I am on a little cloud since Anaïs and Kalle are at home! We have such good time all together! So much to tell since they live so far from home! We are always sharing our way of life, the fresh news… I can say, if happiness exist here it is!

Anaïs and Kalle, our two lovers!

You can notice Kalle’s hair are different after the army! We really adore his new look! He has a so nice and lovely face,  it was sad to hide it with the long hair but I suspect he isn’t in the same feeling we are!

Now I will offer beautiful and delicate flowers to you!

The mimosa, my syter cut in her garden!

Mimosa on Muguette table

So delicate mimosa

I must go now for the new adventures today with my daughter and her boyfriend!

Anaïs and Kalle

 I am so glad to come back here sharing with you my best moments in life.

One of them, sunday!!! Anaïs and kalle arriving from Finland.

I didn’t see my daughter since the end of july!

The next days will full of laugh, surprises, good time!

I say no more! Don’t miss our future adventures!

Delicious King Cake the pupils cooked

As each january we respected the King Cake tradition at school and the pupils had great time cooking and eating it.

The King Cake is very popular, here in France during  january. It is associated with the Epiphany. The cake has a small trinket inside and the person who get the piece of cake where the trinket is, becomes the king  and has the obligation to offer the next King Cake during the month.

The recipe I used with the pupils is really simple and the result was great!!!!

Ingredients for the King Cake:

2 packets of  puff pastry or pâte feuilletée in french

3 eggs

a little sugar about 3 or 4 tablespoons

About 6O g of  almond powder

The recipe for the King Cake or La galette des Rois

Put  out the first  puff pastry in a pan cake you buttered before.

Mix 2 eggs with 3 table spoons of sugar and the almond powder to obtain a cream.

Spread this cream on the puff pastry, put the trinket, and put the second puff pastry above. Pinch around the cake to close it.

With a knife draw a grid on it.

And with a brush put some egg’s yellow on the cake in order to the galette des rois become golden when it will cook.

Your oven must be preheated.

Now you can put it in the oven for 35 minutes at th. 6 (180°)

Don’t forget to prepare the crown!!!

And it is better when you share it with friends!

this tradition find its origin by the Antiqua Roma.  Louis XIV was an adept of this joke and even if the Revolution 1789 trid to prohibit,  it it will continue after a time.

The tradition is that the youngest child  stand under the table and say to the host  how he must  do the dispensation.

Nice to eat the King Cake with a fresh cider.

If you buy one, the same we cooked here, you will pay it about 20 euros in a bakery and I am sure, yours, you cook yourself will really better!!!

The King Cake is really a good thing for the economy of the land: each year 60 millions of this galette is selt. With a price about 15 euros it makes a turnover of 900 millions euros!

The Jack Pot!

La galette des rois is a such convivial family and friends moment, we can’t miss each year!

Just before ending  my post here I can’t forget the horrible event in Haïti.

Nice to hear the world doesn’t forget Haïti and I stay turned.

Last saturday, as we were, Pierre and me, walking on the port of Marseille, la Cannebière, looking for a nice restaurant, we saw that fast everywhere you could eat an Aïoli. But we didn’t ask for an Aïoli!!! As Pierre, my own chef prefers cooking it himself than eating one anywhere. So, we ate and excellent piece of beef with chips and vegetables without forget a fresh pastis 51. I notice pastis 51 is the pastis of Marseille when the pastis Ricard is this one around Toulon. (Important thing to know!!!*giggles*)

After and excellent meal, we wanted to visit the old quarter of Marseille: le Vieux Panier, but the mistral (wind) was so strong and the temperature about -3, we decided to return at the trainstation and when asking a guy our way, an adorable woman offers to drive us in her car there!!!!

Yes, she was our fairy!!! The temperature was about -3 and the wind so agressif! As I said to her she was so kind and  I didn’t think a such proposition could arrive in Toulon, she said: « In Marseille you can meet the best as the worst!» 

The day after, I heard on the radio, a poor 20 years old guy living in the street,  was dead, in Marseille under an entry  around the trainstation because the temperature. They spoke about the problem with the young guys, coming from Eastern Europe without papers and who don’t accept the help of human associations, frightened by the react of the administration wich could send them back home. But in fact those associations just offer them a place to eat and sleep for the night without any will to phone the police.

