Freedom Festival 2010 - only about a month late

Continuing my recent theme of “Let’s tell people about things that have happened in Hull well after the event instead of beforehand when it might actually be useful”, I would like to tell you quickly about the Freedom Festival which took place over 2 days on 10th/11th September. (I did have every intention of posting about this the day I went on holiday but didn’t want to rush it and write something rubbish.)

I seem doomed to not really be around in Hull when the Freedom Festival takes place. Last year I was in Manchester for most of it and only saw Florence + the Machine and this year I ended up meeting up with my brother and sister-in-law to give them the blanket for the new baby and didn’t get around to going and seeing everything.

I cannot believe I missed McFly who have suddenly become ridiculously fit, meaning that I no longer feel shame for actually liking them (seriously, what happened to the lead singer – I don’t know them well enough to know their names, but HELL-o!). And I missed The Saturdays again. And Aleesha Dixon and a whole host of people I probably should know, but don’t because I don’t listen to the radio anymore.

(And did I mention all this is free?)

I only ended up getting into town for the final act which was Foals. I’m sorry if you know them and can’t believe I don’t but I really have never heard of them. I know, I suck at life. Were they good? Meh. It’s difficult watching a band you have absolutely no idea about and don’t recognise any of the songs. I know that I had a good time watching them but I don’t remember any of the songs even a little bit. Not a good omen. But everyone else seemed to like them, so I’m going with the notion that the majority of people who do get to listen to the radio while they’re in work and in their cars, like Foals, so therefore, they must be good.

Foals - no really, it is, it's just an appalling photo

What I really wanted to see was the French street theatre company, Plasticiens Volants, who use giant inflatable puppets to tell a story, high above the heads of those watching below.

They were due to start at 10pm and I had no real idea what to expect, by about 10.15pm I was starting to whinge. I was woefully underdressed for the occasion and starting to feel the cold. “When’s it going to staaaaaaaart?!” I moaned at my companions. At that moment I turned round and nearly fell over as I saw a giant inflatable head come floating into Queens Gardens, shortly followed by two fishies. They came in and amongst us, the puppeteers are attached to the inflatables with strings and run in and out of the crowd, making the puppets swoop down on unsuspecting victims. It was actually a little bit scary.

Then a big giant eel appeared and chased the fishies about. The fishies retreated to what can only be described as giant inflatable weeds while the eel bobbed about on the outside. Then, from the other side of the park appeared a beautiful lady with cat’s heads for breasts (yes, really) and she battled with the eel, forcing him among the reeds where he died.

The pretty cat-breast-lady did not escape unscathed. She appeared to get a puncture halfway through her battle which I seriously hope was not because of the morons who kept leaping up trying to grab at the inflatables. I dread to think how much that was going to cost to get punctured.

I’m not brilliant at interpretive street theatre. I quite like words to go with what I’m seeing and I’m still not entirely sure what the hell was going on. I appears that eel = bad and cat-breast lady = good. And I’m pretty sure the fishes were on the side of cat-breast lady. I’m not entirely sure where the giant head came into things though. I’ve had a look on their website and I still can’t figure out what story we were being told – but I did see cat-breast lady in Babilonia which unfortunately doesn’t have an English translation. I think we maybe just got a select few of the characters they use, rather than the full shazam – for some reason on their list of performances they haven’t included the Freedom Festival, which is a shame.

Anyway. It was exciting. And different. And only mildly scary.

(And did I mention it was free?)

And to round it all off there were fireworks which always goes down well. Who doesn’t like ooh-ing and aah-ing and clapping their hands and jumping up and down like some kind of moron?

Next year, I’m clearing the diary.

(It’s free you know.)

September Book Review

I’ve been looking forward to and dreading this post in equal measure. Looking forward to it in that this month has been so much better than last month’s terrible month for books, but dreading it because a week on holiday meant I plowed through quite a few babies this month.

I will try and keep these brief, as there were 5 books read this month.

