The Speech of Angels

Between the various concerts, plays, dance recitals and assorted events we've been involved in lately, it's been hard to even take a stab at keep this blog up to date.( And I still have FOUR more concerts to sing in before this month is over!!)
 But I'll make a valiant attempt...

Ensemble Vocale of the Music Conservatory of Annemasse

Mallory singing "Nel se ben"

On June first, Mallory and I performed in the end of year concert of the music conservatory where we both study voice.

The Ensemble Vocale did five pieces: two by Purcell (in English, FTW!) and three well-known French Renaissance works.

Mallory did her first-ever solo performance- a really lovely Italian Baroque piece by Stradella;

She did so well!!!! I'm so proud!!!!

Me?
For my solo piece,  I sang one of the songs that I performed for my music exam in May.  I chose "If music be the food of love" because the jury (two music specialists from Lyon) pronounced my interpretation to be "flawless"!!! And they are not easy people to please, so, it seemed like a solid idea.

In fact, it went quite well at the concert, despite the fact that I was a bit sick.

Upcoming concerts are on June  16 (a concert in the village of Marignier where I'll do my solo piece plus three duets with my friend Annie), June 19 (a programme of gospel music), and then , finally,  two different concerts on June 21- one at 4pm and another at 7pm.

After that I don't have anything musical planned until we sing at a small medieval fair in mid-August...



* "Music is well said to be the speech of angels"
 -Thomas Carlyle, Scottish philosopher and music-lover

Grandes Medievales: Weekende the Seconde

Waiting for Sev's show to begin.

No, the picture on the left  is not a cast photo from "Game of Thrones".  (Though I did keep calling Sev "Lord Snow" all day long)

It is my four kids and my eldest  daughter's patient and good-natured boyfriend Mat.

My offspring are quite used to going out in public in unlikely costumes (see here and here), but it was more than I had hoped that Mat would ever be willing to play the game.
But it seems that Swedish people are, perhaps, more amenible to dress-up than the French are.  He was perfectly willing to be outfitted by us.
Valentine, Alexa and I stayed up until 1am the night before, hand-sewing a shirt for him.
I personally designed and sewed his cap, which turned out, I believe, to be rather fetching.

He's such a good sport....







As usual, Sev was in the daily parades and in the daily show "Two Centuries of Combat", in which he plays an English soldier and generally avoids being killed.                         

Sev in his black slashed doublet,holding a pike.

Sunday started out a bit overcast, but by noon it was POURING rain. This deluge of epic proportions seriously put a crimp in our day.

Not that it was a total loss.  Tya, Alexa, my friend Annie and I had a good time hanging out in a tavern and entertaining  other performers and the few tourists still around.with some acappella period music. Fortunately, we know lots of medieval drinking songs....

By 4pm, though, we were ready to leave.
Sadly, my car ended up stuck in the mud.  And I have to admit that pushing a big car out of a mud pit while wearing medieval clothes and shoes is NOT an activity I'd highly recommend.  But we managed....

A Musical Interlude: Fa La La etc....

While Sev spends his days at the Grandes Medievales

I performed in a Purcell trio with a couple of basses.

hacking away at people with a sword, I pass my time otherwise....

On the first Sunday of the event, I was (like last year) joined by some of my pals from the Music Conservatory of Annemasse. 
Happily, they are all a big bunch of geeks like me and think that dressing up in medieval gear and singing period acappella music sounds like a really fabulous way to have some fun.

We performed at five different venues throughout the park.

Considering how huge this festival is, there is very little music being performed there. 

There's a cool group of singing monks, but my group is the only mixed vocal music ensemble.

People really seemed to appreciate us and we even had a few people ask how they could join!

Grandes Medievales d'Andilly: Weekende the Firste

 First of all, I'd like to take a moment to consider the colorful colloquial phrase from American English  " I'ma get medieval on your ass".
Apparently first used in the popular 1994 Tarantino film 'Pulp Fiction, it means "to use violence or extreme measures on, to become aggressive."

This seems very unfair.  It is highly unlikely that all the European people  who lived between the 5th to 15th centuries spent all of (or even most of) their time inflicting violence on each other.


In all fairness, "getting medieval" could just as easily refer to playing the lute and eating marzipan...which, frankly, sounds like lots more fun.
 (The irony of writing this and then posting it next to a photo of Severin wearing armour and holding a pike is not lost upon me, btw.) 

But still.... our first weekend of medieval-type activities at the huge Andilly event was NOT a never-ending bloodbath of horror.
Which is nice.

 

 As you can see, Tya and I were  in the daily parades (that's me in dark blue and Tya in green beside me) and  the twins even brought along a pal (who also dressed up and got into the spirit of things).


I also kept busy helping out with things  at the soldiers' camp...like guiding small children through the "Become an Awesome Knight" obstacle course.
And then there was answering all of the questions of the many, many, many tourists.