We were so sad after hearing that news.  Mélissa was without voice. She couldn’t understand a such event could arrive here in France. The all day we had the shadow of this horrible story. And me, who don’t practice my religion, I prayed for his soul. Thinking to him, to his parents, so far, who have no news of their son. Horrible.

just a flower for you, peace to your soul

When we are living in the univers, on a marvelous planet, why is our world so crazy ?

This year Mélissa asked we fest Christmas at home and receiv the family. We decided to cook l’Aïoli. Pierre worked in the kitchen from 8 am to the evening when I was cleaning  the house and decorate with Mélissa. without forget Méli and me we cooked some chocolates with nuts and I prepared a sangria. But the Chef was in the kitchen …

and the result was phenomenal!

A sauce cooking with garlic and olive oil

You can learn about l’aïoli on wikipedia, click here.

Champagne and la Bûche de Noël (traditional french Xmas cake)

But here the magical Xmas moment:

A little fairy opening the gift Xmas father put under the Xmastree.

this is the card the pupils created for their wishes!

Xmas table decorations

the little Xmas scupture

The little scuptures are at home now near the Xmas tree by the pupils.

Roses des sables

The pupils cooked les Roses des sables with chocolate and corn flakes! Delicious!

Les fondants au chocolat

And those Xmas chocolates with hazelnuts!!!

We are really  in Xmas mod  and tomorrow a special show for the pupils.

Tomorrow, after the school, we’ll be on Christmas Holiday!

And the family Xmas bath will begin!!!!!

Now we are in the real Xmas mod at school. The planning is intensive.

Tuesday, the 8 th of december, we will post the famous letter for Xmas father and buy a right Xmas tree.

Xmas chorales: three! One in front of the Ollioules’ firemen and two with parents.

On tuesday, the 15 th of december we will walk to the center of the village and decorate the Xmas trees of the town.

Xmas father visit us personnaly at school the 17th of december and there will a nice show for kids the 18, the last day.

And they’ll go back home with the nice decorations they are making now.

We are in the corridor in front of the classroom!

If you enter you’ll see the advent calendar on the blackboard.

Some Xmas fathers controle the situation.

Some curious creatures are waiting after the pupils to find a new home and will soon left the classroom, in fact the last day before the Xmas holiday.

This one found already his basket.

In a short time he will have to share  it with a decorated pine cone and some excellent Xmas sweeties, the pupils will cook: Rose des sables and truffes.

Still a big job to decorate the pine cones with jewelry.

Today the pupils planted the corn respecting the tradition in Provence for the Sainte Barbe. We expect joy and prosperity.

Those are black sculptures, the pupils did just before christmas theme; They represente black dancers in an African village. In 2010, the pupils will build African huts for the exhibition, the school will present at the end of the schoolyear in juni.

I really love the preschool, free and were pupils practice really plastic arts with a lot of possibility .

She was 89 years old, living at the residence since about one year.  She didn’t know but she was in the alzheimer line. Her only wish was now to join her darling, her husband, Pierre, waiting for her in the souls’ world. Since the 25 th of november she is with him. She left us in her sleep, early in the morning.

Pierre (my husband) , said to me, he was like a disabled man, for exemple without leg or arm. This is his feeling now.

She is in our mind. We are glad now she is near her dear husband, Pierre and grand son.

We love her.

Click here. It was in august 2008. Memories…

Yesterday, I was in Marseille with the pupils and we had a visit at the museum, La Vieille Charité, I spoke about in one of my last posts.

Here simply I would want to share with you, the trip through Marseille just watching the landscape around through the bus glasses.

a trip by bus in Marseille

It was a beautiful day, very sunny. We realised, we just can understand the season is automn because now the vegetation is colored, yellow, red… but temperatures were so sweet. Better than today.

click here  and enjoy the short visit!

RennyBA’s Terella

Official Program Site

This year, our teacher claude Dini, chose a play by Molière: « Le médecin volant» .

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Le Médecin volant is a French play by Molière, and his first presented in 1645. It is composed of 16 scenes and has seven characters:

• Gorgibus, an old nobleman, the father of Lucile (Commedia dell’Arte Character- Pantalone in commedia Dell’Arte)
• Lucile : daughter of Gorgibus, engaged to Villebrequin
• Gros-René : Gorgibus’ servant
• Sabine : Lucile’s cousin, the source of all the intrigue in the play (Columbina in Commedia’Dell Arte)
• Valère : Lucile’s lover 
• Sganarelle : Hero of the play, valet to Valère. (Arlecchino)
• A Lawyer (Il Dottore in Commedia Dell Arte)

It tells the story of two lovers, Valère and Lucile witch father Gorgibus wants absolutly marry her daughter to Villebrequin. Lucile pretends to be ill and Sabine her dear cousin will find a ridiculous doctor,  still pretentious, Sganarelle the valet of Valère. Finally Gorgibus, even cheated by this double identity, will recognize  have been cheated and will accept the wedding of the two lovers. The involving of the play comes directly from the Commedia Dell’ Arte.

