Saturday 9 January 2016

If we were having coffee together today, I would tell you...








If we were having together today, I would tell you...


to come in first, and not to mind the mud that you would have collected under the soles of your shoes. It has been raining all week and all is wet. The soil is mostly made of clay near the house, so even if we have gravel driveways, it is difficult to avoid a little mud. 

Please, do come in. We shall stay in the little sitting room. It may been seen either as snug or as shabby - probably a little of both. And it is in great need of a spring cleaning but that will wait a little longer. Please, sit down. The chairs are comfortable. What do you prefer? Tea? Coffee? Cider? Fuit juice? Water? I am afraid there is no soda, no fizzy drink, and only natural fruit juice. Will that be fine for you?

You know that the great news of the week is that we have  the help of a Shopping-cum-Cleaning Lady, whose name is Marlène. She drove the Girls to The Supermarket and to The Village for the magazines and medicines. The Girls are very enthusiastic and speak highly of her. So highly that I felt a twinge in a corner of my heart and wondered if I was really that useful or if they would not be happier with new people. Jealousy is a fault, and I do not want to keep The Girls to myself, but I don't know what I would do without them now that I left everything for them. I confess I see myself as my sister's old Teddy Bear: useful and a companion for a while, then discarted and thrown away. After all, I have no more other family and no more friends... However, I promised THEY would be happy. If they are such with this solution, then there is nothing better I may do but to resign myself.

The other great news is that we have come to the end of the Advent-Christmas season. I thank you to have followed me through my ramblings and memories. I have met you, and you, and you: lots of new people, thanks to Solveig and Trent and Hammad, among others. I am glad of these new acquaintances as I am glad that you, and you, and you, older friends, have shared my talks.

To end the Christmas time, the French celebrate the Feast of Epiphany, when the three Magi/Kings came from the Eastern world to adore the Child in his manger. At home, we had either the galette with marzipan or the gâteau de rois, which is like a brioche, with or without fruits confits (candied fruits) on top.




This is a picture of the galette à la frangipane that was found initially in the Northern parts of France, and the gâteau brioché avec des fruits confits which is still found in the South of France, near Bordeaux for instance.




But this above is the gâteau de rois you find in the Dordogne. It is a simple brioche in the form of a crown, with only those big grains of sugar that crunch under the teeth. The gâteau is found after Christmas and until Lent at least, with a break for pancakes on February, 2nd. It is eaten as a dessert with clementines or with une salade d'oranges, and a cup of coffee, or for breakfast and any occasion where you drink coffee. You know, tea is a recent thing only in France. In the nineteen sixties and seventies, it was still something "posh" that was drunk at  five o'clock in the afternoon by ladies and sometimes gentlemen. Think of the trade history in Britain and France, and you will understand why it was still something unusual for most people - and expensive as well. Cider is drunk preferably with the galette if you are in Brittany or Normandy, and with champagne or other bubbly wine when you celebrate the day of Epiphany, or on some grand occasion.

All cakes have something in common: hidden in the pastry: this is "the bean" - la fève -, which is either a plastic or china little figurine. It started in the Middle-Ages by being a true bean, and slowly became something fancy. Nowadays, there are collectors of these figurines that come in series: Nativity characters, houses, Disney characters, whatever. 

But the ceremony of the gâteau de rois is more complex. There must be as many slices as the number of guests around the table, plus another one of the first poor person that would come to the house. Then, the youngest member of the family, goes under the table, and the father asks: " For whom this slice?" and the child names one person. This goes on until everybody has been served. One slice at least must remain, not to be eaten by the guests. Then, if and when one of the diners finds la fève, he or she is declared King or Queen and must choose his or her counterpart, put the crown of golden cardboard on his or her head, and drink. The aclamation is the shout: "Le roi (la reine) boit!" (The King - the Queen - drinks!). Then, the other guests may toast the King and the Queen and drink as well.

