Love Song for France

(Inspired by Leonard’s Cohen’s eponymous prose piece)

Why I Love France

The heat in the morning, the click of rigging and the rustle of  

of sailing boats setting out for Africa: a long old journey

The wash of the tide against the staithes

Spreading out the seaweed yet again. And again

Francine and Joe waiting in the shadows to walk into my story

Pere Goriot walking arm in arm with Jean Valjean

Alongside Jean Sablon and Simone de Beauvoir.

The padding of my sandalled feet matched by the click of jackboots

And the hollow calls of Jean Moulin

Church celebrating the sea breathes smoke and scent

Seagulls, cormorants; a man counting untypical ducks,

their ducklings ticking along behind.

Boys - a whole day to play with -  swoop into the sea on a tripwire.

Pink sunset catching the tall buildings in relief

Rose red moon rises yet again over…

Moliere, Robespierre, Desmoulins, Beaudelaire, Maupassant

Inspiring revolutionaries and English poets.

Then there is Paris, dusty elegance in straight lines

Bateaux mouches cruise the slumberous Seine  

Markets like still-lives illustrating a world of plenty

Men in overalls drink cognac with their morning coffee,

Music and chatter leak out of riverside cafes and

songs gargled with laughter spill across the cobbles

towards paintings lined up against the stone walls of a church

A woman in a black dress pocked with fragrant lavender seeds

tips her ear to the voices of Americans who

have danced in this favoured city.

France is world of veils and shadows, pregnant with story.

Afternote: Francine and Joe walked into my novel Writing at the Maison Bleue. W

See sidebar 

Also see sidebar for An Englishwoman in France

Postcard 1 from Marseillan. Arrivé

A dark challenging winter meant that  for me this  holiday has been the most welcome ever.

As the plane landed in Montpellier I knew I could finally breathe out.  S. drove us through the  yellow and ochre landscape of South West  France, wiping out the memory of the lush green lanes of Yorkshire as we drove from County Durham to the airport.

Well, we got here. Nous arrivons. My dear sister was worried that we might be caught up in the ‘football riots.’ No worries. Wrong place.

Of course - three of four of us being football fans - we settled down to watch some matches on TV – no talking heads, just football, a accompanied by the soothing sub-murmur of the French commentary. Even I enjoyed it.

This apartment overlooks the Etang de Thau, the huge lagoon that sits alongside the Mediterranean. People drift by on the road below our balcony  – sun-tanned sailing types, couples hand in hand, smooth haired teenagers, mature cyclists, a small boy on skates and a little girl on a tiny scooter.

At the next table in the market café yesterday was a cluster of brown whipcord-fit middle aged cyclists, laughing and preparing for their ride. Couples pass by – the men middle-aged, solid and fit, the women smart in pedal pushers and leather sandals.

Our favourite companion here is Barney, silent in the flush of conversation, wise in his silence. His  French is improving, although he hasn't managed to lose his aversion to French bulldogs. He can sense them round the corner, one floor down, before they bustle into sight.

The apartment is elegant, pale walls, pale furniture,  natural wood,  with vast windows looking out in the étang, overcast now with streaming clouds. Yachts of all sizes turn to make their way into the harbour. 

The company is first class - as well as Barney we have the witty gourmet  lickedspoon, the problem- solving techno wizard and the English gentleman. And me. All Francophiles.

I never felt more European. And I voted to stay in, to live on in history alongside the engaging, down-to-earth French

Au revoir

Wendy

PS And then there are the books we're reading, But that will take another postcard...

Postcard 3 from Marseillan. Treats in store!

As a non-cook and non-foodie co-traveller I hope I have something to offer here in terms of conversations and observations  at the holiday house where both the lovely D and S, are food aficionados  in this territory where food is harvested fresh and enticing from the sea and the land in an astonishing and inspiring variety.

The thing is, although I don’t cook myself, I’m interested in talking more generally about the history and cultural importance of food and cooking,  and the whys and wherefores of its significance here in the South West. This is a wonderful extra to the exploring, reading, drawing and painting that is at the core of this stay.

So it’s a special pleasure to sit at the balcony table among the palms and pines of thie house in Marseillan where I’m lucky to enjoy good food in great company every evening.

As a writer I relish generous feedback on my work from people who would rather not put pen to paper themselves. As I said, I don’t cook myself, but here in this special house in Marseillan I’m keen to  give proper and appreciative feedback to the lovely D and S, who apparently effortlessly produce food to be dreamed of from the cornucopia which is the Languedoc.  

