re-learning to speak french >>

I have probably been to france every year (sometimes more than once) since I was about 10 or 11 years old. some years ago now I actually lived and worked in france. I did have a reasonable ability to speak french while working there as I didn't really have the option (rightly so) to speak english.

when visiting as I have done for the last 6 years with a group of students, or on family breaks it is OK to get by as the people we tend to meet are usually speak english. so laziness often prevails, but I have made a decision I want to be able to speak french properly so apart from just watching french films I am making a conscious effort and have even registered on a language course whether I will have the time to complete it is down to me.

off to france tomorrow

I am off to france tomorrow, so while there I will not be writing any posts. no doubt I will have even more things french (and some not) to tell you about. right this moment I have still to finish things here before I even think about going away. hopefully by the time I reach the ardeche region. the challenge of another river descent will be more than enough to rid my worries about the things I haven't finish this week. I am even going to turn the email function off on my blackberry and just use it as a phone. all being well my next post here should be on monday the 21st of july, have a good week.

more french stuff >> because I like it

for no other reason than I like it. I have put this poster on my blog.


Check their website mmparis

france >> the french >> design

really is just a short post today as the pictures will hopefully talk for themselves. recently I was in a well know discount store in our city and I was very tempted to but for £3.99 a printing set that was french designed, (made in china I expect).
it had all the alphabet and most associated symbols and a kind of composing stick to place rubber movable type in order to create your custom made personal or business letter head. self load as far as ink as each time you put in back in its self contained holder it would reload the letters. a bit like the ones you can get in most stationers like the one (left) but its packaged in french. so to my eyes it looked cool.

back to the reason for this post I received a very welcome letter this morning from france nothing that unusual but it was from a place in france that we are planning to visit and stay (with my faamily). I noticed the use of a hand stamp as well as the signature of the camp-site owner.
I really liked and thought I should have bought the £3.99 french printing set it had rubber pictures/graphics as well, I bet if I go back it will have sold out.

I just thought I would share the letter stamp and the post mark as I like that too! in case you are worried we I do not go caravanning! we are taking two tents.

john bull printing set
rubber stamps
french postmarks