Email from Phyllis today

I was thrilled to check my email this morning and see an email from P.D. James!  I had written to her in December after I had finished Death Comes to Pemberly.  I had also written to her in 2000 after reading her Time to be in Earnest: A Fragment of Autobiography resonated with me and had received a lovely letter in reply.  I'm quite thrilled to have an email as well!

These are the only two letters I have written to any author as I feel they do quite enough for us with their writing and readings that I feel it rather greedy to expect replies to letters as well.

Dear Janice (if I may)

It was a great pleasure to receive your kind letter and I am delighted to have the bookmarks, of which I am always in need.  They are beautiful and you obviously have a talent for painting which I am sure will give you pleasure and satisfaction in the years to come.  I can’t believe that your mystery novel was tiresome drivel, but your art is so imaginative that I doubt you will wish to return to creative writing, but who knows?

I did enjoy writing Death Comes to Pemberley.  I hope that Miss Austen wouldn’t be too offended by my efforts, but she has always been my favourite novelist and the book was intended as a tribute, and at least, unlike some sequels, it doesn’t feature ghosts, vampires, zombies or sexual shenanigans!  The trial of Wickham was indeed a ‘long trial’, as my researches showed that the pressure on the courts was such that sometimes capital cases were dealt with at the Old Bailey within 15 minutes.

The world is in such a state that it seems almost cynical to wish anyone a happy New Year, but at least we can live in hope and, as Voltaire advised, ‘cultivate our own garden’.  May yours flourish and be full of flowers in 2012.

Phyllis

My letter to Phyllis:

Dec. 16, 2011

Baroness James of Holland Park OBE
58 Holland Park Avenue
London W11 3QY
U.K.

Dear Baroness James,

I have just completed reading your delightful novel “Death Comes to Pemberley” and enjoyed it immensely.  I want to thank you for giving your readers yet another wonderful and unexpected treat.  I’m a  big Jane Austen fan and I felt like I was also being given the gift of another Austen novel as well.  Is it possible to be so blessed!

It was also most interesting to get an insight into the courts and legal system of the times.  You did that very well and I still chuckle at the “long trial” of Wickham.

Writing is always hard work but I think you had a lot of fun writing this novel.  Perhaps some would consider it a cheeky project and I’m not sure if Miss Austen would have totally approved but I know Elizabeth would have loved it and would have had many a good laugh and no doubt numerous witticisms to share.

I heard you read when you came to Victoria many years ago and it was such a pleasure to hear you answer questions from the audience.  I go to many author readings and it is obvious that many authors dread the question period.  However,  you reacted to all questions with enthusiasm and made each questioner feel that she had asked exactly the question you wanted to answer and all responses were thoughtful and interesting.

I have enclosed a few bookmarks I hope you will enjoy using.  Since I last wrote you in 2000 I have retired from teaching English and took up painting quite unexpectedly since I never got past doing stick figures in school.  I had the idea I would write a mystery novel when I retired but could only produce tiresome drivel.  With painting I had no expectations and was thrilled to produce anything at all and it gives me great pleasure.  Funny how things turn out in life.

Sincerely,


Janice Sexton

Clearing up confusion

I was a little confused by the Clark Kent resemblance comments since it had never occurred to me so I googled images of Clark Kent to remind myself what he looked like and brought up this image from the 2006 movie called Superman Returns.  Now I get it.  I thought I'd pass this along to my blog readers because I doubt very much whether many (or any!) of them have seen Superman Returns...

This will be more what my blog readers and I remember.

Desert Dreams

Well....we can dream about being in the desert this year.  Goodness...I thought it only rained like this in Vancouver!

Update:  Rain almost stopped...ah yes...this is the Victoria I know after all.

Jack Knox shares the nastiest letters he received in 2011, criticizing his views, grammar and forehead

I always get a laugh out of Jack Knox and especially love his reactions to critical letters over the past year. Could we all react so amusingly to criticism?

