Farewell Summer, we hardly knew ye...

Yep - it's been and gone. I'd like to whinge and compare it to the gloriously and perpetually sunny summer of Sydney...so I will! Seriously, it only just going before throwing in the towel. It really seemed like just a few weeks of warmth and sunshine before the grey skies returned and brought us today - rain, greyness and cold. We did have some lovely weather, though - going out late at night with the sun still up, crossing the Pont Neuf feeling the sun from the west still strong on my face, is a feeling I'm not soon to forget - but it's over. Sniff.
And for the Frenchies out there, yes, I know that I'm being a little harsh and probably more than a little inaccurate given my recent recollections of the season in Sydney (which, truth be told, were not much better than here) but still, a month? Really? Well gee, thanks.

Still, it's not all bad. In fact, things seem to be balancing out:

• Last weekend we went to Cellettes for two days of sunshine, bike riding, swimming, tree chopping, and, of course, eating and drinking with friends of B's. But then I got sick and am still, five days later, working through what seems to be a throat infection.
  

• Today I navigated on my own the world of French medicine (read: I visited a doctor). Speaking only in French I managed to convey that I had a sore throat, a mild fever, and was in need of the kinds of drugs the French are known to swig every time the wind changes direction. But on the downside it cost me 60€.
  

• I've continued to search for full-time work and had continued to receive nothing in response...up until two weeks ago when I finally heard back from a company. It now looks as though they're interested in hiring me, but I won't jinx it by giving away the details until I've signed on some kind of dotted (or not, I'm not fussy) line.
  

• And, while we didn't conquer the pool like I'd hoped we would, we're still doing HEAPS better overall in the Olympics than the French. Ha!

So yes, it's all balancing out.

Oh, and yet again I almost forgot to send this week's instalment of 'Friday means music'. An oldie but a goodie: The Whatnauts with "Message from a Black Man". You'll probably recognise the guitar riff - a common grab for contemporary hip-hop artists (including the great MF Doom, whom I adore, who's linked on the same page under 'King Geedorah'. Slightly NSFW lyrics in the remix).

"Christians are like a pickle impaled on two forks being electrocuted"

Reported on Cynical C (a brilliant read, btw - the video is about 2/3 the way down) a man tries to explain the power of the Christian god by way of a pickle.
As far as I can tell, if you accept this god into your life you'll first glow in the dark and then die a horrible, smelly death. Ooo, sign me up!

Kitten vs. fan

I'm taking time out from a job application to bring you this glorious bit of teh internets: Kitten vs. fan
Fair enough, I say. If you hadn't been told what air and wind are, wouldn't you think you too were being covered by some insidious, invisible, mist-like blanket?

Discovery

Sometimes it's the discovery of small things that gives me the most joy. Take, for example, the 'Moro-Sphinx' (Macroglossum stellatarum, or Hummingbird Hawk-moth). Check it out here. I've seen this thing once, whilst sitting by the pool in Coubeyrac. Hearing the humming this thing made I thought I'd stumbled upon a French hummingbird but, yet still equally interestingly, it was only an insect. Still! It was enormous (for an insect) - about 1 1/2 inches long and beautiful. Ah, the small things in life....

The holidays

A little belated but this, in summary, is how our week in Bordeaux went:

• Day 1 - Saturday: Caught the train to Gare de Montparnasse and then a TGV to Libourne where we were met by Estelle (co-owner of Chateau Lestrille). Stayed with her, her husband Martin and their three kids for a night. Ate great food, drank superb wine, sat in the sun and generally did not very much.
  

• Day 3 - Monday: Moved to B's aunt's place in Bordeaux and hung out in the city for the day.

Day 4 - Tuesday: Hired a car (a Citroen C1 - a fantastic little car) and drove to Le Porge-Océan on the West coast for a day at the beach. It was the first time I'd seen a real (by a Sydney definition) beach since arriving in France. Sigh.

Day 5 - Wednesday: Left Bordeaux in the car and drove to a small B&B at La Gueriniere, Cenac via Sarlat-la-Canéda.

Day 6 - Thursday: Drove to les jardins de Marqueyssac, near Castelnaud, then Montbazillac and finally to B's aunt's country house in Coubeyrac, a truly relaxing place replete with donkeys, vineyards and the kind of countryside you normally only see on shows like Getaway.

Day 7 - Friday: Drove to St Emilion but otherwise relaxed at the house.

Day 8 - Saturday: Visited some local markets then spent some of the afternoon at a show put on by a local horse-riding school (where one of B's cousins was attending). That night we had an amazing dinner in Gensac. I wish I'd taken my camera to photograph the sun setting over the valley, and I wish I'd remembered to take the business card of the hotel/restaurant so I could share the details with you but sadly I did neither of these. Sorry.

Day 9 - Sunday: Drove back to Bordeaux to drop off the car and hopped on the TGV back to Paris.

Of course, all of this is on Flickr here, although you might want to make a cup of tea or at least find an extra cushion for your chair before you click through the 375 photos. Ahem.

Music for yesterday

Late again - music for yesterday's instalment of 'Friday means music'. This time it's an Australian artist introduced to me by Marns at USyd (thanks Marns!):
Sol Seppy with her track "Human".

And while I'm thinking about music, how many of you Björk fans? I am. I've never been to a concert but I have many of her albums and listen to her music pretty regularly. Oddly enough, considering I once spent several months listening to Post almost exclusively before going to sleep, I only recently realised she uses several key melodic phrases in many (most? all?) of her albums, and that the songs in which you hear these Björk-markers could not possibly be mistaken as belonging to anyone else. I'll try to outline them below but don't expect cross-referencing - you'll just have to trust me that these phrases exist in several albums.

Case in point: "I've seen it all" (from the Dancer in the Dark soundtrack, of which the film, btw, is amazing - utterly heart-breaking but very worthwhile). Song here; video here. (I'll be using the song link for the timings. The video is worth watching but it skips some of the examples.)

• Björk-marker 1: What I'll call the 'Tilt-head-back-and-go-for-it pt1' phrase. Listen from 2:04 to 2:16.

• Björk-marker 2: A sort of nonsense phrase but a marker nonetheless. Listen from 3:05 to 3:13.

• Björk-marker 3: The 'Tilt-head-back-and-go-for-it pt2' phrase. Listen from 4:45 to 4:49. Less obvious than the first one but still, at least for me, a strong indicator of Björk-ness.

• Björk-marker 4: A falling melody that neatly finishes a song. Listen from 4:51 to 4:58.

And before you comment, yes, I realise I have too much time on my hands.