Myths and Legends in this part of France

Once upon a time four handsome, strapping young lads were teasing a young girl.  She was small for her age and not very strong, and as she and the four boys made their way through their daily chores with the fishing nets, the girl stopped to rest frequently.  The boys found it funny, flexed their muscles, and teased incessantly.

However, the girl was really a fairy.  She had disguised herself as a human girl in order to see what it was like.  And she had soon seen it all – nothing but mockery and teasing – because she was so small and frail, underdevelopped and white.

One day, getting fed up with her experiment, the girl decided to become a fairy once more and she cast a spell over the four horrid boys.  She said to them “you see, being muscular and handsome is not always an advantage!”

“You are very vain,” she continued, “and instead of helping me with my chores and showing some kindness to a person in need, all you have done is make fun of me, often cruel fun, and you are nasty boys.  And as you seem to think that being so big and strong is a huge advantage, I condemn you now to be so big that nobody anywhere will ever be able to take you in!”

And in a second the four boys were transformed in to giant shells.

The four beaches at St Palais now known as “les conches” (the shells) are all that is left of the boys.

Catherine Broughton is a writer and an artist.  Her books (good reads for women) are available from Amazon or on Kindle, or can be ordered from most big book stores and libraries.  More about Catherine Broughton, to include her sketches and amusing anecdotes from all over the world, on http://www.turquoisemoon.co.uk

Belize- The land of opportunity

Anybody looking for a New Start in life should try Belize.

And Belize needs you !

In particular Belize needs young people who will bring trade in to the country.

For this blog in full and more please see http://www.turquoisemoon.co.uk/blog/land-of-opportunity-belize/

A day in the life of a Headmaster

Gary is a friend of mine.  I asked him to write an item about his life as a Headmaster and this is what he sent me, copied from a newspaper article several years ago:-

Gary Coleby is the headmaster of Crown Hills community college, the secondary school in Leicester with the TB outbreak. He has been trying to maintain normal school life around countless media interviews and mass TB screenings

“So much has happened it’s been unbelievable. Last Friday it was a very busy school week and we were also doing a lot of screenings. Several hundred kids going into the second stage of testing. I had interviews all afternoon, contact with the BBC and the local paper about what was going on. At the weekend I went home completely exhausted.

I’m always at work at 7.30am. On Monday there was a school achievement award, I interviewed a person for a post, was observing a teacher in the classroom, and had evening meetings. On Tuesday the screening continued. The first round who had had tests read were being X-rayed. At 4pm I had to attend a press conference with the area health authority. There’s been significant contact with media. GMTV wanted me to go in at 6.30am to do a live interview. I made a decision to front up to the media to try and protect the kids and the teachers.

On Wednesday the shit really hit the fan. At 6.30 I was being interviewed by GMTV, then later by the Daily Mail, the Times, the Guardian, Sky Television, and PA. Also live interviews with BBC radio, both local and national, ITN, the Asia Network as well. I had to field numerous phone calls, chase up teachers, do training, everyday things you have to do at a school. My number was given out and GMTV called and wanted me to go in again at 6.30. I was not prepared to do any more television stuff outside school hours.

On Thursday there was a staff meeting, contact with concerned parents and community groups. I’ve also been working with Dr Phillip Monk, who is co-ordinating the screening. I met the kitchen staff who were concerned whether they should be screened and wanted to be included. There is a governor’s discipline meeting at 4pm and a press conference at 4.30. Then I shall go home.

It is serious but nowhere near as serious as it’s been made out to be. The way it’s been reported makes it sound as if it’s a highly infectious contagious disease, which it’s not. One day there were five known cases, the next day 24. That doesn’t mean it spread and they got it, it was just detected – they’d had it for a while. The strain is very treatable, most people don’t have to be off school.

Life goes on. There is no reason to close the school. It’s a community issue not a school issue. It was spotted here but started in the community. I remain cheerful and confident. I have a superb bunch of kids and a superb bunch of staff. But people are worried. I am 49 but I feel 65.”

Catherine Broughton is a novelist, a poet and an artist. He books are on Amazon and Kindle, or can bve ordered from most leading book stores and libraries.  Her best seller is “The Man with Green Fingers”, a novel set in Cyprus.  For more about Catherine Broughton, to include her sketches, stories and blogs from all over the world, go to http://www.turquoisemoon.co.uk

Bird Sanctuary

Yesterday we went for a walk in the bird sanctuary at Moeze, some fifteen minutes’ drive from us.  It was a lovely bright spring day, a bit on the chilly side in view of the mild weather we have been having, but very pleasant nonetheless.  This is the time of year to see the migrating ducks and geese.  The little islets over the marshes were alive with movement and noise as the various birds, mostly a becasseur of some sort, vied for a place out of the water.

