My first pool… sort of… in France ^_^!

Hey everyone!

I haven’t got a lot of news… again… except for… that... we got a swimming pool! Yay :-P!! But the bad news is that it’s been terrible weather ever since the day we got the first one… yes, the first one >.<.

You see, the first one was far too big for the patio but we didn’t realise this until it was filling with water and falling over the edge… we had quite a few mud slides… blurgh!! Something I NEVER want to do again… so we got another one, which fits perfectly and is still quite big. Even though the weather’s not been up to par, on the first day of putting up the second pool, I went for an extremely cold dip… I don’t think the point of swimming pools are supposed to be to make you turn pale and numb… it was a lot of fun though! My first pool… sort of… in France ^_^!

A couple of days ago, we went fishing! It was brilliant, even though I didn’t catch anything, it was still a lot of fun :-)! I got to see a few fish… and even saw a tidler swimming away with my bait… well a giant blob of orange moving around under the water for a bit before… vanishing into thin… water :-P. It was quite an excursion, since we don’t live by the lake anymore, we drove out to the small one by the main office area of Le Sidobre. On a day where we have more time, I am determined to get out to the ENORMOUS lake that we found, but that’s an hour and a half drive away /:(.

When we went fishing, Gizmo came along, and only got frustrated towards the end of fishing, beginning to moan and growl at the float… he even tried to get closer to the water, by sliding down a steep rock and luckily being saved by a bed of reeds, which just managed to hold him up from getting wet until I shimmied my way down and pushing him back onto the grass.

Another thing that happened with Gizmo when we went fishing, that was absolutely the funniest thing, I’ve yet to see, was that when we went into Le Sidobre’s tourist office, Gizmo came with quite happily, and ran around, sniffing everything he could, whilst we tried finding directions to the closest place that would sell a fishing license.

The lady there, drew out a whole map, then asked where we’d be fishing, we said right there by the lake for an hour or two, and she folded up the map and told us that it would be fine to fish without the license. So we were content about not having to go driving again. Anyway, I walked out of the open glass door and Gizmo followed beside me to run straight, head first into the closed glass door, it was so funny! I thought that only I did that :-P. After a minute of comforting, Gizmo was running around and tail-wagging again :-).

I haven’t got a lot of news, before being in France for a year I want to be speaking French almost fluently, and that includes understanding it as well! So that gives me… 24 days :-P. I’m getting there, yesterday I watched six episodes of “Buffy The Vampire Slayer” in French with French subtitles, to get my ears tuned in, I’ve already watched the French Sopranos, and now my dad’s friend has lent us all of the Buffy series so… Yes, I just don’t feel like watching them again today, so going to go learn more French words once I finish writing this :-).

In a week it’s my sister’s birthday, she’ll be turning 19!! I can’t believe it :-P. So if you want to send me a picture of you kissing a fish for her birthday, that’d be GRRRRREAT! I’m sure she’d appreciate it ;-)… well I would appreciate it :-P.

Sorry this post wasn’t that long, I shall try writing up soon… once I get some news! See you all soon!

- Bianca

Le Sidobre rocks!!

Hey everyone!

I’m extremely ecstatic because I received an e-mail, giving me permission to use a photo :-)! So I have to say, thank you very much to the Guth’s at “Guth’s Lodge” in Alaska for the permission! You can find their website here ---> http://www.guthslodge.com/

This lady was one of their guests, and caught the first of many Silvers that day. She grew up in eastern Europe and lives in the Mideast! She sounds like a “Globe Trekker” like myself :-P.

Thanks again for the permission guys :-)!!

Well recently, we’ve had absolutely gorgeous weather here since Friday! Sunday was a little overcast but the weather’s back on track today! On Friday we went about driving, we did actually go out for a purpose but never quite arrived at our destination /:… You see, we set out to go to “Le Sidobre” but ended up driving around and slowly losing ourselves and our time, within quaint, French villages. Le Sidobre is supposedly a large park, like the French version of “Matopas” in Zimbabwe :-P. Basically, gorgeous scenery with large rocks, defining gravity by their awkward shapes and sizes.