A bit of a taste and then you can read the full column with the link.

"And a Victoria one: "Your column today was the meanest bunch of diatribe I have read in some time ... you should stick to your socalled wit and leave politics to some who are more objective. I've been thinking of cancelling my prescription to your leftist paper for some time, especially since this election began, but your column today just convinced me to do so. Stephen Harper has a brilliant brain, and he's honest and a world leader."

Thanks, Mum, can I still come to supper?

Not to be outdone was a Green supporter who didn't like my observation that his party's solution to the Colwood Crawl involved flying to work on magic carpets woven from hemp. "Today I realize I do not appreciate your not so subtle discounts and swipes at others which is mistakenly associated with intelligence."

Some were so angry that they typed in capital letters, the keyboard equivalent of a purple-faced holler. When Occupy protesters announced plans to march in the Santa CIaus Parade, I wrote "Why, couldn't they find a bunny to beat? What are they going to do next, water-board the Dalai Lama?" This prompted a reply from someone who balked at the bunny-beating bit. "I KNOW ABOUT FREEDOM OF SPEECH BUT DON'T YOU REALIZE THAT SOME MAY ACTUALLY TAKE THIS SERIOUSLY .... THAT WAS NOT AMUSING AT ALL AND I FEEL YOU SHOULD APOLOGIZE." Presumably she was OK with water-boarding his holiness."

Jack Knox shares the nastiest letters he received in 2011, criticizing his views, grammar and forehead

Speaking of Superman...

I don't think we could have possibly imagined Richard would grow up looking like Clark Kent (apparently he gets people commenting on this all the time) when he was three years old and totally into Superman.  He had Superman pj's, underwear, a t-shirt, and a Halloween costume.  Before we got all that for him he had to make do with a towel tied around as a cape which he wanted to have on all the time.

And I remember with horror we were at Beaconhill Park and he asked me to push him higher and higher on the swing then he jumped off because he thought he could fly like Superman!  Just a few bruises thank goodness...

 

New Year's Day

 

Darth Fiddler

 

Toys in a shop in Chinatown 

 Crispy pork.

 Bar-b-q duck.

 Dragon in Chinatown

 Storefront in Chinatown.

 Chinatown street scene.

Darth Fiddler

Today I had a real craving for hot and sour soup so we went down to Chinatown and had a walk around downtown.  It really hit the spot then we bought some duck and crispy pork for our dinner and had them put some in a separate box and we took it to Don in the hospital.  He was going to have it for dinner (there's a microwave on the floor so Elaine could heat it up) and he was really looking forward to it.  I'm sure he enjoyed it as much or more than we did! 

It was fun seeing "Darth Fiddler" as we hadn't seen him before.  It seems a year ago he got beaten up and his violin was smashed.   People helped him out and bought him another violin.  And just recently the person who did it turned himself in.


All in all...a great way to start 2012!

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year to all my blog readers and looking forward to another year of blogging.  I guess I will now be in my second decade of having this blog.

A very special Christmas and New Year

It's been a very special Christmas meeting Richard's new girlfriend, Emily.  We had super times together and also had a great time with Richard and Emily and Emily's parents at Le Bon Rouge for lunch the other day.

We wish everyone all the very best in the New Year and hope to share many happy times together in the future!

P.S.  Yes...they do look a little like Clark Kent and Lois Lane don't they...

The end of a year....

I have so enjoyed having Oscar, the cat, and my many many photos of him greeting me every day this year.  I think I will have another theme for next year...gee,  it just might be the south of France...to everyone's surprise I'm sure.

Goodbye Oscar....we still think of you fondly.

Itty Bitty Book Review: "The Crossing Places"

 

"The Crossing Places" by Elly Griffiths

Another new mystery writer on the scene and I quite enjoyed this first novel of hers.  She has created an interesting character in Ruth Galloway.  I didn't finish the second Tana French novel.  It wasn't that bad but just didn't really capture my interest.  I think Elly Griffiths has more possibilities and she does have a new novel out I believe.  Will have to check the library.