When I was a child, we managed to cram Epiphany in all the festivities we celebrated in the country. As we were visiting again Great-Grand-Mother and Aunt Sweet, Great-Uncle Mark and his wife, Great-Aunt Eliza, their children and grand-children, Great-Uncle Albert and Great-Aunt Amelia, Great-Aunt Afra (an Italian young girl that Great-Uncle Philip had married because of her beauty) who was a widow but with children and grand-children, Great-Uncle François and Great-Aunt Ida and their children and grand-children, ad lib..., we were were satiated with gâteaux de rois wherever we went! There might easily be three in an afternoon sometimes. Plus the ones we would take to some older and further reatives who were staying in homes! There was an indigestion (figuratively speaking) of this cake, and the evenings were full of decoctions and infusions of verbena, mint, lime or chamomile. 

Of course, what a fellow reader in one of my online reading groups calls the yearly "tinsellectomy" cannot happen as it does in Anglo-Saxon countries, the day after New Year's Day. The Kings/Magi are due to arrive at the stable, in the Nativity scene, on the Epiphany Day or Sunday named by the Church. For instance, the Kings/Magi statuettes were put before the Child last Sunday in church, with the camels at the back of the scene, and on Wednesday at home (on the 6th of January), and are to stay until the Baptism of Christ (this Sunday in Church). They will linger a little at home and the whole scene will be packed until the end of this year; on Thursday when Marlène comes to help me clean the house.





















Chances are great that you will see nothing again of this organised untidiness when you drop in next week for your weekly chat. But there will still be some gâteau de rois: you will have to tell me that you want something different - biscuits, shortbread, cannelés... - if you don't like this cake, as it will stay on and on now.

Spring will have come inside, I promise. It has already peeped through the door, in the kitchen. I shall show you more next week.

But it is late and you may be visiting other bloggers or hosting an event yourself. Or you may have something else to do, better than staying nattering with me. I shall say bood bye, and thank you to have spent a moment with The Girls and me. And leave you with a thought a fellow blogger who is a vicar in the North of England told us, his readers, at the end of his post about architecture. He told us of the service for Epiphany in his parish and church and let us with a reminder of his wife:




Have a good week! Take care!

Thursday 7 January 2016

Poetry: 'Balms' by Amy Clampitt











BALMS


Hemmed in by the prim

deodorizing stare

of the rare-book room,

I stumbled over,

lodged under glass, a

revenant ‘Essay on Color’

by Mary Gartside, a woman

I’d never heard of, open

to a hand-rendered

watercolor illustration

wet-bright as the day

its unadulterated red-

and-yellow was laid on

(publication date 1818).


Garden nasturtium hues,

the text alongside

explained, had been

her guide. Sudden as

on hands and knees

I felt the smell of them

suffuse the catacomb

so much of us lives in-

horned, pungent, velvet-

eared succulence, a perfume

without hokum, the intimate

of trudging earthworms

and everyone’s last end’s

unnumbered, milling tenants.


Most olfactory experience

either rubs your nose

in it or tries to flatter

with a funeral home’s

approximation of such balms

as a theology of wax alone

can promise, and the bees

deliver. Mary Gartside

died, I couldn’t even

learn the year. Our one

encounter occurred by chance

where pure hue set loose

unearthly gusts of odor

from earthbound nasturtiums.


Amy Clampitt, 1980


nasturtium, and bee september 2015 hill farm

Let's take a deep breath






After the travels we made before and after Christmas to Stockholm, Vienna, and other cities and countries, let's come back to the Dordogne today, and enjoy the last of the end-of-the-year decorations of The Village. Next week, they will be taken down, and there will be a lull in the activities of the small shops. Less flowers, books, trinkets bought, and savings at the butcher's and the confectioners'.

One thing will still thrive and this is The Supermarket. 




You may see that The Supermarket has nothing to do with US and Canadian supermarkets or those you find in cities and towns around the world. It is far smaller that those around Périgueux, and even those of the Market Towns nearby, but we find almost everything we need here, except when we want to spend less, and then go to the discount supermarket of the next Market Town.