We did actually see some of the rocks and boulders, and even found the Le Sidobre Office, so we got so excruciatingly close, but there were no walkways or cycle paths from there, so we’d obviously been in the wrong area. The little sneak-peaks that we did get from there though were absolutely wonderful! In that area there are forests and little streams everywhere! So since we couldn’t find the main section of what we went looking for, we just drove around, stopping every few minutes so that my mom could take pictures for her photography course.

So, all in all, it was a lovely day! Sure we’ll set out to find Le Sidobre, preferably when the offices are open and with a map on another day!

The poll that I put up last week, has only had 1 vote, but it still counts, so countries is what I shall write about!

Okay I juuust wrote this, literally over the past 10 minutes, so I may make some changes to it later, for now though, I hope you enjoy it, it sounds more like it’s about weather but I did try!

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It’s strange to think about how different one place is from another,
Some countries you can lie down in the sun, others you must cover!
Languages and nationalities,
Monuments, so much to see!
Some countries are calm and peaceful,
Others have war and are wasteful,
Snow is rare, where I come from,
We only ever get the sun,
But just a few hours up the road,
Where it’s not by the coast,
Up high in the mountains,
You won’t be seeing flowing fountains,
There will be no sunshine,
The weather is not so kind,
On every single thing, there is no colour,
This is where the snow shall smother,
In Ireland forever it rains,
So much, you could go insane!
Winter in France…
It’s usually overcast,
But when the skies are clear,
And the sun appears,
What a sight it is to see,
This will stay the same, no matter where you’re from, every country.

By Bianca Cassandra P.

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Oh when we were driving around, we did find some lovely areas to go fishing, and even saw a few people giving it a shot. So that’ll be fun to do, sadly that day, we didn’t have the fishing gear with us /:, so now we’ve decided to always have it in the car :-).

I’m going to leave you guys, as I have to go do my French :-P. Will be posting again soon!

- Bianca

Plonk! Vroosh! Click!

Hello people!

Sorry that I haven’t written anything for a while, but the truth is that I have absolutely no news whatsoever… how sad >.<.

The good news is that my mom and I went shopping last week and they’re bringing out all of the fishing equipment again! I am really looking forward to that comforting feeling of the fresh outdoors. When I think about the flicking of the wrist and releasing the wire from my grip as it floats seemingly weightless through the air and lands with a soft “Plonk!” and a small splash (hopefully not getting tangled with loose reeds :-P). Then quickly flipping over the metallic piece of the reel in case of that rare occasion that you’ll instantly get a bite. Finally when you do, how the float goes under… or in some cases starts moving around in circles with the smaller brained, dazed fish, who just feels it is safe enough to swim quite naturally with a hook in their lip.

Maybe trying to be cool, thinking it’s an awesome new piercing that came free with the mysterious blob of cheese-like-orange stuff, that just so happened to be floating in their path “Hey dudes, l-hook a’ me!”. Then “Vroosh” they’re gone! Perhaps later they come flying back in… Wow, talk about the scitsofrenic of the day! Fisrt a normal fish, changing into a cool punk, then a vanishing magician, to being a bird… without wings, just beinging thrown back in the general direction of where they came from… or for the more larger, unfortunate fish, meraculously changing into a tasty barbeque… What a day!

Anyway, back to the way we see it! Gloriously relaxing and getting that first tug of the day! Gripping the rod for all it’s worth and putting your complete might into reeling the fishy in. I love it! Not so much though when you get it out of the water, it comes loose and begins to roll down the embankment… this happened to me with what looked like the largest fish that I’ve ever caught, not so surprised that he was too big for the hook, never being caught by anyone and still getting to eat all of our tasty… well rather smelly orange bait. I wouldn’t say that I’m overwhelmed with joy having to touch the fish to get it off the hook though, especially not touching it with my lips :-P.