Christmas letter from France

This came via email today from folks we met while Jim was teaching at the University of Toulon.   I'm not sure it's a typical Christmas letter that people write in France but it does seem typically French.  Jean Georges (who was chair of the English Department) and Christiane are lovely people and we very much appreciated their hospitality to us.

Dear friends and relatives

Some might say “What a year!”  Indeed, what with all those Prime Ministers here and there getting the sack for mismanaging their countries’ finances or prospective presidents getting entangled in mysterious dealings with the cleaning team in American hotels or falling the victims of unexplained memory lapses.

This is rather comforting because it shows that the ordinary citizen is not the only that suffers from what William Somerset Maugham called “Human Bondage”.
Our local or rather national concerns revolve very much about the next presidential election, something which would have been complicated enough if foreign “candidates” did not try to interfere, I mean Mrs Angela Merkel of whom some think she is the model to follow blindly while others think they can hear German tanks rolling down the “Champs Elysées” once again. If you add to this another typical French dispute triggered off by the disaster which befell Japan and more precisely its nuclear industry, you will conclude with me that this was indeed an eventful year.
“Yes but” you will say. “We know about all this, and as far as I know, a newsletter is not a newspaper and our correspondent has not turned into a reporter in the world service of an obscure French magazine”. You are right but this is only to mask how uneventful our own lives were. Things go on as usual, which is not quite surprising as we all are or used to be, the children, Christiane or myself part, of that most sedate category of people the French call, sometimes scornfully, “fonctionnaires”.

So let’s come to the point. As you know, Christiane retired last year and she doesn’t seem to miss her former job too much. She enjoys a stressless and free life. She is highly active though, as she hikes every Thursday in the local hills and mountains with other retired people, a group from which I am still excluded, but just wait and see. She also goes swimming once a week in the swimming pool at her former grammar school and also exercises there. She has become really keen on gardening and spends much of her time weeding, planting, harvesting, and of course, considering the place, watering. Nothing serious has befallen us concerning the catastrophic flooding which hit the area as we live on the smooth slope of a small hill, so, the water just rushes past.
For my part, I still work but I will have to retire at the end of June. The French system does not allow wage-earners to work after sixty five, however  strong your motivation might be. This is just the point. My motivation is no longer what it used to be. It is certainly invigorating to deal with young people and I will certainly miss that, but on the other hand, what I teach (literature and literary translation) are subjects which seem to require a discipline which our digital generations are no longer capable of. In addition, the system itself seems much more concerned with financial streamlining than educational efficiency and the “shopkeepers” get the final word and no longer the artists. So… I might soon no longer be excluded from the Thursday hikes.

Our children are all well. Stéphane still works in Montpellier, which, if you happen to visit France is certainly a place to go to.  He travels a lot around France for his job. This does not seem to put him off traveling in general. He is what seems to be called now an urban trekker. He visited Stockholm, Sweden, then he came with us to the US last summer and led the way across Boston, Philadelphia among other cities. Then he went to Montreal in October to see his cousins who live there and after Christmas he plans to go to Nepal, which is also trekking, but not really urban.
Benjamin teaches biology in the same school. With his girl friend, he is still busy improving his house, building sheds for her horses, collecting hay or carting off horse manure. He used to be a man of the city (Marseilles) but he really seems to enjoy the country now.

Last summer, as I mentioned, we went to the US for the Ankenman family reunion, which took place in Tennessee in a Christian holiday camp. All was really perfect there and it is always a good experience to live among “real” Americans. We had  a great time there with our American cousins we love meeting every five years. There were lots of activities for all ages and tastes, quite impressive. It corrects the vision we might have from France through papers, TV programmes or academic essays. We took advantage of this trip to visit Virginia, Philadelphia, the Amish country, where we had never been, and also to go back to Boston and Washington, places we really liked. Academics cannot avoid being academics so we stopped at Charlottesville, Yale, and Harvard. Going to the US is still exciting though, what struck us this time was a more visible poverty, more dilapidated roads or housing.