The walk takes you along canals bordered by fields of sheep and dotted with little gates which boasted notices about closing the gate.  There were also a couple of confusing notices in English:

No not allow for a dog even with the leash because it afraid the bird and sheep.

also

Welcome to the bicycle with in the limit of speed and good sensible.

Jolly good.

The walk starts at a little car park where set off on foot through alley-ways of brush and scrub, probably thick with blackberries in the autumn.  A ten minute stroll, past a small lake and look-out spots brings you to an information centre and some toilets.  There are also picnic tables and I can well imagine it is a lovely spot for a picnic in the summer. From there you can go on around the marshlands, all on hard paths, a really very pleasant walk.

A little further along there is a large hide, complete with more information about birds, and four or five telescopes.  It is all really very well done, quiet, and peaceful.  The total walk from the car park and back is probably about an hour.

Catherine Broughton is a novelist, a poet and an artist.  Her books are available on Amazon and Kindle, or can be ordered from most libraries and book stores. More about Catherine Broughton is on www.turquoisemoon.co.uk

Autism Awareness Week. Please share!

Yesterday I had the pleasure of interviewing the older brother of an autistic 14 year old girl.  I had been asked to write a series of  ’Coping with Life Articles’ and decided to start with a family that I know well.  The older brother, Josh, is 25 and when Suzy, his little sister, was born he was 11.

“I first noticed that there was something very wrong, when Suzy was about 3 years old.  I got up in the middle of the night to find her running round and round the dining table in frenzied circles, while my mother patiently tried to get her back to bed.  The scene has always stuck in my mind, and I can picture it as clearly as though it were half an hour ago, a toddler in pyjamas running round and round like a small trapped creature.

To this point Suzy had just been one of those babies that seemed to be forever crying.  I know now that my mother, from the first stages of pregnancy, sensed there was something wrong.  My older brother and I had been straightforward babies and toddlers with all the usual ups and downs that accompany them.  Suzy right from the word go was completely different.

Memories of her as a small child are filled with traumatic scenes of trying to relate to a little sister who was unable to relate to me.  My dreams, and my older brother’s dreams, of a sweet little sister to molly-coddle were utterly thwarted.  We had instead a furious, yelling creature whose spurts of noise were intersected with long periods of stoney silence while she rocked herself back and forth between the sides of the doorframe or similar.

Now, at 14 years old, Suzy has learnt social skills that only her immediate family can understand.  She cannot apply her mind to anything if it doesn’t interest her, but when she is interested in something she will obsess on it.  She has a collection of Barbie dolls with all their accompanying ‘accoutrements’ and these will occupy her, with an almost manic intensity, for hours on end.  Unlike most girls of her age she has no interest in clothes or make-up and does not recognise her body as something that she needs to cover up when appropriate.  Puberty has made the situation vastly worse because although she has the body of a 14 year old, she has the mind of a 9 year old.

Conversely, she does quite well at school, is good at languages and intricate art work.  She is miserably teased in some situations and goes through patches where she will scream and kick rather than get in the car to go to school.  There are also patches where another girl befriends her for a while (it never lasts long) and Suzy is happy.

Now as adulthood approaches my biggest concern for my little sister is her inability to cope in a social situation.  She is terrified of strangers and falls apart when she simply just has to say hello to someone.  With friends and family that she does know, she will suddenly chime in to a conversation, usually very loudly, and at the most inappropriate moment.  I don’t know what the future holds for her.”

Autism is a mental condition present from early childhood.  Victims have great difficulty in communicating and forming relationships.  They have high anxiety levels and are easily confused.  They come across as though they feel no emotion, but this is not yet properly understood.  Autism does not necessarily mean learning difficulties, though it is often associated with such.  Perhaps the saddest part is that it is such a lonely syndrome that is little understood and that pushes most people away.

Click here for history in France

Click here for frangi-pangi in Africa

Click here for extract from “Saying Nothing” (novel set in Spain)

Catherine Broughton is a novelist, a poet and an artist.  She is widely travelled and writes regularly for magazines and blog sites.  Her sketches are on her web site http://www.turquoisemoon.co.uk .  Her books are available from Amazon and on Kindle, or can be ordered from several leading book stores.

One of my old blogs- Austrian Hospital

I write from my hospital bed in the pretty little Austrian town of Stvass in the southern Tyrol. I know that the town is pretty because Bruce, who has walked around it several times, has told me so.

I don’t speak Austrian and the only thing I can say in German is “das ist ein Schloss” which means “that is a castle”. About as useful as “la plume de ma tante”. Although I have often found myself in the company of German people I have never had the opportunity to point out a castle – much to my chagrin.