Today is the first day of  the shopping/cleaninng lady and I have sent The Girls with her to do a large part of the weekly shopping. Can you imagine my being alone at home without The Girls? There was excitation on their part and a little unease or apprehension. But I made the shopping list with them and explained what we needed as well as telling them that they will be the lady's guide and teach her our shoppping customs and showing her the brands we buy. 

The Girls were ready two hours before the appointed time! And the lady came. She is a youngish person at the end of her thirties or the beginning of her forties, neatly and gaily dressed, with blonde hair, a nice smile, and briefed by the Head of the cleaning ladies Agency about the job she is expected to hold. I have commented my shopping list with her, told her about what is important for The House and what is important for The Girls (things do not always coincide but The Girls need their important things to feel well). 

And off, they have gone!

I took a deep breath. A very, very deep breath.

This is the first time since we have arrived from Paris that I am alone. I am typing without fear of being interrupted at any moment. I can listen to music as I want. Or I may choose silence. Or I may read. Or watch a DVD in English without explaining or putting the translation in French. I may make myself a cup of tea or coffee or drink some fruit juice without justification or reason why I do so. For the first time in years, I am free. Unbelievable. 

And it is not even selfish as The Girls will enjoy their trip out without me. I am sure they will have lots to tell in the evening and tomorrow.

They are going to The Supermarket, of course. They have little treats to buy there - under control, of course: no folly! 

Then they go at the chemist's for my prescription.




Then they will buy their magazines that are awaiting them at the newsagent's.



















And back from The Village to The House. Quite an adventure, isn't it?




It is an adventure for them. I learnt from living with disabled persons, be they physically disabled like my brother who suffered from myopathy, or mentally disabled like The Girls who suffer from DownS, that they approach life with new eyes every day. Everything is fresh and valuable for them. There is not much negative attitude, but gratefulness for little things instead. They will be thankful for fresh bread and a new highlighter, for guiding the "new lady" in the aisles of the shop and for the TV magazine. They rejoiced because rain had stopped and they would not wet their paws. They awake each morning with a smile. They go to bed and fall asleep easily after having made their peace with the world and God.

Therefore, even if I took a deep breath and almost stretched in the luxury of being alone, I shall be glad to see them coming back and tell me what they have seen and done. I complain about them but I would not live without them around. They weight on me but they are also a great source of joy. 

This may be less interesting than the journeys to Stockholm or Vienna, the memories of days past, the Advent Calendar or the Twelve Days of Christmas: it is a tiny pause. It is good to be at home.



Wednesday 6 January 2016

The twelfth day of Christmas - Epiphany






On the twelfth day of Christmas,
my true love gave me
Twelve Drummings Drumming
Eleven Pipers Piping,
Ten Lords a-Leaping,
Nine Ladies Dancing,
Eight Maids a-milking,
Seven Swans a-swimming,
Six Geese a-laying,
Five Gold Rings,
Four Calling Birds,
Three French Hens,
Two Turtle Doves,
and
A Partridge in a Pear Tree.



According to the tradition, the Twelve Drummers represent the twelve points of belief of the Apostles' Creed. I shall not bother you with the content of the Creed: it is either known or to be found, if you are interested, somewhere online, although I have not checked.

The Twelve Drummers, for me, coincide today with the Feast of Epiphany, as it seems I started a day too late. The RC Church celebrated Epiphany last Sunday but the true date is the sixth of January. In France, it is the day where we eat a special cake - according to the regions, a galette des rois (mostly in the Northern parts) either with frangipane or not, and a kind of brioche in the Southern parts with or without fruits confits but always big grains of sugar.

As we belong to the North through Father's family and our living in Paris, and to the South through Mother's family and The House in the Dordogne, we have both cakes. Do not think us greedy: the tradition has now been made wide; the season of these cakes begins after Christmas and lasts well until Lent, that is February and sometimes March in the case of the brioche kind, with a break for pancakes at the beginning of February. Therefore, we have (almost) all the time in the world to taste the galette à la frangipane and the gâteau brioche des Rois.