Salem Falls – Jodi Picoult

I have a stockpile of these books because Culture Friend lent me a load an age ago. I just can’t read them all in one go though, I’ll start to convince myself I’m living a life of mystery and subterfuge. I am trying to battle my way through them though, I’ve had them for an embarrassingly long time.

I liked this one – Picoult goes a little bit edgy with her story about a man recently released from prison after being accused of statutory rape, trying to start his life over again, only to be accused for a second time by a group of teenage girls. Oh and they happen to be practicing witchcraft. Yeah I know.

I did like this one, I got very carried away with it and all kinds of theories about how it was going to end. I was wildly wrong though, mainly because I overshot quite a bit, I went pretty dark with my predictions and found myself disappointed when they turned out not to be true. The main ‘twist’ you can see coming from a million miles away though.

I feel bad because I still continue to kind of dismiss Picoult a little bit and never bother buying her books, but I haven’t read one of hers yet that I haven’t enjoyed and I think she needs to be applauded for covering a whole breadth of scenarios – from dying children to the Amish to rape convicts. Good work Ms Picoult.

Nocturnes – Kazuo Ishiguro

I have a confession to make. I really don’t like short stories. I can’t explain why, I just never enjoy them, I either find them irritating because they end before things have really got going or they’re just incredibly abstract as the author attempts to write a good story in very few words.

I picked this up by accident. I read Never Let Me Go a long time ago and it’s continued to haunt me ever since (and there’s a film due out this year apparently). I saw this and picked it up and it wasn’t until it finally got plucked off the bookshelf that I realised I’d bought a collection of short stories. “Bleurgh.” I thought to myself.

How wrong was I? Each and every story is so beautiful – each a love story but not your schmaltzy kind of love, real love warts and all, black and white and all the grey areas in between. Ishiguro must be quite the master at writing short stories, none of his books are great tomes that you struggle to lift off the shelf, and these stories didn’t feel unfinished and didn’t drive me demented as I tried to understand what they meant, instead leaving me with a pleasant glow and a wish to sit down and read them all again.

Remarkable Creatures – Tracy Chevalier

I have far too many books unread on my bookshelf and so I farm them out to people that I can trust not to destroy them before I’ve had a chance to read them. Sometimes I forget I’ve lent them out – as I did with this one when Culture Friend passed it over the table while we were out to dinner – “Oooh this looks good” I said. “Babe, it’s yours” she replied.

Moving on...

I’ve only just figured it out but Tracy Chevalier’s modus operandi is to take real life people/things and spin a tale of fiction around them. Earlier in the year I read The Lady and the Unicorn which was inspired by a tapestry. There’s the famous Girl with a Pearl Earring which I’ve yet to read and this book concerns real-life lady fossil hunters, namely Mary Anning (working class fossil hunter) and Elizabeth Philpot (middle class spinster whiling away her time finding fish fossils) who strike up a friendship when fossil hunting on the beaches of Lyme Regis. Ladies didn’t fossil hunt in those days you know, it was quite the scandal and Remarkable Creatures tells the story of how Mary and Elizabeth learn from each other, against the wider backdrop of history and society.

AWeek in December – Sebastian Faulks

I love the Faulks you know. He can’t do much wrong in my book. (Apart from Human Traces which really...did.....drag.....on.) How I managed to miss this bad boy I’ll never know but hurrah for The Times £2.99 book of the week a WH Smith (why yes I do keep them in business) who brought it to my attention, just before I set off for France. Perfect timing.

It does what it says on the tin. Taking place over seven days, you become immersed in the worlds of several characters, whose lives all intertwine throughout the book. It’s all very Of The Time – there’s a young radicalised Muslim, planning a terrorist attack, a nasty greedy hedge fund manager, a teen smoking too much dope watching a reality TV programme where people with mental health issues battle for a place in an institution, a tube driver spending too much time on an online game, among others.

The amount of research Faulks must have done is incredible – especially regarding the financial aspects of hedge funds. I’ll be honest, they completely baffled me, I had no idea what he was going on about but I don’t know if that was intentional – was he showing how messed up and tricky to understand it all was or was I really supposed to come away with a deep knowledge of hedge funds?

