francofiled

The opening event to launch this year's programme for the Cercle Français de Belfast took place on Tuesday evening in the Dark Horse Coffee House in the Cathedral Quarter. Nearly 50 people turned up and several took out membership on the spot. The programme is a varied one and many of the speakers were present to explain what their talk would cover.  Check out the planned events  here . After the programme was announced some of the participants took to the floor to provide commentaries on photos they had taken on a recent trip to France. Amélie had submitted a photo of a château in her native Franche-Comte and urged us to go visit; Hélène, an inhabitant of Paris showed her photos of the Basque Country and a beautiful coastal chateau close to Biarritz.  Helene's contribution was closely followed by Michael who this and every year heads to Provence in search of Azur blue skies. That colour was much in evidence in his photos of Avignon and Uzes, in the Languedoc. ...

Didn't know these existed - olive shaped and coloured chocolates with roasted olive centres. They came as a thoughtful holiday gift in a nicely packaged metal tin. Different - a far remove from the chocolate eggs we get here. The sweets are produced by La Cure Gourmande in Frontignan in the Hérault Département in the South of France.Will order some more. Next time I'll keep you some. Posted with Blogsy

  Couldn't resist trying out a new picture app to draw this Wallace Fountain in Lisburn.   Posted with Blogsy

I've been using my Kindle reading device for over a year now. Although I love books I am not one of those readers who refuses to have anything to do with the electronic variety. One of the things I thought I would do when I was given the Kindle would be to use it to download French books. A year ago that wasn't so easy because there appeared to be some restrictions on buying from the www.amazon.fr store. Usually there was a message in French to say that the title was not available for your country and that the site was for use by people in France, Belgium and Luxembourg. People I knew had the same experience and others around the world reported something similar online. Sure enough yesterday I visited Amazon France to see what if anything was available, determined that if there was no Kindle availability I'd opt for a hard copy. There was the message on the Kindle store, "Ce titre n'est pas disponible pour votre pays." Now, the title yesterday was a top selle...

photo: Rym Akhonzada The bandstand in Wallace Park, Lisburn was the focal point for 14 July Bastille Day celebrations. Organised as part of the City's Park Life programme to encourage use of public spaces, it was pleasing to see the many "citizens" who gathered to occupy the bandstand area. The idea was to create a café style atmosphere by creating a round of patio tables covered in red checked cloths. A large public address system squeezed out French accordion music while people organised themselves with refreshments. A coffee truck was stationed nearby and seemed to be doing quite a trade in not only coffee but ice cream. Local restaurant Periwig had prepared a French themed menu of treats including a liver pâté parfait served on toasted brioche; fishcakes; macarons in a variety of colours and profiteroles served with hot chocolate sauce. Anthea McWilliams of the Sir Richard Wallace Trust moved to the stand to tell the story of Sir Richard and his connection to both ...

  Lisburn City's events team has planned a Park Life series to encourage as many people as possible to make use of the various parks and gardens throughout the city. With events taking place on Saturdays and one of those on the 14 July, it was a good opportunity to celebrate France's Fête Nationale and Lisburn's connections with France. The extract from the Park Life booklet above provides details of what is on offer. Posted with Blogsy

Enjoying a coffee with Philip at the Dark Horse Coffee Shop. Also working on setting up website for Cercle.