Well I’ve actually become a lot less squeamish since fishing, when “someone” that I knew, I think they’d prefer if I didn’t name them :-P, caught her first fish she was so upset and yelled for my dad to take it off the hook… when he threw it back, she cried because a scale had come off it… I thought it was rather amusing, but tried my hardest not to show her my thoughts on her squeamish-ness… especially seeing as I refused to put a maggot on the hook earlier on that day :-P…

Yes, so getting back on to the subject of what I was on before I got extremely distracted… Like I was saying, I have no news whatsoever, so I’m going to just write about… well, whatever first pops into my head at this very moment, that seems interesting enough.

Oh! My mom received a camera recently as an “early birthday present”. She’s decided to take up photography so all I’ve been hearing (and seeing) recently, is a faint yet noticeable “Click!” and a flash of light. That lasts just a few seconds but that’s more than enough time to blind someone, trust me! I have had uncountable (155+ :-P) photos taken of me since that thing arrived. Not that I mind of course, unless I’ve only just woken up or am about to go to sleep… Then this is simply impractical and utterly uncomfortable… bright lights are not welcome, during “tired” hours :-P.

Oh! I was just about to forget to put up some more poems, the first one was written in quite a short while actually, the second took longer, which is surprising, since it’s a lot shorter :-P. Okay, I just wrote up both and since I only have one more left decided to just throw it in there as well :-P. Hope you like them, think I’ll put up a poll for you guys to choose what I’ll write my next poem about as well… or you could just post a comment or send me an e-mail about what you want to hear my rhyming thoughts on at kissmyfishy@gmail.com :-).

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I saw you that day,
Yet I didn’t know what to say,
I took a deep breathe,
Shut my eyes and turned,
As you came my way,
You just skimmed right by me,
As I watched you walk briskly,
I wondered to myself, could you see?
For I noticed you stop, so very slightly,
A feeling inside, sent me spinning,
So I chased after your footsteps,
I felt like I was in a race, I was the one winning,
As you turned, I was taken aback, breathless, a rush,
For bestowed upon your finger, was the very symbol of trust,
We looked into each others eyes,
I’m sure you could tell I was about to cry,
I believed in love at first sight,
And this felt so strong, even stronger than “might”,
I simply remarked, I’m sorry you’re not the one,
And within an instant, you had nodded, and were gone.

By Bianca Cassandra P.

************************************************************
I sit here all on my own,
Wandering how many days it’s been since you’ve gone,
I watch the moon rise and fall,
Thinking of you, holding back, not wanting to call,
At night I try to fight the tears away,
I would never want you to see me in this way,
What you did that day, no one will ever forget,
You made your poor mother, so very upset,
Pulling the rope, and kicking the chair,
Was there no other way out of here?

By Bianca Cassandra P.

************************************************************
How I wish to be a butterfly,
I say to myself with a sigh,
Able to fly away so easily,
So many different colours, prettier than a bee,
Lifting itself off the ground,
Without a buzz, not a sound,
To be carried away with the air,
Never having a worry or a care,
Even if it only lasts a day,
It must be great, to be free, to play,
From a creepy,
Of a tree,
To an insect of the skies,
Their tiny round eyes,
The delicate dust,
This is definitely a must,
Wings of weightless material,
Then their two, little aerials,
A body so fine,
I want that to be mine!
Six spindly legs,
Skinnier than pegs!
I bet they never thought they’d be able to do this,
To be caught in the winds,
That would be my only wish,
But then I ask myself with glee,
Do they ever wish to be me?

By Bianca Cassandra P.

************************************************************

I thought I’d leave my poems off on a happy note with the butterfly poem. Hope you like them :-)!

Looking forward to hearing from you all soon!

- Bianca

Lions, tigers and bears, oh my!

Good morning! (Hmm… well I personally find that a contradiction of terms ;-P)

Well, in my last post I offered to draw anything that you wanted if you sent me a picture of you kissing a fish! And there has been… no-one :-P. So I haven’t drawn for a while and since February is quite a short month, you guys only have 4 days until the expiry date expires :-P, so I guess I wont be drawing for another while… I guess I could just come up with something to draw but that’s no fun :-P!