Did I mention there were a LOT of tourists?
On Saturday alone they sold 16,000 tickets to this event!  And that number translates into lots of lost small children weeping along the charming forested paths.  The ones with smart parents had their folks' cell phone numbers written on their arms (Well...semi-smart parents.  I guess the really bright ones managed not to lose their offspring...)  At any rate, I did manage a few child-rescue operations, which was a feel-good kind of thing.  I do love a happy ending...


As for my medieval faire "stardom" consisting of (if you will recall) being featured in the program photo this year-  I actually had a woman recognise me! She was sitting near me at the falconry show and asked "That's you, right?"...Which was astonishing, as the photo isn't very large and I was wearing totally different clothing.  I'm still completely  mystified by her apparent super-power....

News about medieval stuff and how much I hate the new Blogspot version

It's been ages since I have posted anything.  This is mainly because Blogspot completely changed their publishing interface and I HATE it!!! I had been using the old one for eight years and it was FINE!

Did I mention that it was FREAKING PERFECTLY FINE?

I did? 
OK, then...

I don't see why they had to screw with it, but they did and I hate it.

Now on to more interesting news!!!
It is once again time for the huge medieval faire at Andilly.  And once again, Severin will be in the daily shows, displaying his sword-wielding prowess.  And I will be singing with my music conservatory pals!!
The girls will be there too, singing a bit and looking beautiful.

We are all super-excited!!

And here, for your amusement is the program for this year.  It's a pdf of the program that will be handed out to about 40,000 people during this event.  And guess who you can see in one of the photos featured on it?
Check out the page marked "Bienvenue au Moyen Age" .
That's right- ME!!! (wearing a red and gold dress) You can also see, Tya, too- but not her face.  You can see her awesome hairstyle, though!

Expect lots of news and pics from this event.  I'm motivated to supress my hatred now and get back to blogging!

Three reasons that I can't make my bed in the morning:

I don't know all of the readers of this blog personally. It may be that some of you live under a rock, at the bottom of the sea or perhaps deep in a cave where you live with a family of gentle, yet fierce and socially-isolated badgers.

And if any of the above scenarios apply to your personal situation, you may be one of the estimated 16 human beings on planet Earth who have not heard of "The Hunger Games"movie that came out on Wednesday.

But I'm just an average woman, living in a normal, badger-free house, so that means that my kids and I had been looking forward to the above-mentioned film for quite a while.
I'd read the trilogy of books by Suzanne Collins to my girls and we all loved it. (I'm a big fan of YA science fiction and I've had a great time over the years discovering great authors like Susan Beth Pfeffer and Carrie Ryan). So, you won't be surprised to learn that we went to see the film on Sunday.
We went to Geneva so that we could see it in English, rather than dubbed in French....

and we got there an hour early, in order to be sure to get good seats...

(Please don't ask me why Severin is making completely deranged facial expressions. I really cannot tell you.)

It was a great evening and a fun time was had by all...

BTW- Go see the film. It's really very excellent!

March has been busy...and promises to get even busier.
On Saturday, I took Valentine to sign up at the fine arts school in Annemasse. It's her "Plan B" school if things don't work out for the school in Avignon.
I'm sure it will all work out, but it's good to have a backup plan, right?

That afternoon, our pal Max, Alexa and I went to Geneva to do a bit of shopping. I ended up finding an amazing pair of shoes on sale for 60% off! But mostly we wandered around the flea market at Plainpalais. They have one there every Wednesday and Saturday.

Plainpalais is a neighbourhood in central Geneva and here's and interesting fact about it: Historically, it was an area outside the densely populated city of Geneva where they brought the sick to avoid contagion and an epidemic.
Everybody looked pretty healthy there on Saturday, though- so that's good.....
It's such a drag to contract the plague. Amirite?
Something for everyone!

It was a bit cold and windly, so we stopped in a nearby Starbucks for a shockingly overpriced snack. But it was so good!!!!

Sweden is a mysterious country.
Tell me, really- what do you know about Sweden?

Chances are, not much.
Perhaps the Nobel Prize springs to mind.
And also possibly those tasty fish-shaped candies they make

True fact: In Sweden, you can have your chewy fish-shaped candy "Salmiak"-flavored.
"Salmiak" means "salted herring".
I am not making this up.

Luckily, you can count on my informative, fact-filled blog to tell you everything you need to know about this mysterious, salted-herring oriented nation.

So, here's what you need to know about Sweden:
Sweden is very cold. It is located mainly at the North Pole. They have lots of reindeer there.
And trolls.
They have lots of trolls*.

The towns of Sweden have humorous names like "Jokkmokk" and "Nykoping". This is to cheer up the Swedish people who sometimes get depressed because winter lasts nearly 11 months of the year there.