Well, we all seem to share the difficulties of the domination of the financial system (sorry for those who worked in it). It is also comforting to note that the French, who are often mocked for this, are not the only ones to be able to botch air travel. On our flight back, we were delayed because of thunderstorms at take off in Philadelphia and rerouted to Marseilles over Munich, instead of Brussels. The people from American Airlines just forgot to reroute our luggage so that it was not on the flight. It was Lufthansa, the company which brought us from Munich to Marseilles which had to track the luggage which had actually gone to Brussels, the people in Philly didn’t really seem to have cared. Fortunately, it was delivered to our house two days later. We did not really enjoy flying with American Airlines. There was an atmosphere of suspicion for passengers, which does not really make your trip enjoyable. I know, there is terrorism, but there is no need to look down on every passenger as a possible criminal. The French administration is often called meddlesome and scornful. I am pleased to note that this is not a national characteristic and that, given the chance, you might find such people among all nations.

This is it. I must admit that when I started to write the letter, I feared I might not have much to say, hence the long introduction. You may skip it, but once you get to this point, it is too late, sorry.
We wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

We go very low key with Christmas gifts..

Richard opens an intriguing gift from Don and Elaine.

Richard's gift to me and I can't wait to read it...loved Rin Tin Tin as a kid!

Jim's stack of second hand books selected especially for me...gets harder every year to find things I haven't read...

I actually managed to find some film books Richard didn't have...yeah.

Ian recorded the complete discography of Nina Simone and Joni Mitchell for us...wow!

Jim mainly got "smelly old clothes" (family joke) and a pen and pencil set...almost a tradition.

Richard gave us some newspapers so we wouldn't be without our print crutch on Christmas Day.  Loved this photo on the front page of the Sun.

And Don and Elaine always spoil us.  This year a wonderful travelling wine case with fabulous glass, linen napkins, and of course a very special bottle of Bordeaux.

.

The Christmas Season

The season began with meeting Derek and Mary at The Penny Farthing on Dec 22 and having a great meal and chat.  Then,  Don and Elaine invited us over for a "round the world" scotch tasting and wonderful appies...wow!

Richard arrived for Christmas Eve and we enjoyed Fern's wonderful tourtiere and chutney.  Christmas dinner was with our neighbour's, Chris and Susan, our families, and Monique.  We all had a very wonderful time.

We do feel very blessed with our family and friends.

Merry Christmas everyone!

Christmas Eve Dinner

John delivered this wonderful tourtiere, tomato chutney, and mince tarts all made by Fern.  She is a fantastic cook and baker and our Christmas Eve dinner have been supplied by her for many years now.  Merci beaucoup, Fern!

Doll house at the library

I really enjoyed this Christmas dollhouse display at the library.  I never did have a dollhouse and have always been loved them.

Itty Bitty Book Review: "Tigerlily's Orchids"

"Tigerlily's Orchids" by Ruth Rendell

I had gone off Ruth Rendell a bit but saw this in the Fast Reads and thought I'd give it a try.  What are holidays about if not reading a good mystery.  I enjoyed it a lot...very funny and all the foolish bad people got what they deserved and the good people got what they deserved...all very "Christmassy"...

Photo size test

I think I finally figured out how to get photos bigger with this new template but as Donna said,  landscape views do bleed over.

Our villa in Carqueiranne.

First Christmas as a Blogger

Not much interesting is happening at the moment so I was wondering what to post on my blog today.  I figured I really needed to find something since I told Donna recently that her readers were missing her blog and she didn't really have to be doing interesting things...just look around and dream something up.  That's part of the fun!  So I thought I would look at what I was blogging for my first Christmas as a blogger.  It was fun to go back and of course we were geared up for Jim's teaching gig in the south of France.