Also in the last post I was telling you guys about the U.S. spy satellite, well, they shot it down over the Pacific Ocean on the night of the total lunar eclipse. Oh! Yes, did anyone get to see the lunar eclipse on Thursday (the 21st)? I was so upset, I was determined to get up at 04:01 (it was going to happen at 03:01-03:51 GMT, we’re an hour ahead) to watch it but my dad got up and it was cloudy :-(, he took some pictures of the clouds though ;-P.

So last weekend we went for a two hour drive, to an “African Safari Reserve”. It was… the COOLEST place… EVER (excluding Disney Land of course :-P). The first part you drive around, rhinos, giraffes and general wildlife, going into ostriches (one attacked my window >.<>

(/:-O This giraffe has a special abilty to walk on walls!! :-P Sorry about that only just realised that it's sideways now /:-(. )

We weren’t allowed to stop when we went through the bears and lions, so we just drove extremely slowly, and also went around the lions twice :-P. The baby bears were the cutest little things, wrestling and playing but the older ones… weren’t too lively :-P. It was an exceptionally beautiful place, really great to see all of the animals have so much freedom and space!

After driving around it became a walk around zoo but when we climbed a path way :-O! The view that uncovered itself was magnificent, it was an outlet from the ocean with hundreds of little pink blobs in it, getting closer you realised that they were flamingos.

(Venetia and I standing in front of the view of the outlet and the ocean beyond. I'm the destructive nuisance breaking all of the rules by sitting on the railings :-P.)

Before we got to the flamingos though, I spotted the cutest little thing and had to get a photo with him… Aww! I named him Rocky… how very original :-P.

We also saw the cutest little baby pot belly pig, he had the funniest of frights from this large, evil one that kept running around and scaring the smaller ones made grunts… aww! And also a joey (a baby kangaroo) come out of it’s mother’s pouch! Now he was cute!


This monkey kept coming over to the window and as soon as we took the picture he would run away and disappear from view so most of the pictures are just of the enclosure half of the time :-P… this is the only non-blurred one that my sister caught, of course when she took another one when the monkey turned to look at us this is how it turned out :-P.
Of course, most of the pictures of me there aren’t so great, since someone, not looking at anyone in particular (Mom) rudely awoke me at 07:47… well I was actually woken gently and handed a cup of tea :-P… but this doesn’t take away from the matter that I was woken at… THAT time :-P… I do appreciate my weekend sleep-ins :-P. Of course it was well worth getting up that early, it does take a good few hours to make your way through that park. If you happen to ever go, the website says that you can’t bring a dog with you… it lies!! Once you get there, you’re allowed to bring your dog every where except into the goat pen… well no, duh :-P! So Gizmo, was left at home all day :-(.

I was really looking forward to the goat pen actually, I just love those creatures, but once we finally reached it, I was slightly put off by the ages of the kids (HA! Kids! Like baby goats… but I was literally referring to the children) in the pen with the goats… yes, I’ve long surpassed that age :-P. So I just watched from a distance… envious :-P.

(This is the type of camel that I rode in Tunisia, the dromedary camel.)

I’ve recently started doing Tai Qi (also spelt Tai Chi, I believe). It feels like I’ve been doing it forever, 4 days in a row is quite a feat for me… especially getting up and doing it on a Sunday, wow! Yes, this morning I woke up and was in terrible muscular pain… but after doing another half hour of Tai Qi, I’d quickly forgotten about the pain. It’s extremely relaxing, you feel as if you’re a floating cloud when you’re finished… but this, of course, does not mean that you can actually levitate :-P. And the muscles I’ve got now! Oooh, don’t mess with me :-P!


Oh a few days ago I decided to do a little bit of poetry writing. I ended up writing three but I don’t want to bore you so I’ll only post one or two up… Oh okay! I’ll post up a gaming poem that I wrote the other day and a war poem that I wrote a little while back, you’ll eventually get to hear… or read all of my poems, I’ll just have to try to remember to post them up every time I post up… a post… /:-S Serious over load on the word “post”… Post, post, post! I’m so sorry, but I had to, it was so tempting :-P.