The only other really important thing to know about the wonderful, troll-filled Arctic nation of Sweden is that Valentine is there RIGHT NOW!

She packed her bag on Friday night:

Then she and her boyfriend caught the plane this morning, quite early. They'll be staying with Mat's grandparents in the mildly funny-sounding city of Uppsala. And they will spend 10 days visiting the various salted-herring candy factories and caring for his grandparents' massive reindeer herd**

Now you know all about Sweden and Tya's trip there.

You're welcome!
___________________________________________________________________
*I know this is true because I read the following item in the India Times: "Author Jan Brett trolls Scandinavia for atmosphere. So she naturally headed to Sweden - home of all kinds of trolls - to research her new picture book".
See? I do serious research!

**This is possibly not entirely accurate.

On Saturday, we spent the day in downtown Geneva. It was a cold day to be walking around a lakeside city, but we were on a mission. My mom had a ton of souvenirs still to buy for the family back home...and she leaves Monday morning!
So, we got busy helping her choose chocolates (free samples, FTW!), t-shirts and suchlike items.
While the twins and I helped out Mom, Valentine, her boyfriend and Severin ran over to the Apple Store to try to clear up an issue with Tya's iPad (it never really has worked properly!). They were promptly given a brand new iPad and sent on their way.
How's that for customer service?!
After our labors, it was good to sit down to a nice lunch in an adorable Swiss-style restaurant:

Deliberations over the menu were long, but the three older kids finally decided on...fondue!

We were all pretty tired by the day's end and glad to be heading home!

Bob was happy to see us all.

As far as we can tell, anyway.

My mom's visit here in the lovely Haute Savoie continues well.
As you can see, a good time is being had by all:

(Daisy apparently feels really relaxed in my mom's company.)

On Friday, we picked up Tya from school a bit early and went shopping!

We were in Annemasse, a nearby town that has some good shops. What's a trip to France without a trip to the Monoprix? Amirite?

The town square in Annemasse is quite pretty most of the year.
It's a bit barren in January...

...but it was still fun taking pictures to commemorate our outing!

On a trip to France, most people might expect to go visit interesting sites- perhaps the great Cathedral of Notre Dame or the Eiffel Tower.

We are not doing any of that sort of thing with my mom. In fact, today she got to help me clean my house.(Thanks, Mom! Love you!!!!)

But we don't only clean house.
Mais non!
We also....go pick up Mallory when she gets out of school early:

(FYI: My car is the one with the blue "Nebraskans for Peace" bumper sticker.)

Here's Mallory getting her papers inspected as she leaves school:

Back home, Finally!

This is Bob. My mom thinks Bob is kind of cute and sweet.

Bob is actually strange and kind of deformed.
She was like this when we found her and even the vet can't explain how a stray cat could be so hugely obese. She's like a watermelon with four toothpicks for legs. But she's so pathetic that you have to love her....

My mom has been enjoying the lovely fruits and vegetables here in France...

(She took this photo at the supermarket. Kind of pretty!)

She has also sat through two of Alexa's dance classes. She went to ballet on Monday and today was modern dance. As she watched, she had to hold the teacher's dog, Coppelia. Coppelia is quite spoiled and barks at you if not petted and endlessly cosseted.

If my dad shows these photos to their dog back home, my mom could be in big trouble. Bridget seems like the jealous type....

You may notice that the photos below do NOT contain Buckingham Palace, Big Ben, the Tower of London or serious guys in tall, black, fuzzy hats.
This is because none of the pictures were taken in London.
Don't worry- there ARE London pics and you will see them.
Eventually.
But right now, I'm in the midst of a visit from my mom, who trekked all the way over here to see us!! She's only here for two weeks, so we're keeping quite busy.
The main activity has been shopping.
Here we are on our way into the Balexert shopping mall, which is just outside of Geneva:

(No, she isn't crouching. My kids are all giants and she is kind of tiny.)

Here's Alexa modelling some adorable leopard ears:

MacDonald's is always popular with the kid. Mom says she agrees that the European versions of their food is MUCH nicer. The salads are quite good, even!

We have also ventured to the Ikea, as mom has never, ever been to one!
The thrills started in the restroom, where they had a Dyson AirBlade to dry our hands.
Very amusing!

Equally thrilling were the tasty Swedish meatballs!!

The fish Alexa ordered was less thrilling, but the desserts were quite excellent.
There were even donuts!

Luckily, we had an actual Swedish person (Valentine's boyfriend) to guide us through the huge labyrinth. He was also very handy for translating mysterious signs and carrying heavy stuff. Nice boy!

Having a bit of a rest is a must. The place is quite huge!

After a few days in a row of shopping, we decided to take Sunday off and have a rest at home.

What's in store this week? Definitely a day in downtown Geneva- other than that, no definite plans have been made...