This book absolutely blew me away, I was completely captured and could not put it down, much to the annoyance at times of my Dad who I think saw it as a rival to the many sightseeing tours he had planned for me.

The thing that potentially worries me though is that this book is so consumed with pop culture that it might not stand the test of time. If you read it now you will love it and you will understand and shake your head and laugh ruefully at all the bits which reflect modern society. If you threw it at someone in 50 years time would they do the same? I don’t know that they would. The brilliant thing about this novel is that it does make sense to you, you can relate to it. Even I picked up on a small thing that I thought was a little out of date – the young Muslim is contacted over the book’s version of MySpace – I thought this a little odd, we all know that MySpace died a death a long while ago. However at the end of the book there’s a small word of thanks from the author and it gives the dates between which he wrote it – when he started writing this book there was a small thing in its infancy. Facebook. It doesn’t get mentioned at all which I suspect is because Facebook wasn’t on his radar when he began writing this.

Or maybe I’m being picky.

I loved this book. And I mean, loved it.

Corduroy Mansions – Alexander McCall Smith

Oh how I rejoice that I took this book away with me. Perfect to read when you have long bouts of travel ahead of you. Especially long bouts of travel that mean you end up missing your train back to Hull and having to wait for an hour and a half in London Kings Cross train station, with little tears sliding down your face because you’re very tired and just want to get home before 11.30pm.

I love the McCall Smith. He writes books which are ridiculously easy to read. I’m a huge fan and can’t really say anything bad about him.

Just one small criticism though...

This book worked for me on many levels because it was easy to read, had funny little characters and tiny little chapters because it originated as a column in The Observer newspaper. But. It’s just kind of the same thing as 44 Scotland Street which was easy to read, had funny little characters and tiny little chapters because it originated as a column in The Scotsman...see where I’m going.

I mean it’s good but it’s basically the same thing set in England. It’s not even a little bit different.

It’s a good job I like him really.

-------------------

And now for the winner:

One Week in September – it just has to be, although it is very closely followed by Nocturnes.

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Edited to add: I'm a moron and thank goodness Mooncalf isn't because she managed to spot that I called Sebastian Faulks' book One Week in September, instead of A Week in December, despite having a picture of the freakin' book in front of me. Apologies, I had September on the brain. And I'm a moron.

Larkin with Toads - Part 2

To begin to explain why Larkin with Toads was so brilliant, you have to explain that it was brilliant because it was special to Hull. Yeah fine London had elephants and Chester had rhinos but we had toads for a specific reason – they were linked to Phillip Larkin and thus linked the Hull.

But it goes deeper than that.

The name of the exhibition? Larkin with Toads? It might not make sense to you but it made us laugh – up here ‘larking out’ means ‘playing out’ and if you’re from Hull you must drop the g at the end (which is why no-one ever believes I’m from Hull) and so, growing up you were asked if you were “larkin’ out”. See? We understand the double meaning behind the name of the exhibition and we’re an inclusive lot, Hull isn’t so good sometimes at opening its arms wide to the outside community and although this is frustrating at times, in this case, it was great. The exhibition became ours. We understood what it was all about.

Then there were all the designs. Many were submitted and only 40 were chosen, some of the designs were pretty, some were funny, some were quite frankly boring (yes Architoad, I’m looking at you here) but the best ones were the ones that represented something to do with us.

Architoad - yawn

Take Eastwest toad. You might think he’s just a strange black and red and white striped toad with a blue stripe running down his back but you’d be wrong. In Hull we have two rugby league teams (just call us awesome). We have Hull FC (black and white) and Hull KR (red and white). Which team you support is determined by which side of the river you grew up (Hull is divided East and West by the River Hull - see the level of detail you need to know here?!). So this toad isn’t just a stripy toad. He’s a toad that explains, in one simple toady movement, the rivalry and importance of rugby league in Hull. (In case you were wondering, I’m from the East so it’s Hull KR for me. Although technically it’s neither because I can’t be doing with rugby.)