*************************************************
As I stared across that silent hill,
I wondered how many more they’d kill,
I couldn’t even guess how many were dead,
These great men of my country had fought and bled,
Among them I knew my father lay,
What would my mother have to say?
As I turned the lifeless bodies over,
Stripped of their weapons and their cover,
I asked myself will this ever go away?
No, this is simply a game that they like to play.

By Bianca Cassandra P. (Me… who knew, huh? :-P)


*************************************************
I’ve always wanted to hear those whispers and secrets,
The sniggers and giggles,
And yet I just can’t seem to mingle,
I share my life with the “count-down box”,
Same place, all day,
I sit here and play,
Wasting my life away,
As my time crumbles,
I just can’t seem to stop hitting “stumble”,
It’s clearly a disease,
As I slowly gain weight,
And live in a state,
Old dishes piling up,
Sticky coffee cups!
I can’t sleep, or work,
What’s the point in making friends?
They’re all just jerks,
No! I yell out in despair, that stupid bugger!
How could he dare?! I hit the keyboards and whack the screen,
I can’t believe this has happened to me again,
He’s slain me for the last time!
A level 70 elite?! That should be a crime!
I can’t take any more, I’ve become such a bore!
I delete my characters, erase my account,
I clean my house, shower and shave,
But then I realise, oh no! I did not save!
As I walk slowly to the computer,
I fight back, go outside and make a vow,
That I shall make friends, this is now the very end.

By Bianca Cassandra P. (Me again :-P)


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If you’ve ever played World of Warcraft or used Stumble Upon, you’ll be able to relate to the latter poem completely, because of how addictive they can be :-P.

Okay I’ll leave it at that, and I’m hoping to hear from you all soon!

- Bianca

VROOOOOSH!

Hey guys,

Not too much news so I’ll just tell you about some other things, since I seem to be very good at that :-P. Well like I said in the first post, I’ve been learning Pink Floyd’s, Wish you were here. Now, I can actually play it :-). Still having some slight difficulty with strumming and singing at the same time… but now I’m … trying… emphasis on the “trying” :-P, to learn Guns N Roses, Sweet Child O’ Mine… Since yesterday I have the introduction. Will get stuck into it later on again.

I don’t know if I’ve ever told you but in the first few weeks of living in France, without the internet, I was driven (by boredom) to try out drawing. I absolutely love it… mainly because I found out that I’m pretty good, well much better than I was when I was 9 anyway :-P. I’ll put some pictures of my art work (that sounds so snazzy :-P) up for you all to see. I noticed that there’s been quite a few posts and not one picture, and I know how much it sucks looking at a page without any pictures, so will change that :-P.

(Tiger Pinting I drew for my dad's birthday a few years ago.)

My best drawings (in my opinion) are the “My Chemical Romance” ones. MCR is my favourite band so I took some cool images from their cover and draw them… but BIGGER :-P! There’s also some pretty flowers… an ice-skate… a lizard and other things… just really random. I don’t have a specific style. Oh also a shoe :-P… wow! :-P

Oh I know! If you send me a picture of you kissing a fish then you can (if you want to, of course) ask me to draw anything you like… although 20 years down the line I don’t want to be receiving e-mails, well I do want to be receiving e-mails :-P, just not telling me what to draw, when all of my drawing is out of me… if you get my drift :-P … so this has to have an expiry date :-P. I say until the 1st of March 2008. You have just under a month to get those fishing pictures in :-P! If I get no e-mails during that time… I’ll just extend the dead-line a little bit since I’m forever running out of ideas of what to draw :-P.

I’m addicted to hot chocolate… yes, random O.o I know, but not really for me, since I’m drinking it right now… Mmm. I’m also addicted to Tabasco sauce… but haven’t had it recently because you have to go to specific shops in France to get it.

Oh! I was just sitting here, thinking of what I could tell you next… I saw A METIORITE!!! It was so awesome, and really random timing. I was playing on my computer and then decided to close the French shutters since it was beginning to get dark. So I started at my sisters window… and then as I was pulling the second one shut… VROOOOOSH! I didn’t actually hear anything, but you can imagine that it would have sounded like that!