There is a heritage of cooking here. D. picked up a book at the Marseillan Plage brocante called ‘Chez Constant’.by the chef Christian Constant.  This is a cornucopia of recipes from here in the South West.

On tonight's menu is Jansen's Temptations. Surprisingly, this originates not in the Languedoc but it Sweden. It involves Onions, Anchovies,  Potatoes, and Creme Fraiche, Apparently you bake until soft, add breadcrumbs and bake on until it is crisp, I'm here while it is baking, It smells wonderful.

Treats in store!Wish you were hereWx
Later. It tasted absolutely delicious,

Lille and the Best of Travel Writing

All this last week, right up to Friday's Book launch I have been thinking and talking about France. 

So, loving France as I do, I was moved by this wonderful piece about Lille by the immaculate Laurence Phillips. This piece on the Brandt Guide Website is  a wonderful example of the literary art of travel writing. The evocative sensual writing, the sense of place and the evocation of atmosphere all make me want to dash to Lille and dance the night away.

Read this about the square where they dance: 

From the place du Théâtre I stepped up and through the entrance to the Vieille Bourse, Lille’s timeless Rialto for bibliophiles and chess players, where usually the most physical effort comes from the holding to the light of the slightly foxed uncut pages of a 19th-century novella, or the flourished taking of a queen’s bishop by a cannily primed pawn. 

But it’s not just places that Laurence Phillips shares with us. He observes people with a kindly,  perceptive eye.

I loved his allusions to the dancers:

• a great bearded bear of a working man in a heavy, plaid woodsman’s shirt..
• a well-upholstered Juno clasped a tiny lad to her embonpoint
• a bright tailor’s eyes peered expertly through wire-rimmed spectacles
•    as a veteran of the dance floor continued nimbly to foot it across the courtyard, his younger companion knees bent, raised, swept and strutted in coy assertion of confident complicity in this ritual courtship.

This is the best of travel writing, where the reader is treated as a traveller rather than a tourist; it makes one eager to share, to taste, to re-explore a place and its people.

Find Laurence HERE

'Playwright, lyricist, award-winning author and children's poet, Laurence Phillips combines a passion for the stage with an infectious wanderlust. Laurence has been escaping to France since boyhood and has written many and varied books about the country. He has been described by the French press as a charming bon vivant and by British critics as a witty and entertaining enthusiast.'

Fiction and the Armchair Traveller

 (NB This article was first published in the Northern Echo on Saturday 25th April.)

 ‘Just right for the armchair traveller,’ an agent told me, having  read my new novel, Writing at the Maison Bleue.

I never went on holiday as a child living in a small house on a short street in a little South Durham town. That is, apart from a bus-ride to stay overnight with a relative, or a day train trip to local beauty spots Crimdon Dene, Seaton Carew or Whitley Bay.

But even then, in my head, I had journeyed to many exotic places. This was because my mother Barbara was a dedicated reader of books from the library located in a double fronted house at the end of our short street.

So, week by week, our small house was littered with books evoking faraway places like Zanzibar, Peru, South Africa, Borneo, Delhi, Hong Cong, and San Francisco. And that other faraway place: London.

It’s true that at that time these novels reflected an unreconstructed British Empire view of the world, but still they brightened my mother’s world, taking her away from her life as a single parent bringing up four children on low factory wages.

And from the age of eight - as a rather forward child - I was keeping up with her, travelling with her to these faraway places.   So from that small house in the short street in the small town in South Durham I had a an intriguingly wide  view of a world not limited by place, class or time.

This was how I began my career as an armchair traveller and, coincidentally, a writer and novelist.

The novels I read –as good novels do – made these strange places familiar. Without crossing the

threshold of my small house I could walk the mean streets of San Francisco, queue up for my entry to the Coliseum in Rome through the gladiator’s gate, ride through the Rocky Mountains, climb the Eiffel Tower and ride a rickshaw in Shanghai.

In time, when I grew up,  I got to visit such places and check the truth behind the fiction. I was never disappointed. Although there was much new stuff to discover I was pleased I hadn't come to them as a stranger.

I don’t think I am alone in my experience. Many people nowadays live a busy, hurried intense lives and they look forward to holidays which are much more common now than they were in my childhood. Certain people  warm their winters by collecting books to read by the pool or in the garden chair. Or they will read them during the winter so that they don’t arrive at their destination as a stranger.

This was the way, amongst many other fiction writers, I got to ‘know’ Henry James’ Florence, James Joyce’s Dublin, Nadine Gordimer’s South Africa, and Chinue Achebe’s Nigeria. And more recently, Kate Mosse and Sebastian Faulks’s France and Louis de Berniere’s Cephalonia and Solzhenitsyn’s Russia.