I shall tell you more about the traditions attached to the celebration and the cake when you stop by to have a cup of coffee or tea on Saturday as these are the very beverages to drink with both cakes. Unless you prefer cider or champagne. Meanwhile, I thought you might like to try your hand at baking a galette. So here is a link to a blog that will give you the recipe:




And so, friends and readers, the Twelve Drummers drum us out of the Christmas time. One more Sunday for the RC Church with the Baptism of Christ in Jordan, and we are back to the "ordinary liturgical" time also called "time of the Church". We leave the gold, red and white collours of Celebration for the green of the usual. Time for us to pack the decorations and drive the tree to the déchetterie (waste disposal site) of The Village, after what a fellow reader in a reading group calls "the annual tinsellectomy".

I am always sad when this time comes, as many people I believe. But in France it is time to send greetings for the New Year. Postcards are to be written and sent from after Christmas until the end of January, which is different from the Anglo-Saxon custom of sending "Season's Greetings" before Christmas. This is coming to France as all things Anglo-Saxon, but, at home, we keep the French way.

There is also a saying in Dordogne that comes true on the Fest of Epiphany:
A la Sainte Luce,
les jours avancent d'un saut de puce;
pour les Rois,
ils avancent d'un pas de roi. 
I shall not be able to keep the rhymes but the meaning is that for Saint Lucy (Luce), the light is growing as if making a chip leap - this is linked to the Julian Calendar  (see: 
but for the Epiphany and the Day of the Three Kings, the light is growing as if making a king's step, which means that from that date the light truly begins to be longer. Winter will be with us in January and until the middle of February. Afterwards, Spring will come in. In January, snowdrops will appear. Mimosa trees will start blossoming for the second of January and the pancakes, and daffodils should be here by the end of February, beginning of March, IF the weather keeps its ancient rules...

Meanwhile, there will be hyacinths in the house and hardy narcissi that have been planted regularly since Autumn and kept in the dark. 

So, let the Drummers drum and let us thrive indoors with books and music still for a while. But good bye Christmas: after having received the presents of our true love, for us, of the Northern Hemisphere, Spring is on its way!


On the twelfth day of Christmas,
my true love gave me
Twelve Drummings Drumming
Eleven Pipers Piping,
Ten Lords a-Leaping,
Nine Ladies Dancing,
Eight Maids a-milking,
Seven Swans a-swimming,
Six Geese a-laying,
Five Gold Rings,
Four Calling Birds,
Three French Hens,
Two Turtle Doves,
and
A Partridge in a Pear Tree.



"La Marche des Rois"
(The Kings March - traditional French carol for the Feast of Epiphany)







Tuesday 5 January 2016

On the eleventh day of Christmas - Piping in Scotland







On the eleventh day of Christmas,
my true love gave me
Eleven Pipers Piping,
Ten Lords a-Leaping,
Nine Ladies Dancing,
Eight Maids a-milking,
Seven Swans a-swimming,
Six Geese a-laying,
Five Gold Rings,
Four Calling Birds,
Three French Hens,
Two Turtle Doves,
and
A Partridge in a Pear Tree.



According to the tradition, the Eleven Pipers represent the eleven faithful apostles, that is all but Judas Iscariot, the disciple/apostle who betrayed Christ by denouncing him to the High Priest and giving him the famous kiss in the Garden of the Mount of Olives, thus enabling the guards to arrest Jesus. My own feeling - but the RC Church and Christianity at large may well disagree - is that the eleven remaining apostles were not too faithful either, as they badly let down their "leader" by fleeing, or by saying they did not know him (Peter), or staying close enough to listen and report in the Gosel afterwards, but far enough as well not to be caught and suffer the same death (John). But I have always said that I did not know what I would do when confronted with suffering, martyrdom and death. It is easy to pass judgement, however the most comfortable position, and the survival instinct might push me to flee. 