It wasn’t that big but it was colourful, I would say that it was falling pretty close, but it was probably a few miles back. Then POP it vanished into the darkness of the sky! Yes, I know, it burned up but it’s nice to put a little bit of a story to some things at times :-P. So like I was saying POP… and it was gone… never to be seen again! How dramatic :-P.

When I think about it though, it wasn’t really “random” timing, since (I believe this is correct but not 100% sure about it) because a meteorite falls to earth every 0.5 seconds.

Oh! I saw on “Yahoo! News” that a SPY satellite is falling to earth at this very moment! Last time I checked it was 173 miles away, falling 1,640 feet every day, but it’ll only be visible with the naked eye when it enters the atmosphere at 59 miles high, it’ll crash down to earth 30 minutes later (this is supposed to be happening late February, to early March 2008). They have absolutely no control of it, therefore, they don’t know where it’s going to land. When they sent it up, it stopped working almost immediately, but it has “information” on it… and it’s roughly 13 to 16.5 feet long! I’m personally not going to worry about it since we have far less chance of being hit by it than being struck by lightning and earth is 75% water. Just some interesting little facts :-P. As you can tell this website is clearly not all about fishing :-P.

Right, I’m going to leave it at that and hope to hear from you all soon!

- Bianca

It’s all my electric guitar’s fault!

Hey everyone!

I know it’s been a while, but you can’t blame me :-P! It’s all my electric guitar’s fault! No really, since Christmas (when I got it) I haven’t been able to put it down… no it’s not a “Oh no I’ve been playing with the super glue again” situation :-P. It’s just so satisfactory learning a new song and it coming out correctly. This is my second electric guitar, I got my first one last Christmas but then less than a month later we decided to move to Sicily, so I had to get rid of it :-(.

I didn’t really play it much in Ireland anyway, my guess is because we had English T.V. … ah Sky+ I miss you so very much :-P. It’s amazing how you can pick up the slightest sound of English on the television here, even though it’s turned right down and there’s a loud French person dubbed over it :-P.

Back to the guitar! Ahh, my gorgeous guitar! Ever since I was five or six… or even before then, I’ve wanted to be a singer, the only problem is, I’m a lot more shy to sing in front of people now than I was then :-P. Acting’s also been a common “Oh! I want to be an actress some day” phrase from me :-P. Anyway, how we got to this subject, I have no idea, but if you just so happen to be someone who has a part for me in a movie, I’m sitting right here… hint, hint, nudge, nudge, wink, wink! :-P

Anyway back onto a more realistic subject :-P. Yes, my guitar playing’s going great, so far (remember this is less than a month people!... Okay, okay! It’ll be a month tomorrow… still!) I can play a nice Spanish piece, the “basic” strumming to “Wild Thing” and what is apparently “Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door” (It doesn’t really sound like it, when I play anyway, but it’s still pretty!).

Also a really nice song that I heard on the end of “The Sopranos”, Kasey Chamber’s “The Captain”. Oh and another, promise this is the last… for NOW! Mwa ha ha ha ha!!!... Ehem hem… I.. I mean, yes so I’m also learning “Wish you were here” by Pink Floyd ^.^!

I’m even writing my own song, well, all that I’ve got so far is the guitar part… not so much the words… think that I’ve done it in the wrong order but oh well, I’ll get there… eventually :-P. Once I’m good enough at Pink Floyd or even my own song, I’ll be sure to “You tube” it and post it up here :-)!

Not really much other news, as you can see by my enthusiasm over the guitar, I don’t get out much… Oh wait! Not true! I have got more news (The “I don’t get out much…” is still true though). You’re all condemned to this torture for just a little longer :-P.

I think that it was two weeks ago, that we decided to take a drive up to Toulouse because there was supposed to be an enormous ice-rink placed in the main square for the winter months. When we got there, the place was crowded, and the rink… well it wasn’t as large as I had pictured it.

It was a great outing though, we got to see some figure skating shows in the interval, but decided to pack up and start heading back home when we saw the queues and felt the cold. As well as that was that you got little coloured slips of paper so you might have to wait 45 minutes until your 45 minute session. If you do ever come to France, Toulouse is definitely a “must” though, it’s gorgeous towering buildings with its stylish shops, but I recommend going on a warm day… Heehee, just read over that and realised that I sound like a travel agent :-P.