Eastwest toad

And take Hull Poem toad. He might just look like a pale blue toad with some writing on it. But that writing is important. They’re all things that we say – he has the word “Tenfoot” on one of his back legs – that’s what we call the back alleyway between rows of houses (because it’s ten foot across. Geddit?). And he says “Patty in a breadcake” because Hull is the only place you can get patties from the fish and chip shop – and no don’t ask me to explain what it is or what goes in it, just come here and have one for yourself. And what’s that he says on his side? Only what I was talking about in a previous post – the importance of the Humber Bridge to us.

Hull Poem Toad

What about 10-5 toad? You might wonder what he’s doing in Morrison’s car park down Holderness Road. He’s there because that’s the sight of the old Hull KR ground and 10-5 was the score when Hull FC and Hull KR were both down in London for the Challenge Cup in 1980.

10-5 toad

And you must surely know that Tiger Toad is so special because Hull City FC are known as The Tigers?

Tiger Toad

You know teletoad? You have to look closely but his design is made up of white phone boxes stood end to end. Hull has white phone boxes you know because we have our own telecommunications system called Kingston Communications. No BT here (which is actually incredibly annoying but we’re talking about how proud we are of things so I’ll let it slide just this once). No red boxes here peoples.

Teletoad - see his eyes are telephone receivers!

I could go on. But I won’t. I sense you’re getting annoyed with me. But I hope I’ve done a little to show just how great this exhibition was. Not only in terms of bringing in interest and tourism to the city but also in going some way to instilling a bit of pride. This isn’t always necessary, we’re ridiculously proud of our city and will defend it to the death but this was an opportunity to showcase our pride in our background and heritage that didn’t involve kicking the shit out of someone because they’d slagged us off.

I guess I should really pick a favourite and many have asked me over the past couple of months. But I find it too hard.

I have a soft spot for Tequila Toad (known affectionately by me as Doley Toad because he’s outside the JobCentre) because he was the first toad I spotted, one sleepy morning on the way into work.

And I love Floral Toad because I would see him every day as I walked in and out of work.

Reflective Toad was just beautiful and the first time I saw him I felt a little taken aback – there beside the tremendous noise of Clive Sullivan Way was this beautiful little mosaic amphibian.

And Spacehopper you have to love because he’s...well...he’s got a freakin’ spacesuit on hasn’t he?!

What about Global Pop Toad who needs to be loved just because he’s the coolest most colourful toad alive?

And oh my goodness I shouldn't really miss out Magenta Toad who went through the trauma of being stolen, before being returned back to his rightful spot - seriously, what did they think they were going to do with him? "What? This giant pink toad? Yeah I've had it for ages mate."

Left to right from the top: Tequila Toad, Floral, Reflective Colours, Spacehopper, Global Pop Toad, Magenta Toad

See? I can’t play favourites with my toad babies. I love them all (apart from the rubbish ones and I would never say which those were because this is art and totally subjective).

But you know who I might love the most?

MY TOAD.

Which I purchased for the princely sum of £15 (and no I couldn’t really bloody afford it) and is my own plastic little number, waiting for me to paint him in whatever design I so choose. I just need to buy some acrylic paints (which will be the 12th of never seeing as I couldn’t afford to buy him in the first place) and let my creative juices flow. Don’t be expecting to see him any time soon, I’m so unlikely to be able to afford the paints that I’ve asked my Mum to get me them for Christmas – he’ll be ready in the new year!

I’m going to miss my toady pals now that they’re up and disappearing. I hear that some of them will be staying where they are, having been purchased by their sponsors, and I hope I’ll still be able to see some of them. And when I look at them I’ll be reminded that although this summer was a fairly painful one it was also one where I stood for what I believed in, no matter what other people thought, and sat resolutely (although hopefully somewhat more gracefully) like a toad, refusing to be budged.

All the toads can be seen on Flickr, you can gasp in amazement at my awesome toad photographing skills – but only if you want to.