There is a difference, of course, between reading as an armchair traveller and reading while abroad. These days when I pack my bag to travel abroad in the flesh I choose novels to read at leisure by the French harbour and alongside of the French canal. The leisure time is enticing. Unlike the armchair fiction which I have read through the cold English winters the novels I take can be anything, from recent national and international prize-winners, to new novels by friends, or recommended by them.

 I am known to compete with my lovely son-in-law as to how many books we can get through in three weeks. He usually wins.

Packing your books can add (often welcome) weight to your luggage. But the advent of reading on Kindle and other eBooks has allowed some readers to ‘load up’ their machine with a dozen or so books and lighten their literary luggage. My practice is to combine the two methods. I must say I like the rustle of pages as I flick through them in the sunshine.

The odd thing for me nowadays is that   novels that other people read during the cold winters, or take for their summer’s travelling  in paperback  or  on their Kindle  - these could be books written by me! 

This is especially so because two recent titles are set in the deep South West of France. 

My newest title, Writing at the Maison Bleue, is set in a fascinating house by the Canal du Midi.

 I know this part of France well, having travelled their consistently through the last ten years. Of course underpinning this physical experience has been my lifelong obsession with reading fiction (and fact!) about France.

This made me a Francophile even before I landed. It was a familiar place to me even when I first arrived. So it’s rather nice  that one early reviewer said the novel was ‘a must for Francophiles.'

All this  might seem a long way for that little girl in a small house on a short street in a little South Durham town. But it’s not that far really. Only as far as the library.

Writing at the Maison Bleue is available at libraries
 and in print and Kindle form HERE   

The official launch is on Friday 1st May (7.30 – 9.30)  The Lafkaido Hearn Culture Centre at the University of Japan Mill Lane Durham City County Durham DH1 3YB  (Opposite the Oriental Museum)  Parking Available

The novel is available from libraries

and in print and on Kindle from amazon.co.uk

What books will you take on holiday?  

Make me a list of three books and a sentence saying why you will take them.

I will  feature the three most interesting lists here on the blog

and  I will send these readers a free PDF copy

 of ‘Writing at the Maison Bleue.'

Send them to Wendy at wenrob73@hotmail.com

Channelling Francine: A Celebration for writing and Writers

Channelling Francine: A Celebration of Writing and Writers.

For most of the time of its writing my  new novel Writing at the Maison Bleue was called Francine, after a character of that name . 

The story is about a group of very different writers, men and women, young and old…

‘…But at the heart of this disparate group is Francine, a gentle, intelligent woman, who grew up in occupied France during WW2. She is frail but has never lost the power and truth of her writing and she has one last story to 'tell'. A truly fascinating read. Don't miss it…’ Amazon Review.

Francine – Writing at the Maison Bleue -  is now available on Kindle. My friends Gillian and Avril and I celebrated this momentous event on Tuesday (my birthday!) with a sparkling afternoon tea at Whitworth Hall,  an old RoomToWrite stamping ground.

So, channelling the elegant Francine, I decided to wear a hat.

As you see…

Aspect of my Writing Process Newsletter

I am very excited about my new Newsletter to be called 

'LOVING ASPECTS OF THE WRITING PROCESS'  Dear writerly and readerly friends and followers. Here below  for you is a sample of the first Newsletter. I need permission from you to put you on my regular circulationlist  If you would like to be included in my circulation list could you possibly  email me at wenrob73@hotmail.com so I can include you? Best Wendy It will be all about ... aspirations, ideas, methods and processes that have kept me loving my writing ... View this email in your browser Every day produces something new: a new idea, a new approach to writing, to reading, to researching and reviewing. One day we are inspired by someone who turns present day despair about publishing into the personal adventure of independent publishing. Another day we meet  a new contact who urges us to try a new thing ...