Well, I reckon I’ll leave it at that. If you feel like surprising me on my birthday, I’d appreciate “Kiss My Fishy” pictures :-P… just a hint, *Insert creepishly ghost like voice here* Remember the 1st of February, February, February, February (no that wasn’t my “I repeat myself symptom”… it was supposed to sound like it was fading away… or an echo… whatever the likeliness of ghosts do anyway :-P. If that wasn’t clear and now you’re sitting there utterly confused, my birthday is on the 1st of February and I wouldn’t mind pictures of you guys kissing fish… I really should of just said that in the first place :-P.

Oh another reminder is just to remember (if you are new to this blog or have lost me on the reason that I would like pictures of people around the world kissing fish) that the blog actually starts a few pages down, this is my most recent, if you scroll to the bottom, there’s a button that says “Older Posts”, click this, scroll down the next page, click it again, etc. until you find yourself on the very first post. This should be pretty clear since there’s pictures of, yes, you’ve guessed it, me kissing a fish… how lovely… :-P.

Right, I’ll write up again soon… or in a while, depends on how my guitar-ing goes :-P.

- Bianca

I can't believe it's not... turkey....?!

Hey Everyone!

I know I haven’t written in a while, so just going to post a quick one now. Nothing much has really been going on here. I’m getting better at ice-skating though =)! France is gorgeous, even though today’s the 1st of January, it’s so sunny outside! With saying that it’s the 1st, Happy New Year!!! I didn’t really think to post something up for Christmas… mainly because… well it was Christmas and I had my mind on other things :-P.

This Christmas was very quiet. Usually we’d have a lot of people over but with living in France and all… well everyone is still in Ireland. It was quite strange actually, not the fact that it was quiet more that French stores don’t supply many things… or at least not where we were looking anyway.

For instance, you can’t get “Lyle’s Golden Syrup”… an extremely important ingredient for FUDGE! So my sister can only make it when someone from her work goes over to England and brings her some back :-P. Another necessity is “Bovril” that you also can’t get in France. I was so annoyed, it’s like marmite, but in my opinion much nicer :-P! Anyway, the Christmas things that we were having trouble getting a hold of were “Crackers” (not the one’s that you put cheese on, the ones that make a … BANG, when you pull on them :-P... wow I wouldn’t be such a great describing person if you guys were aliens and hadn’t ever heard of anything :-P).

Another difficulty to get was “candy canes”, we couldn’t find them anywhere! On Christmas Eve, I think it was, my parents came home and had found some =). So that was great, but they’re not really like the green, red and white, mint flavoured candy canes that you can get. These are more multi-coloured and fruity flavoured :-P. They still look awesome though :-P!

Oh and also most of the ingredients to bake a proper Christmas cake, my mom makes a few every year. It’s the only thing that I’ll eat that has raisins in it… I’m just not much of a raisins fan. Anyway, this year we didn’t have that, but my gran’s supposed to be bringing the things with her when she comes from Ireland =)! Woo! Oh, I also eat mince pies, but what do you know! None of those here either! It’s alright though, ice-cream kept me going for pudding :-P!

Yes another thing that happened at Christmas, and was a consequence of living in France was that we didn’t get Turkey! Well we thought we did, until Boxing Day… You see, we went to the butcher, and we asked the guy for “dinde” (turkey in French). He sent us down to a section but it was just pieces of it, not the whole bird.

Anyway, we came back up and I asked “Avez-vous le ouiseau pour Noel” (literally, have you got the Christmas bird?”. The woman butcher pointed in front of her to a large bird but it had “chapon” stuck to the front of it, my mom and I chose this one, brought it home and then on Christmas it was cooked. It was absolutely lovely, the next day though we found out that, yes dinde is turkey and chapon is actually rooster… Hmmm, who knew?

Anyway I’m going to leave it at that, sorry it’s been a while and this is sort of short! Hope to hear from you all soon!

- Bianca