Well bother, I said to myself as I felt my leg snap as I tumbled on the piste a few days ago. Every cloud has a silver lining, but I knew right there and then that I’d have difficulty finding a silver lining to this, least of all when I remembered that the radio had announced temperatures of -16 centigrade. Looking up, I saw thick snow-laden clouds moving in from the other side of the mountain. Nauseous waves of haze swam around me. It was 4.00 and the lifts were starting to close.

Well, all the best people say a prayer at moments like this. So I started: Our Father who art in heaven ……

“You all right, love?” asked a male voice.
Goodness! God has a Yorkshire accent!
I looked up and saw a male figure in a green and yellow ski suit bending over me. Not God, not the Jolly Green Giant, but an Englishman late off the pistes. Rule Britannia.

A snow plough took me as far as the ski lifts, which in turn took me down to the nearest village. Not the village we were staying in, but any village in a storm and all that. Getting on to a snow plough with a broken leg is great fun, but by the time we reached the ski lift the family had caught up with me and helped me off. Emilie, our son’s French girlfriend, said things like “oh la la!” the way the French tend to.

In the hospital X-ray room I tried to find out how to say “ouch!” in German. In both French and Spanish it is “aie!” but that didn’t seem to work.

“I expect you get a lot of ski-victims ?” I asked the plastering-wallah.

“Ah yes, zis is so,” he replied, “but we hev mostly Germans and Russians. You are ze first Engleeesh.”

Yup, rule Britannia.

There was no room on the trauma ward – full, one assumes, of Germans and Russians – so I was put in the side room of a maternity ward. During the night I woke, dopey with pain-killers, and thought I had had a baby. The unmistakable sound of the new-born was close by. It was clear I had had a Ceasarian, even though the pain was in my leg and not my tummy. Confused, I decided to work out how old I was and came to the conclusion that I was twelve. Realizing that this seemed awfully young, I re-calculated and decided I was eighty-eight. I accepted this and slipped back in to my drugged sleep.

But in the morning, all was revealed. As I said, every cloud has a silver lining. The nurse came in and took my blood pressure and did a few other nursey-things. Then she turned and threw open the curtains. There – out there in the frozen world – was the most beautiful view. A brilliant azure sky and snow-laden mountains. Acres of dark pines, their branches heavy with snow, stretched off to one side and a river tumbled under an ancient stone bridge. A few picturesque houses dotted the embankment and the pale yellow of the winter sun crept up over the white landscape. And there, off to the east, was a castle ………. a beautiful little Tyrolian castle clinging daintily to the escarpment.

“Hey look!” I exclaimed and pointed out of the window. The nurse turned to where I indicated, her mouth open in surprise. I heaved myself on to one elbow, enthralled.

“Das ist ein Schloss !” I shouted.

Catherine Broughton is a novelist, a poet and an artist. Her books are on Kindle and Amazon, or can be ordered from most big book stores and libraries. More about Catherine Broughton, to include her sketches and stories from all over the world, on http://www.turquoisemoon.co.uk 

Ballet

I did this quick little drawing for a child staying here in one of the cottages, a funny serious little thing by the name of Mathilde.  She five years old. “J‘ai 5 ans”, she told me with all the serious of this when one is a child.  She wanted me to draw her a man on a bicycle with his wife behind him and a baby strapped to the mothers back, with a dog running at the side.  Gulp.  This was a bit much for a five-minute job and – now that I think of it – I doubt I have ever drawn a bicycle in my life, let alone covered in the inhabitants of half the country and their dog.  So I suggested a ballet dancer.  I can do ballet dancers. And horses.

Mathilde nodded her agreement to this change in her plans and sat down next to me while I drew this.  Every now and then she gave me instructions as to what I had missed out or what needed to go in – a beautiful feather in her hair (forgot about that), ballet shoes, lots of lace, lipstick (er…).  When I had finished I said to her:

“Voila.  Voila une belle dame pour toi!”

As she was frowning slightly I asked:

“Is there anything else I should add, anything missing to the belle dame?”

Yes, she nodded firmly:

“Un bel homme”  !!

(… ask a silly question …)

I photcopied the picture for her and she took it away to colour-in.  She returned barely 2 minutes later.

“But you haven’t finished colouring!” I exclaimed.

“Eh, non,” she replied, sighing dramatically, “je suis trop fatiguee …”       !!!!!!!!!

Oh well …. from the mouthes of babes and all that ….

Catherine Broughton is a novelist, a poet and an artist.  Her books are available from Amazon and Kindle or can be ordered from most leading book stores.  For more about Catherine Broughton, to include her entertaining blogs and stories from around the world, go to http://www.turquoisemoon.co.uk