« Molière was a French playwright and actor who is considered one of the greatest masters of comedy in Western literature. Among Molière’s best-known dramas are Le Misanthrope (The Misanthrope), L’École des femmes (The School for Wives), Tartuffe ou L’Imposteur, (Tartuffe or the Hypocrite), L’Avare ou L’École du mensonge (The Miser), Le Malade imaginaire (The Imaginary Invalid), and Le Bourgeois gentilhomme (The Bourgeois Gentleman).» 

Wikipédia

Though he received the adulation of the court with Louis XIV and Parisians, Molière’s satires attracted criticisms from moralists and the Roman Catholic Church.

Molière et Louis XIV d'après Vetter

I say no more about the difficulties  learning a french XVII th century text but another way so attractiv!

We will still work Commedia Dell’ Arte  characters  with masks to december and after Claude will choose and share out  our characters in the Médecin Volant.

Can’t wait the distribution!!!

To know more about the blog gathering, Oslo summer 2010:

RennyBA’s Terella

Official Program

As Mélissa took her train from Marseille to  Paris where she had a party with friends met in le Portugal last august, I decided to go with her at the train station Marseille Saint Charles and visit La vieille Charité, a museum and  culturel center in the heart  of  an old quarter called Le Panier.

I had not  my camera as my daughter ned  in Paris. (SOS fatherchristmas)!

the chapel of La vieille Charité

This the picture on wikipédia where you will have all the informations about. Click here!

Here some links where you can admire this marvelous building.

-Marseille forum

-le routard.com

-l’internaute.com

I should have some pictures soon as I will go there with my class at the end of november.

« Constructed between 1671 and 1749 in the Baroque style to the designs of the architect Pierre Puget, it comprises four ranges of arcaded galleries in three storeys surrounding a space with a central chapel surmounted by an ovoid dome.» 

In the first time, the almshouses served as workhouses for the beggars.

« Spared during the French Revolution, the building was used as an asylum for « les vagabonds et les gens sans aveu»  (vagrants and the dispossessed) in the nineteenth century. It was transformed into a barracks for the French Foreign Legion until 1922, when it was used to lodge those displaced by the demolition of the district behind the Bourse and later those made homeless by the dynamiting of the Old Port during the Second World War. Plagued by squatters, pillagers and vandals, it eventually housed 146 families living in squalid and unsafe conditions.» 

« La Vieille Charité was painstakingly restored to its former glory between 1970 and 1986, restoration of the chapel being completed in 1981.^« 

^{After a beautiful walk to the old port, La Cannebière and through the old quarter Le panier, I arrived in front of this monument. And I began just the visit  admiring the architecture and the baroque chapel with inside a beautiful sculptors’ exhibition.}

^{after that I had a lot to see: first the paintings exhibition with local painters from the XVII to the XX century.}

^{There is one painter I particulary appreciated called Charles  Lacroix de Marseille.}

^{I couldn’t find the painting I loved so much in La Charité but I found this one on the net so that you can have an idea about the artist.}

Marine au soleil couchant by La Croix  de Marseille in 1765. This one is at the fine art museum of Dijon.

It gives you the atmoshere  the old port of Marseille at the XVIII century. I was dreaming to be there!

After the painting I went on the first floor where I could visit the Museum of Mediterranean Archaeology, covering oriental and classical antiquities, as well as local Celto-Ligurian archaeology.

And I felt in admiration in front of the greek productions!!!

Amphor,  VI century aJ.C., Athènes

Of course I found this one on the web, but really you just can felt in admiration if you realise what could produce artists at this time in Greece.

At the end I visited the egypt department wich was marvelous too. I just put my hand above a sarchophage hoping perhaps the mummy could give some news about the domain of Hades!

It was a great visit and I hope to have my own pictures soon when I go back there.

RennyBA’s Terella

Official Program Site

                                  Don’t miss that event!