Larkin with Toads - Part One

I have failed in my duties as Hull Ambassador. I should have told you all about this months ago, when I first planned to. I don’t know what happened though – I wanted it to be a good post but for some reason couldn’t find the words so I just kept putting it off and putting it off. And then I knew that I was going to have to do some serious photo mosaic-ing and it just never seemed to happen.

And now it’s too late really to share it all with you.

Do you remember my post about Roy Hattersley and about how we Hull people like to adopt those that have anything vaguely, remotely to do with our city? (Don’t get us started on Maureen Lipman baby.) We have another adopted famous person – one Phillip Larkin. No he isn’t originally from Hull but he worked here (at the University of Hull library) and lived here and that’s good enough for us.

This year is the 25th year since he died and there have been a host of commemorative events organised by Larkin25 which are taking place between 12th June and the 2nd December.

The largest part of this project has been the Toad trail – which saw 40 giant fibreglass toads placed all around Hull city centre and the wider area. They were inspired by two of Larkin’s poems Toads and Toads Revisited. 

The exhibition/installation/whatever arty word is appropriate has not been without its low points. Unfortunately there are times when Hull disappoints me and none more so when it comes to culture. It’s just not given a high enough premium in the city. People “don’t see the point” in having cultural exhibitions in the city, it’s seen as a waste of money. When the Toad project was first announced, it caused a storm of publicity for all the wrong reasons. Council money was earmarked for the project and when there was an outcry from culturally-deprived people that it was a waste of money, the Council didn’t have the guts to stick by its conviction and instead withdrew their funding. 
 
I hope they are hanging their heads in shame now.  



The Toad project was reduced in size, but went ahead anyway, with most of the toads being sponsored by local businesses and schools. And guess what? It’s been ridiculously popular. The Council missed out on a huge trick here – they could have raked in money in merchandise, but because they have no balls and are as short-sighted as some of the people they represent they have lost out big time.


And when the toads were first plonked down in their locations there was a massively irritating spate of toad vandalism in the first couple of weeks. Poor Kasey Toad had a big hole kicked in his side the first weekend he was out and someone pulled off Punkphibian’s mohican. I so desperately didn’t want that to be the story of the toads – Hull doesn’t get to have nice cultural things because there are morons who just want to spoil it – and fortunately it wasn’t. After the initial vandalism, things calmed down and we began to just view them as part and parcel of the furniture.

I became over-the-top ridiculously excited about this project. Having seen the Cow Parade in Manchester and Prague I was loving the idea of having toads all over the city and the first day that they arrived I rushed out to Tourist Information to get my toad map. Once it was in my sweaty little hands I made a declaration – I was going to photograph each and every one of these toads. By hook or by crook they would become mine.


I don’t really know quite why I took to it so wildly and somewhat worryingly. I think it was just that it coincided with a fairly crappy time in my life and this gave me something fun to focus on. It allowed me to spread my little independent wings – some of these toads were spread across the city and not having a car doesn’t make them easier to get. Had I still been with my boyfriend we would have gone in his car to get them – it was important to me that I get as many of these toads on my own as possible, this was a demonstration that I could do things on my own.


(That’s not to say that I didn’t have help – on the way to stay at Culture Friend’s house she took a small detour so I could capture Magenta Toad and also walked with me around the docks and marina on our Day of Culture and my Mum took me on a trip out to Beverley to see Tannery Toad.)


It was more that this was a project for me to get excited about. Oh it’s hard to explain. This is why this post is so delayed you see, I couldn’t find the words to tell you that I liked this project not just because it was amazing, but because it somehow became representative to me of my new life.


And now I sound like a twat.


Anyway. I should have told you about this much earlier and persuaded you to come to Hull and see them for yourself. But I didn’t and now it’s too late because they were auctioned off this weekend (my plan was to provide photos but I ended up not being able to go) and today they are being moved and taken to their new loving homes.



