The Lone Wonga

Today was my "Wonga" Day- but I spent it alone- I did not expect anyone to turn up really so shortly before Christmas , but I shall be having another one Sunday 11 January- you can join me in the flesh, by visiting my house or via blogland. I must admit to being glad in the end that no one turned up, though what I thought would be a dreary day ended up being quite enjoyable. As my other two kids spend this weekend with their father I am home alone( not something that has happened often when I have been home- but is often true when I travel)

I decided early on that I would do all things french today- music movies, food and that I would work on a small piece in tear drop shapes. The reason for chosing a shape to work with was inspired by Jude Hill from Spirit Cloth and her post about working with dots or circles. I have to admit being inordinately fond of dots or circles myself and was very tempted to work with dots also but then a thought struck me, if I am going at this with full intent why not try and work away some of my tears and grief of the last two years before the new year, so that I can start fresh. So with that in mind I decided to use the tear drop shape- of course anything to do with the subject of mother/ daughter has to have a pomegranate in it and the little face was one I drew the day after my daughter left home all that time ago. I was expecting this to be a tearful exercise but instead find myself strangely calm and even hopeful- as if the physical act of actually acknowledging what is gnawing away at me is releasing some of the negative energy.

In the all things French category I watched Amelie, what a delightful movie that is, and then Les Choristes ( if you have a penchant for choir music this is a wonderful uplifiting story of a teacher who shares his music with boys in a boys home/school for misfits and creates a choir) and then Manon des Sources the story of Jean De Florette's daughters' revenge for the death of her father- and what revenge it is , and then the final bitter twist at the end. Magnifique! Lunch was a french salad with home made french dressing ( I hate hate hate bottled dressings , and must admit to being really annoyed when a restaurant or cafe serves bottled dressing- it's so easy to make a good dressing and changes the salad) and feta ( I know not quite french but...) and lardons( well not quite as you can't get the nice bacon you get in France, here) .Oh and for the music I have been listening to Renan Luce- I like that I can understand a lot of the words. The link I have given is to a Youtube video of Les Voisines and if you are a Hitchcock fan you will enjoy this take on a Jimmy Stewart classic!

And last but not least , I found this little Japanese prayer book amongst my stuff the other day- it dates from the edo era I believe and is a Bhuddist prayer book- the pages are all hand written ( and they made many of these prayer books) with little red dots here and there marked by the monk who had the book obviously providing accent to important passages and all written on rice paper and hand bound- it's a little treasure in it's own right but what I particularly like about this prayer book is that it has holes in the pages created by some insect /worm many years ago ( I found some casings amongst the pages when I bought it). Anyway the thing that rather appeals to me, is that a prayer book should have holy pages!