The staff from the special needs home are up setting out the replacement tables in the salle des fetes. Today the residents will have a disco on the village green and a barbecue afterwards.
Here at The Rickety Old Farmhouse the alarm people have returned to deal with some tiny problems with the installation. The electricians sensibly opt to work with the front door closed .... and the PONs outside. Bob and Sophie find it difficult to believe that their help isn't needed.
Lily of the Valley in all the supermarkets. A French tradition on May 1st. The Old Farmer says it is grown in Nantes and shipped all over the country. He has no idea why the French give Lily of the Valley on May 1st. He did however rather enjoy being the centre of attention at his granddaughters birthday party. Sensibly she invited only girls to the lunch.
Sophie is not at all happy that electricians are in the house unsupervised. They may have brought biscuits. She gives us a legal look that's ' a bit snitty *'.
* A very Scottish phrase suddenly made famous. There again Barr is a Scottish surname.
9 comments:
Hoping the problems with the alarm system installation really are only "tiny"...
If you define sleep interruption in the middle of the night as being 'tiny' then yes.
Hari OM
Snitty, snooty - who cares, how dare those workers not come armed with jaffa cakes?!! So glad TOF enjoyed his gaggle of gals. YAM xx
I lived thru Nixon but never have I seen anything like this. America is circling the drain...
I found this out about the Lily of the Valley:
Last year, French people spent €31.8m on Lily of the Valley plants that symbolise love and affection
SHOPS are shut, buses are not running, and unions are marching for workers’ rights, as France marks the Fête du Travail today.
But, as well as work and workers, May 1 - which became a public holiday in France in 1947 - is associated with an older tradition. It is the Fête du Muguet, when thousands of roadside stalls selling lily of the valley spring up.
The flower only became associated with workers’ rights in the 20th century.
Last year the French forked out €31.8m to buy a sprig of lily of the valley (“muguet”) as a token of affection for family and loved ones.
The tradition of giving lily of the valley flowers on May 1 is said to have begun in 1560, when knight Louis Girard presented King Charles IX with a bunch of lily-of-the-valley flowers as a token of luck and prosperity for the coming year.
It is said that he took a shine to the idea and began the custom of presenting lily-of-the-valley flowers to the ladies of his court each year on the same day.
Julie
Thank you. I shall pass this on to The Old Farmer who may, or may not, remember roadside Muguet stalls.
Happy to hear the Old Farmer enjoyed his Granddaughter’s birthday celebration. My husbands grandmother gave me Lilly of the Valley pips in the ‘60’s. I have moved them all over the property trying to find the ideal location for them to multiply, and have decided our temperature is to warm for them. I did pick three stems last week! As I feared, the joys of a security system have begun for you, my condolences.
Hope the glitches in the new security system aren't waking you or Bob and Sophie up at night. I remember when ours did, shortly after we moved to our current house. It was caused by a loose connection on a door, but of course we didn't know that.
Interesting about "snitty" being a Scottish term. I read Barr's Wikipedia entry, and if you put aside the multiple counts of perjury, he seems a nice enough chap. It said his father was born Jewish and converted to Catholicism, so Barr may or may not have been the original name.
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