Now, as to the choice of image, I hesitated between this one and two others:
























The last one, which is the one I chose seemed the most poetic; the middle one was in harmony with the preceding ones chosen the days before, but too slender to my taste; the first one was ... Scottish and more modern.

I never lived in Scotland but we spent holidays there. And that was the crowning of a time where I was madly in love with "Bonnie Prince Charlie" and when I was crying over the defeat of Culloden. I was writing a secret diary then - I must have been around eight or nine - in green ink (!) with a postcard stuck on the first page of a Scot piper before a loch and mountains in the distance, dotted with sheep. The postcard had been sent by my godmother who had spent holidays there before we went, and sent me this special card. She knew nothing of my great passion, as I thought, did all my family. But I suspect my interest was known by anybody who cared about what I looked for as far as books, images, magazines, and everything related with the Highlands was concerned. I thought the Highlanders were far better than the Lowlanders and was very disappointed when my parents told us we would go to Edinburgh and spend some time there. Edinburgh? Pah! Give me the North!

My love had begun with a book of course. I took it from the school library and never have been able to find it again. It was the story of a young boy, Alistair MacSomething, and his "bonnie lass", a friend - not a girlfriend but a friend who happened to be a girl - Moirag MacSomethingElse. She was described as having black hair and des yeux mauves, couleur de bruyère (purple eyes, heather colour), and was a tomboy, even for our days. I identified with her as my heroines were always tomboys, and I identified with the boy. But I fought like the boy, and was in love with Bonnie Prince Charlie as all girls seemed to have been in the Highlands of around 1745, in the book. 






Of course, I knew nothing of the real life and works of the "Young Pretender" and was utterly disappointed when I learnt who he was really later in still young life. I knew nothing of Flora Mac Donald and thought she was a good friend, an older Moirag, a woman Moirag. And the Pretender stayed always brave and  young in my mind. I never thought then that he could have been with faults and made errors.

He was a descendant of  Mary, Queen of Scots, who herself, had been a Scottish martyr after having been the daughter of a French princess, raised and taught at the French Court, and very shortly Queen of France. Mary was a saint to her evil cousin Ellizabeth Tudor who had been unfortunately the daughter of the great English Bluebeard, Henry VIII and of a woman of dubious mores, Anne Boleyn, for whom he recanted the true faith, and had the legitimate and only Queen of true blue blood, Katharine of Aragon, die. Henry VIII was an error in himself and in his father who had evicted the Yorks from the throne, and the Yorks were dubious people as well as they had evicted the Plantagenets-Lancasters: I was a faithful follower of Henry V, after having seen Kenneth Branagh's movie and Kenneth Branagh himself, as Mother knew him.

This was all far-fetched, confused, and clumsy but I thought it very clear, and, to make this short, I think, in retrospect, that I liked the atmosphere as I liked the atmosphere of the "Three Muketeers" and the other Dumas novels, blended with the exaltation of Shakespeare theatre, and children books by Louisa May Alcott - Jo in "Little Women", and of course, Rose in "Eight Cousins" and "Rose in Bloom".

Going to Scotland on holidays was the means to reach my imaginary country, to meet my heroes, to fight with them and to re-write history as we were wont to win! Going to Edinburgh was a slight deception. It lacked breath and breadth.

But I followed gratefully the rest of the family with dreams buzzing in my mind and diary in my own small suitcase that I carried myself. From this first trip, I remember the castle, very black upon a leaden grey sky, on its steep hill, up and arrogant and strong. I remember Princes Street and the Gardens. And there was a bookshop there where we used to go almost every day (you must know by now that we were all bookworms...). I could have stationary bought for me. Mother explained also that were I more disciplined and mindful, I might have abridged versions of history books and of novels by Sir Walter Scott in English. I promised everything she wanted and I had the books as well as a little volume encased in a plastic tartan cover with a clasp: poems by Robert Burns. 