Hello  to You Welcome to my brand new Newsletter. Thank you for signing up. Here on My Writing Process  I hope to share with you the inspirations, aspirations, ideas, methods and processes that have kept me loving my writing process and enjoying some success with people out there who love it too for the last twenty years.  I want this to work for you too. Every day some new writing. So easy to sit down at the keyboards or with notebook in hand. Still, I find writing  anything but routine.  I am truly astonished at articles and blog posts that say what a dreadful toil the writing process. Every day, with writing at the core of my life, I discover things about myself I never knew before. I would argue with the rather widespread notion of writing as therapy, but I have no doubt that writing every day has a therapeutic effect. Every day produces something new: a new idea, a new approach to writing, to reading, to researching and reviewing. One day we are inspired by someone who turns present day despair about publishing into the personal adventure of independent publishing. Another day we meet  a new contact who urges us to try a new thing- this Newsletter for instance. Another day we read an article that takes away the mystique of something that has seemed difficult. For me last week it was learning how to free-hand design the cover for my new novel Writing at the Maison Bleue.. It is happening all the time. This  week I was excited when a writer friend discovered an image on the Internet that will change the whole direction of her novel. No wonder after all this time I still continue to love my writing processes and I hope that this newsletter will inspire you to love yours. It is entirely about the process – not some distant dream of publication, fame or fortune. Just love your writing and your life will be truly enhanced. Designing the cover of my new novel was a very new experience. Refreshing.

France - particularly the Languedoc - is a great inspiration for me. A strange place displaces a writer and  fires the imagination. France - particularly the Languedoc - is a great inspiration for me. A strange place displaces a writer and  fires the imagination.

Copyright © 2015 Wendy Robertson Author, All rights reserved. Your are receiving this email because you opted in from my blog or my Twitter. (Thank you) Our mailing address is: Wendy Robertson Author Springwell Villa Park Street Bishop Auckland, Durham DL14 0 United Kingdom Add us to your address book unsubscribe from this list    update subscription preferences

P/C from Marseillan: On Your Bicyclette & W.I.P

A family of bicycles.

Postcard from Marseillan. 

I am noticing so many people here who ride  bicycles - workers and holiday makers, boys, girls, men and women of all ages.

Whatever their age they are brown and fit and a very good advertisement for their vehicle of choice. I regret now that I can't ride a bicycle. (I can't swim, either. Put both facts down to the restricted childhood.)

But here in this sunshine on this flat coastal plain I wish I could do both. This bike riding looks free and healthy and wonderfully innocent in a way.

t

So I have been thinking quite a lot about bicycles - and this brings me to my Work in Progress. 

Francine's window at 

the Maison Bleu

While I'm staying here in this place next to Heaven  I am editing the completed manuscript of  'At the Maison Bleu'

This is a novel about a group of very different writers who meet (not far from here) at the Maison Bleu, on the banks of the Canal du Midi.

Central to the novel is Francine, now a venerable and successful novelist. And here  she is remembering her wartime experience in South West France. She thinks about how her teacher helped her to flee perhaps to safety.

And here, historically, the bicycle is significant. Francine aged fourteen - like other teenagers - has worked as a courier for a local Resistance group and is now in danger.

Extract from 'At The Maison Bleu'

 '...At the refuge I choose a small case from my mother’s collection and in it pack my schoolbooks, two suits that I cut down from my mother’s, the shoes with rubber  tyre soles that Auguste made for me, my red scarf, the little black and white photograph me and my mother at the door of this house in the Rue de la Ville. And a photograph of me on my bicycle, taken by Auguste. And the little package with my mother’s cherry red dress. On top of them I put a cardboard folder with my butcher’s paper stories on them. And there are more empty sheets where I will write of my life out there in the country. I will hold in my head the images of Auguste’s harmless kisses and loving touches behind the scenes at the Blue House.  And the dangerous things that went on there.

I wedge the suitcase on my bicycle and walk it down to the harbour. Madame Griche is there outside the laundress’s door, now closed and locked. She has her heavy bicycle with her, which sports baskets back and front, not so uncommon these days.

Neither his mother nor Auguste are there. I will not be able to kiss him goodbye.

Madame smiles slightly when she sees me. Then she makes me empty my case and share the contents between her baskets and mine. ‘No point in letting people into our secret, Francine!’ she says, wrapping the books and paper in an oiled kitchen cloth and putting them at the bottom of her back basket. We throw the case itself into the broad river where it bubbles and sinks like a body.

Then, side by side on our bicycles, we make our way out of the town, keeping to the narrow lanes away from the coastal paths where the soldiers lurk. They are so afraid of the sea and just who or what might emerge from its pulsing waters. Already there have been secret American landings here.

‘The sea is our friend,’ says Madame Griche. ‘Now we know that the Americans are firm for the end-game alongside the poor old English and they may turn up anywhere. And the Boches know this.’

 As we ride along she explains to me that in the beginning everyone thought the Boches would march straight into England, just as they'd marched straight through France, so why should we have any faith in the English?

She goes on: ‘Love them or hate them, though, the English are dogged. They hang on, Francine!. Those English do hang on!'

 ...

A sturdy working bicycle in Marseillan,