Certified organic

Posted on June 10, 2011 by emmacalin

Walking on the banks of le Charenton I chanced to see a very large but cute beast in the water. It looked like a cross between a scottie dog and a rat. Excitedly I told my neighbour. She shrugged and replied “Ragondin – you can eat them”. Seemingly there are thousands of escaped coypu in streams and ditches that are regarded as vermin – but edible. Life has two separate forms here in France. The first form is edible life. The second form is inedible life and comprises of human beings and outside of revolutions and long strikes, their pets. Yes – everything else is edible including all moving parts, bones, organs and plumbing. It’s just the same in the UK but it’s shaped up, covered in yummycrum and sold as swizzle twizzle escalopes. Ragondin makes a delicious terrine or pate I was told – mmmmm.

Tomorrow I’m gonna fly to the UK from La Rochelle. Gilles will be left to his own devices and I know just what he’ll do. He’s gonna go native. I’ve seen him eyeing up the rabbits chez le boucher. The minute I’m gone he’ll be down there. By dinner time the pineau will be out and les garcons will be round to re-find their roots in the soil. Pineau? well that’s another tale from Charentes. It’s a kinda liqueur and it’s definitely kinda nice. When I was a kid in London my father had a scheme to breed meat rabbits. We ended up with over 30 pets and a desert garden. No one ever ate one. He died poor.

Still reading Fantasy Lover. Emma x

Home for tea

Posted on June 9, 2011 by emmacalin

Oh dear – gonna have to go back to UK for about a week. The guys at Gallo-Romano Media want to do some audio stuff and video trailers for Knockout and my new book. It’s at that stage where I feel like a marsupial momma. There’s this little live thing peeking out of my pouch. Oh world, I’m not ready yet – please be kind.

I like to write early although I do need lots of Yorkshire Gold tea and often the Gallic hot baguette before I get going.(Now then -that’s fusion for thee in’t it lass). Then I do my blog which I really enjoy because it allows me to just chat. Book characters have to be disciplined and follow some kinda plot. I can’t write onto a a keyboard – If I do, the work looks finished and of course every line needs a bit of polish. It means I am slow and several novels have gone straight in the bin. At least they will have been recycled into toilet paper. I’ve probably bought back a few chapters at the hypermarché…..but at least it’s a sale!

Of course I like to read Romance, particularly in styles that I simply could not do. That way I’m not gonna steal anything. Today I’m reading “Fantasy Lover” by Sherrilyn Kenyon on my Kindle. I’m halfway through a Greek love slave. No baguettes or stuffed olives so far but it looks like he knows a few tricks with flour and anchovies. This has had good reviews on Amazon. Should I review it? What the hell do I know anyway? AND SHE MIGHT BITE.

So, let’s look up the Brittany Ferries web site and choose some clothes. I’ve sorta hippied out in France and the Anglo Saxons are hardcore big biz. I’ll stock up with Yorkshire Gold anyway.

Turned off? Get your hands on your switch and enjoy.

Posted on June 8, 2011 by emmacalin

Those things that influence us fall into two categories. Those we are aware of and those that are hidden or so built in that we just cannot see them. Other writers obviously influence me. Good writers create readers. Great writers create other writers. Ho hum, I’ll settle for readers! The singer Edith Piaf has been the most powerful influence on my life and work. I heard her singing on the radio by chance and was so drawn to her sound and language that I decided to teach myself French. If you’ve ever longed to learn a language and the school system turned you off, get some music of the language you want, turn yourself back on and get singing. Put all those classroom humiliations behind you and learn a song. Sing it in your head. You don’t have to show out until you are ready. Babies just gurgle and listen. Suddenly WHEN THEY ARE READY they go for it. Also try using the accent and flavour of your new language in your own tongue. Oh wee, ziss is ow you can do eet. I tell you, zair will bee uh no regrets.

Check out the life of Edith Piaf in the film La Vie en Rose. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M5gpBncR8zI&NR=1

I’ve added a poem which reflects my own tiny homage to her soul. It’s about living with who you are and what you are. Chanteuse

What is the size of sorrow?

Posted on June 7, 2011 by emmacalin

Get it while it’s hot.

Posted on June 6, 2011 by emmacalin

It’s Sunday – Lettuce Pray

Posted on June 5, 2011 by emmacalin

At last it looks like rain. Farmers are out in their combine harvesters several weeks early in order to save what they can of the crop. Tant pis for the ground nesting birds that still have chicks in the nest. This morning I watched un paysan who marched back and forth to a ditch to fill his bucket. Each journey was 100 metres and each bucket watered a lettuce. He had known them each as seeds. His psychological profile probably ruled out the corporate thrust yet his lettuces survive in the dust. Corporate empires shrivel overnight.

News of the cat. “Les tests sont clean.” My neighbour informed me in franglais that she had picked up on a dubbed American TV show. We did 4 kisses and then 4 with Gilles and several batches of 4 with other locals who generally do 2. The cat lady is from some other region where they do 4. Its location is too far away to be of interest, but it must be a very foreign place. No one has ever been there.

Cost a packet

Posted on June 4, 2011 by emmacalin

The cat’s out of the bag

Posted on June 3, 2011 by emmacalin

Woken at 7 o’ clock by piteous wailing in the road outside. Looked out to see neighbour from a few doors up holding shopping bag in her arms. I will translate the conversation.

“My God! My God! She will die. Oh my angel- my little flea.”

A cat’s head appeared from the bag and said something similar but in the first person. (Ok I’m a grammar geek writer).

I went out.

“My pussy will die. Oh Emma- Madame I pray to you. Take me now and I will fill you up I promise.”

The neighbour lit a Gauloises, sliding into the car seat beside me. Obviously the cat was a passive smoker.

“I know the place – it is in Rochefort – I will fill you up”

We set off. Even through the smoke I felt kinda important. I was a romantic novelist on a real heroic mission at last.

Moo-ton Frothchilled

Posted on June 2, 2011 by emmacalin

Milk in France comes in bricks of UHT. Imagine my astonishment at encountering a fresh milk machine at the Carrefour hypermarché. You take a bottle from a dispenser and place it beneath a nozzle. A veritable champagne of milk is delivered whilst the machine moos in appreciation. It’s almost like being down on the farm. Gilles suggests replacing the metal spout with a soft rubber teat but I won’t go into his reasoning. As you will know by now, he is foreign.

Walking home through the allotments I met a very local French son of the soil guy wearing a T shirt labelled in English “Ethnic Support Council.” A Google boogie reveals this to be from Washington State USA. What unknown currents colour our lives?

Something fishy down at Intermarché

Posted on June 1, 2011 by emmacalin

Neighbours round for dinner. Quite a marathon with apéros, starters, saumon au riz, lemon pudding with custard and cheese. Le Monsieur loves to speak English and it is just possible to catch the odd word. After the kir, the white wine, the red wine and the cognac the concept of language seemed to slip away under the table and was probably eaten by their dog.

The salmon was labelled wild pink pacific but to me it tasted like tuna. Can this happen? Do they interbreed and form hybrids called Tumon or Salma. If they do, Intermarché are selling them. If this is a unique discovery I hope those Nobel prize guys are reading this.

Novel progress – well – let’s just say thinking shall we.

Emma Undercover

The Words Behind The Woman

Category Archives: Emma Calin