The rest is blurred in a daze of happiness. I know  and remember vaguely  that I saw my first Peploes and Scottish colourists.























We went up North, at long last, and I made some sort of pilgrimage in the Highlands. I could not understand and would not understand why the Campbells were dubbed traitors. After all, the family name of Rose and her seven cousins in "Eight Cousins" was Campbell, and there could not belong to a family of traitors. 

I loved the landscapes. They were the true revelation of these holidays. I was not prepared to the real beauty and loneliness of them. I loved the lochs and the sea. I listened to Father's voice reading Burns and Mother telling me stories from Scott before going to sleep. They related with what I saw during the day even if I understood but a little of those. I was like a sponge and imbibed what I watched and heard, made a muddle of it in my mind but the whole bundle would come out one day and sort itself out without effort. As with music inVienna, it was sheer and deep happiness.

This is why, today, I put the Scottish pipers as it is when,


On the eleventh day of Christmas,
my true love gave me
Eleven Pipers Piping,
Ten Lords a-Leaping,
Nine Ladies Dancing,
Eight Maids a-milking,
Seven Swans a-swimming,
Six Geese a-laying,
Five Gold Rings,
Four Calling Birds,
Three French Hens,
Two Turtle Doves,
and
A Partridge in a Pear Tree.





Monday 4 January 2016

On the tenth day of Christmas - Leaping and dancing: happiness!









On the tenth day of Christmas,
my true love gave me
Ten Lords a-Leaping,
Nine Ladies Dancing,
Eight Maids a-milking,
Seven Swans a-swimming,
Six Geese a-laying,
Five Gold Rings,
Four Calling Birds,
Three French Hens,
Two Turtle Doves,
and
A Partridge in a Pear Tree.



According to the tradition, the Ten Lords represent the Ten Commandments:

  • I am the Lord, your God. (Preface)
  • Thou shall bring no false idols before me.
  • Do not take the name of the Lord in vain.
  • Remember the Sabbath and keep it holy.
  • Honour thy father and thy mother.
  • Thou shall not kill.
  • Thou shall not commit adultery.
  • Thou shall not steal.
  • Thou shall not bear false witness against thy neighbour.
  • Thou shall not covet thy neighbour's wife.
  • Thou shall not covet anything that belongs to thy neighbour.

I understand the necessity to remember the main tenets of the faith but, indeed, this is no great fun on the twelve days of Christmas! I like the idea of the Lords a-Leaping better than the Ten Commandments - may the Lord and the Roman Catholic Church have pity on me.

The Ten Lords a-leaping make me think of dancing (thanks to the simile my sister makes with some ballet dancers and frogs), and of the tradition we have in the family to watch the New Year's Day Concert in Vienna on TV. Whatever was to be done that day - and it was most surely a family lunch with Grand-Mother and Grand-Father and various Uncles and Aunts - it was a rule to push it back after two o'cock in the afternoon.

In France, the concert is seen "live". Therefore, at a quarter past eleven, when the first notes of Marc-Antoine Charpentier Te Deum were announcing the Eurovision broadcasting, all family was gathered in the sitting room, somewhat uncomfortably perched on chairs, in front of the TV set. 

I have to digress somewhat. There was a TV set almost at the very beginning of TV at both my grand-parents. Mother and Father were then very used to TV and we grew up with TV as well. But in all houses or flats or any dwelling, the set has been placed in an uncomfortable place. The only concession was that it was in sitting rooms but at such an odd angle that nobody could watch any programme for long without getting a lumbago, a squint, a stiff neck, or other benign but very real ailment. The reason was that nobody should stay long in front of the screen: that was unhealthy and there were several better things to do. I confess that some remnants of this attitude stay with me as it IS still uncomfortable for the Little family to watch TV. One of us gets an armchair and may see things properly; another may get a less comfortable armchair, set in in a gap in between a sofa and the wall, see things from an angle, and get both lumbago and stiff neck; the third gets a straight back wooden chair absolutely uncomfortable, and may do a crossword puzzle better than watch the programme. I may change it one day but old habits die hard...