So I’m hoping that you’ll indulge me with a couple of posthumous toad posts today and tomorrow as I try (and try and try and try) to explain how important this exhibition was both to Hull and to me. 

The Honeymoon Suite

So for most of this week I was in Liverpool doing some training, along with my boss.


(That’s why the blog posts were kept up to date – I had free wireless internet to take advantage of so I downloaded as many podcasts as possible and uploaded as many photos on to Flickr as possible.)

I was a last minute addition to this training, having taken the place of someone-else, so I hadn’t been involved in the booking of the hotel at all and on the way down to Liverpool my boss was saying that he hoped everything was sorted because it had been a bit complicated booking things and getting things sorted out.

We arrived at the hotel, just a 5-10 minute walk from Liverpool Lime Street and went up to the desk. My boss gave the receptionist his name and said that there was a booking for 2 single rooms. She fiddled on her computer and asked us to wait a moment and went through to the back.

Not looking good.

A few minutes later another woman came out of the back with a huge smile on her face and said probably the funniest thing she could have said, given the context:

“Hi there. Because it’s your wedding anniversary what we’ve actually done is upgraded you free of charge to one of our honeymoon suites which has a lovely four poster bed...”

At this point I interrupt her.

“Erm....we’re here for training over the next couple of days. This is my boss.”

Cue silence from all parties.

“Well we have written down here that it’s your anniversary.”

“Well I don’t know what to tell you. Us? Definitely not married.”

Ten minutes later we were sorted out and had our own rooms but all week we have speculated how on earth they managed to cock up so spectacularly. How in the name of all that is holy do you go from a booking for two single rooms to putting them in a honeymoon suite?!

And what’s sad is that I imagine that in that hotel at some point over the past week there has been a couple somewhere who have missed out on their free upgrade.

(Even though I spent a few nights there I didn’t really get to see much of Liverpool, which is a shame because I’ve only ever been once and that was a good nine years ago. I did get to pop round the Metropolitan Cathedral, but that’s a story for another post. Instead my Liverpool experience consisted of the Liverpool Science Park and the train station. And that was not a happy experience yesterday because THIS meant that I didn’t get home until after 10.30pm last night. I know I should feel bad and sorry for the person involved, but instead I was just mightily pissed off. Couldn’t have done it at any other time apart from rush hour? Yes, I know I’m going to hell. I’ll save you a seat.)

The latest blanket

I had a brilliant idea a while back. I was jealous of the brightly coloured wool that one of The Stitchettes was using to make a blanket and I almost started salivating when I realised that big fat balls of it could be mine for the princely sum of £1.10 a ball from my local wool shop. I hadn’t made anything with cheapazoid wool, the two blankets I have made have been with my beautiful, beloved Baby Rico wool.

But I had a little spark in my head. And these don’t happen often. I don’t really have an artistic head you see, I’m not the ideas person. My brain just doesn’t work that way for some reason and although I’m engaging in fairly arty activities I find it incredibly difficult, if not nigh on impossible, to come up with a concept and an idea.

So I knew I had to grab hold of this idea with both hands. I would make a blanket for someone for Christmas. A friend in Manchester lives in a pretty cold and draughty flat and doesn’t have a lot of money for heating and has a few health problems – I would make her a blanket and it would be useful for her.

But it would be more than that.

It would be pretty.

I still haven’t got around to mastering the ripple, which is annoying me but is just a case of not having the time to sit and do something which might not be productive. But I didn’t want to do yet another boring granny square blanket. So my idea, having jealously looked and coveted people’s Babette blankets, was to do my own little version. I would do a little patchwork number. (See? Even this wasn't really my idea, just inspired by someone-else's - but this is the closest I'm going to come so I'm claiming it as my own.)

Great idea.

No.

Annoying idea.

Great, but annoying. A lot of time had to go into preparing and assembling this bad boy. I did think about doing squares with just two rounds in, like the Babettes, but I decided I was making life too complicated for myself so stuck to just doing squares with 8 rounds and 4 rounds.

