the top 10.

Bryce Courtenay is the big winner with 7 titles making the list. Tim Winton comes in second with 4. Mem Fox, Melina Marchetta, Peter Carey and Ruth Park all have 3 titles a piece.

Nov 2013 Now 37.5/100. Inching forward.

September 2015 38.5/100. Scant progress.

June 2017 39.5/40 Limping on

June 2018 41.5/50