So, to come back to the NYD concert, Mother was in the comfortable armchair and all the others perched as they could. 




There were comments upon the Musikverein, the flowers, the concert from the year before and its conductor while the commentator was talking to make people wait patiently for the orchestra and the maestro to be ready. We stopped talking when the conductor entered the auditorium. One could have waited for us to applaud since we were so intensely transported to the concert hall.

Und es war Musik!




Unanimously silent and listening. Intent. Some closing eyes. Some intent on the joke to come. Relaxed and happy. One of the few times when my whole family was gathered and relaxed. Communion between the conductor and the orchestra, among the members of the orchestra, among the conductor, the orchestra and the family. Bewitched. Deeply happy. Laughing at the jokes. No criticism. As if we were in the concert hall and at the same time, a united family in a country house rather shabby but comfortable sitting room.

Of course there was the habitual tourism and promotion of Wien and the Donau and the vineyards forever associated by us to Schubert - don't ask me why -, the Little Vienna Singers and the kitsch of the dancing in the Prater, the Hofburg or Shönbrunn, when the dancers go and run in the various rooms, "playing hide and seek" as my sister said, and "leaping like frogs" (here comes the simile).




Grand-parents and other members of the family would arrive and join us little by little. And, please, do not laugh now. Grand-Father only knew how to dance the polka and would invite Grand-Mother for a polka lente that would turn into a polka rapide; they would laugh like young people. Father would ask my sister for three or four turns of a waltz, and as much as she sings flat, as well she has the rythm of the dance in her. I was asked by sheer politeness as I am as stiff as a broomstick! Mother was asked  by Father (always) demurely for the Blue Danube, at the end of the concert. And we all clapped duting the Radetzky March, following the instructions of the maestro. We were entranced and stupid. But immensely happy.




After the concert, Father would say that it was time for him and us all to refresh our memories by some useful reading about Mittel Europa, by novels by Musil, Rilke, Schnitzler, and authors of the defunct Austro-Hungarian Empire. That would take us through the lunch and most of the afternoon! I still have my Mittel Europa crisis in January...

Now that there are only The Girls and myself, we are still ready by a quarter after eleven in the morning. We start lunch during the intermission but nothing would make us move when the concert is resumed. I invite my sister for three or four turns of waltz - usually the Blue Danube - and sometimes another one. We laugh at the jokes. We clap during the final March. And we shout "Bonne Année" as an answer to the orchestra and the conductor's wishes. I think it is one of the few moments during the end-of-the-year festivities when we are truly happy and with no more self-consciousness, grief, and sorrow. Therefore thanks to Klemens Krauss and the Eurovision at the end of the 1950s!

We are neither leaping nor gambolling on the first of January, and it is not the tenth day of Christmas, and yet, we feel like the lords that



On the tenth day of Christmas,
my true love gave me
Ten Lords a-Leaping,
Nine Ladies Dancing,
Eight Maids a-milking,
Seven Swans a-swimming,
Six Geese a-laying,
Five Gold Rings,
Four Calling Birds,
Three French Hens,
Two Turtle Doves,
and
A Partridge in a Pear Tree.





On the ninth day of Christmas - let us sing together with the angels!








On the ninth day of Christmas,
my true love gave me
Nine Ladies Dancing,
Eight Maids a-milking,
Seven Swans a-swimming,
Six Geese a-laying,
Five Gold Rings,
Four Calling Birds,
Three French Hens,
Two Turtle Doves,
and
A Partridge in a Pear Tree