I joined squares together in batches so as to minimize the horror of having to join together a million billion of the buggers and this made life a lot more bearable. I decided I would join the squares together with contrasting bright red wool to make a kind of a feature of the process.

It soon took on a life of its own, as crochet blankets seem to do, and it even made a special journey over to France with me (I crammed and crammed that wool in my suitcase) where I continued my progress and gave it to Jess the dog to model for me.

It’s even come to Liverpool with me and is now on its final stages. I’ve decided to stop with the patchwork and build it up from now on with a border in all the different colours of wool. It won’t be a massive blanket at all, it’s just about the width of a single bed at the moment, but she’s only a wee person and it’ll be big enough to go over her lap or round her shoulders.

I’m more than a little bit proud of it.

And I’ll be even prouder when it’s finished and the realisation that I’ve officially started on my Christmas present list sinks in.

Observations en France

1. Cantoin, the village the house is in is very high up. High in the sky up the side of a valley. Do you know what this means?

High above sea level x amazing views / plummeting temperatures in the evening = nice photos but freezing your ass off in bed.

Note to self: Take more jumpers and bed socks. (And don’t even think about going during the winter.)

2. French country roads are a little mental. No places at the side for passing and French motorists don’t really enjoy sharing the road and do enjoy travelling down it at 100mph.

Note to self: Take tranquilisers when travelling. (And don’t think about going by yourself until you can remember how to drive in your own country. Which may be some time.)

3. They like their cows. Apparently it’s all about the cows in this region. Aubrac cows if we want to get specific. There are fields and fields and fields of them. I did spot a black and white one which is a cow I’m a familiar with, but for the most part they are brown cows. Very few sheep were spotted. The obsession with cows extends beyond just keeping them however, there are statues all over the place.

Note to self: Next time go on a proper cow hunt to try and get some really good cow pictures. Cows might be becoming one of my favourite animals – they just look amazingly stupid. (Sorry cows but you do.)

From left to right: Little metal cow on the roadside in Vitrac, big steel bull in Laguiole town centre, metal bull in Laguiole.

4. Nobody speaks English. Which is fine, this isn’t some crazy rant about people in France not speaking English, it’s a note to those of you who think you’ll be ok with a GCSE you got 9 years ago. This will not be enough as I soon found out. Faced with a French person talking at me in full throttle, any French I might have known flew out of head, closely followed by my command of the English language. I would instead wildly look around for my Dad and his wife who can both speak French. My main problem seems to be that I know lots of French words, I just have absolutely no idea of how to string them together in a sentence anymore. I did discover however that I can do ok reading French, I can figure out pretty much what the words mean.

Note to self: Buy French phrasebooks, download guides, do anything to try and kickstart your French skills, they must be in there somewhere, you got an A for god’s sake. (Or. Make sure you go with someone who can definitely speak French.)

5. There is a little known French law which stipulates that you have to have window box with red flowers in it to be considered truly French. They were freakin’ everywhere.

Note to self: Make sure Dad conforms to this rule immediately. Also. Don’t go mental taking photos of flowers, people will see you and think you have mental problems.

6. Weightwatchers and France are not compatible. I didn’t even try, it’s not called a holiday for nothing. I would let you know the grand gain but I conveniently can’t go to my weigh-in this week either so I have a week to make amends!

Note to self: Go mental and take the opportunity to eat as much bread as possible. And beef bourguignon. Revel in the fact that you can’t drink wine and don’t really like cheese otherwise the result could have been a lot worse.

7. They have possibly the best invention ever. A milk vending machine. Outside a supermarket. For reals. Just whack in 20c for a bottle and then for 1 Euro you can have a big juicy bottle of milk. No need to trek all the way round the supermarket if all you want is a bit of cow juice.

Note to self: Start petitioning Tesco.

I have indeed set up a Flickr account for my other photos so if you're desperate to see a lot more photos of France then head over here. In particular look out for Happy Tractor, he's one of my favourites. And you can get a  sneaky little glimpse of my latest crochet blanket project - a little patchwork number!