I’ve been painting and cutting plasterboard on and off for the last week now as we work on some ceilings. In our various renovations we’ve used vast quantities of plasterboard, and we haven’t finished yet. So I decided it was time I did some research on it.
Plasterboard, plaque à plâtre here in France, and [...]
Moving to France as we did from mole-free Ireland, we were initially taken aback at the obvious national hatred of these little creatures that manifested itself in the large displays of mole eradication devices that we saw in every hardware shop. There were mole mashers, mole crushers, mole crunchers, mole blasters, mole manglers, mole gasses [...]
So it’s Fat Tuesday – that’s what Mardi Gras means. What a great name. Traditionally it marks the last day of the ‘carnaval’ period that began at Epiphany and which ends with Lent (Carême). Quite who would have been celebrating all that while I’m not sure. Certainly not the ordinary people who would have been [...]
St Valentine’s Day has lots of associations with France. It’s thought that the idea of sending Valentine’s cards started with the Duke of Orleans in the fifteenth century. He was captured during the Battle of Agincourt and taken to the Tour of London. He sent love letters and poems to his young wife. But even [...]