 

 Friday, December 20, 2002

We're all booked for France...flights, car, apartment. We decided to go back to our apartment in the port of Carqueiranne. I'm thinking of that wonderful fresh fish I bought off the fishboats already...who knows...perhaps this time when I paint them they won't turn out red, blue, and yellow!
So, we'll be seeing this sign quite a bit very soon.

Wednesday, December 25, 2002

Merry Christmas everyone! Just taking a little break...turkey's cooked, gravy is made, Richard did the vegetables. Jim and Richard are having their Christmas chess game. Our very dear friends, Don and Elaine, will arrive in about an hour. We're all really looking forward to having a quiet Christmas together and remembering family, friends, and being thankful for being so blessed.

Tuesday, December 31, 2002

Happy New Year to everyone!

For the next while I've decided to post some of my first drawings that were inspired by la belle France and also the letters I wrote last winter when we were in Provence. I've been typing them up and it's really fun for me to read about these thing I've partly forgotten already.

Frosty morning

Lots of frost today but the cat across the street seemed very cosy on her porch.  I bet she's still thanking her lucky stars not to be harassed by our darling Oscar who used to visit here then head across the street the torment her!

50 fascinating facts: Kim Jong-il and North Korea - Telegraph

Grief and hysteria in the streets for "Dear Leader"....good grief!

I hope there isn't anyone crazier in a leadership position in the world today but that's probably being too optimistic. The facts in the article are fascinating!

50 fascinating facts: Kim Jong-il and North Korea - Telegraph

Itty Bitty Book Review: "Death Comes to Pemberley"

"Death Comes to Pemberley" by P.D. James

I really enjoyed reading this novel.  Wow...not only another reading treat from P.D. but it was almost like getting another Jane Austen novel.  P.D. kept very much in the times and it was most interesting to get an insight into the courts and legal system.  I'm sure she researched this and everything would be as accurate as possible.  And what fun to get more of Elizabeth Bennet.  I'm not sure Jane Austen would have approved but I think Elizabeth would have loved it and had a good laugh and no doubt numerous witticisms to share.

Best Christmas shopping experience ever...

Well, it didn't quite start out so great having a problem getting a parking place at Hillside but as I was going into the mall I noticed a woman beside three colourful birds that were in a bush. I commented to her that I wondered where they came from. She said there were hers and she was just picking them up after shopping. I asked to take a photo and then she said she'd take a photo of me and proceeded to place the birds on me.

They are Black Capped Conures, a smallish parrot-like bird, and she said she had trained them since they were babies not to fly away. They had never been in a cage and they were bonded so they had no need to fly away and didn't want to leave each other. She takes them everywhere apparently. They love to get out and about.









More info on these birds:

Black Capped Conures make beautiful, intelligent, and fun-loving pets for the right people. While they do require a great deal of attention from their owners, they always seem to reward human efforts with their hilarious antics. Known to be little clowns, Black Capped Conures can be mischievous and curious, and have a tendency to get into things that they shouldn't when not properly supervised. For this reason, it is important for those who are interested in owning a Black Capped Conure to be sure that they have plenty of free time to spend with their new pet.

Even hand-raised parrots can reject human interaction if neglected, and the same holds true for Black Capped Conures. Handling these birds every day is an important part of building a bond with them and having them accept you as a flock-mate. While they are not known to be especially good talkers, Black Capped Conures can learn a few words from time to time, and delight their owners with their chatter when they do. They can be very loud, noisy birds, and because of this, they are not recommended as good birds for apartments.

In a nutshell, Black Capped Conures make the best pets for those who are true bird lovers -- those who don't mind cleaning up a mess from time to time or waking up to screeches and screams every morning at sunrise. Black Capped Conures pack all of the personality of a larger parrot into a small package, and for this reason, they are best for experienced bird owners. For the right person, however, they make extraordinarily loving, affectionate pets, and will surely enjoy their place among the most popular pet bird species for years to come.