According to the tradition, the Nine Ladies represent the nine choirs of Angels. Yes, dear friends and readers, there are no simple angels - "period" or "full stop" - there are nine categories of angels, and I do not doubt you can't wait to know them, and will be thrilled when you have read their names (!!!). Therefore, here they are immediately, beginning from the highest rank:
  • cherubim
  • seraphim
  • thrones
  • dominions (or lordships)
  • virtues (or strongholds)
  • powers (or authorities)
  • principalities (or powers)
  • archangels
  • angels
I shall not give you illustrations for each choir - I find some of them rather frightening, myself), but a link to know more about them: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_angelic_hierarchy. Quite frankly, I do not believe about this. I understand intellectually the construction of this hierarchy and its origins but this is no article of faith for the Christian (at least the Roman Catholic), and I am afraid it is too abstruse to be learnt and remembered today. The Church goes more into the actual problems of its flock and concentrates on the message of Christ - I would say, without intending the pun, "thank God!".

We hear of the angels as a generic terms from time to time: the guardian angels are evoked and celebrated on October, 2nd, and a well-known and loved series on the French TV is called "Joséphine, ange gardien".




Joséphine is a guardian angel who comes to the Earth from the Heavens to help her "clients" (one at a time) who have problems that she helps to solve. She is a "little person" (not politically said, she is played by a dwarf lady actress), and snaps her fingers to make miraculous things happen like appearing and disappearing, finding objects, doing chores, etc. The series is followed by lots of people, the actress is very popular, and loved by children - and The Girls. Josephine has to integrate the world around her "client": she has been therapist in a rugby team, firewoman, actress, cook, baker, guide for tourists, museum guardian, fashionista, exploring time back in WWII and going backward and forward to our time, etc. The job she gets and her height, her liveliness, her repartees, all gives a funny and family look to the series that is heavily moral, rather like a modern fairytale, very black and white, goodies and villains; of course Good triumphs over Evil in the end, and Joséphine disappears on a last snap, a sigh and the desire for holidays on the beach.

I am afraid we are far from the Church orthodoxy of the angels of the Church.

Back to the bosom of the Church, at least two of the archangels are still known in France: Michel (Michael) and Gabriel. Raphael is more often forgotten. Everybody knows Michel; it was a name that was largely given to children in the middle of the 20th century, and it is the name of several places and churches. I am sure you know this one, being the border (in the sea) between Brittany and Normandy: the French Mont Saint-Michel - French, as there is another one in Britain




Michel is the fighting archangel against Lucifer in the mind of most people (those who remember their catechism, which is less and less), when Gabriel is the sweet one who brings good tidings to Mary at the Annunciation, speaks with Joseph, and usually plays messenger between God and the Human Beings.


Saint Michel




Saint Gabriel
























And Gabriel is implicitely leading the choir of the angels who are singing to the shepherds at Christmas. He anounces the great news: "For unto you a child is born..."

In the Roman Catholic Church, cherubims, seraphims, archangels and angels, "and all the powers fom above" are invoked during mass at the end of the "préface", before what was called in Latin the "Sanctus": Sanctus, sanctus, sancrus Deus Sabbaoth. Pleni sunt caeli gloria tua. Hosanna in excelsis. Benedictus qui venit in nomine Domini. Hosannah in excelsis."

Therefore, be they, fighters (Michel) or postmen from God (Gabriel) or thinkers like Michelangelo's putti,





all are musicians and singers and we are invited to sing the praises of the Lord with them.

Les choeurs angéliques
Les anges dans nos campagnes

Or to listen to them... I have in mind these great masses from Mozart, Bach, Beethoven, and others. And the messes en grégorien that are still prayed in convents. But you may have your own preferred interpretation and I dare not interfere...

Singing with the angels must be great if some voices are changed for the best. The Girls should not sing flat anymore and my voice should be restored to what it was before. But perhaps the Lord would not mind some dancing as well. After all, David was dancing before the Ark of the Covenant! Then, it would not be considered heretic that:

On the ninth day of Christmas,
my true love gave me
Nine Ladies Dancing,
Eight Maids a-milking,
Seven Swans a-swimming,
Six Geese a-laying,
Five Gold Rings,
Four Calling Birds,
Three French Hens,
Two Turtle Doves,
and
A Partridge in a Pear Tree