A recipe for your ideal holiday:

Isabelle, French teacher with Alliance Française de Bristol, taught a Summer French intensive course and among other topics, talked about holidays. She and the students ( good intermediate level) had the brilliant idea of writing about holidays in the form of a recipe with verbs used for recipes. You won't be surprised to learn that Isabelle, as well as being a French teacher is also a chef.

So, below is a recipe for your ideal holiday:

Recette pour les vacances idéales

Choisissez  l’âme sœur.
Allumez le soleil.
Etendez une tranche de plage.
Ajoutez un bateau rouge avec des voiles blanches.
Prenez des lunettes de soleil , mettez un chapeau flottant sur la tête et faites frémir sous le soleil.
Réservez du fromage et du pain pour déguster avec du vin.
Verser du vin au verre, épluchez des fruits et couper du fromage.
Saupoudrez votre compagnon avec des embruns pétillant.    
                

 
Jetez tous vos problèmes dans les vagues. 
Prenez le zeste de la vie and servez avec une grande cuillérée de joie.

Very clever!

You can see Isabelle on the videos of the step by step recipes of le fraisier that she prepared in one of the French cookery workshops with Rebecca. You can see them on Youtube. For more info...

How to make un fraisier: step by step videos

With this wonderful weather and plenty of strawberries around, find below a link to Alliance Française de Bristol et Bath Youtube where you'll find several videos taking you through the recipe of un fraisier.

As the word indicates un fraisier is made with strawberries ( des fraises) and a filling of mascarpone, cream ( de la crème), basilic leaves ( des feuilles de basilic) and icing sugar ( et du sucre glace).
Rebecca who has been taking French lessons with us in Bristol for a while now, went to our last French cookery workshop of this academic year and was happy to be filmed. Thank you Rebecca and also thank you to Isabelle, French chef and teacher who demonstrated for us.
You will  find the  written recipe, in French, on the post of 16th June.

http://www.youtube.com/user/afbristol1

If you wish to join a French course, go to our website. For more info...

Do you know about the game of quilles ( skittles)?

The old game of skittles ( le jeu de quilles) is still played on the square of small villages in France. The nine skittles are placed in the centre of the square rather than at the end of an alley.

There are some variations in the shape of the skittles and the rules but the game goes back centuries and was played in villages all over France, rules appeared in the 19th century and La Fédération des sports de quilles was created in 1957.
There are quite a few expressions with the word quille:
Arriver comme un chien dans un jeu de quilles: to arrive unannounced and not very welcomed
Prendre son sac et ses quilles: to leave very quickly
Jouer des quilles: to run away as quilles mean jambes (legs) in slang
C'est la quille: means the end of the military service which, of course, does not exist any more but the expression is also used for people coming out of prison.
Some of the French teachers of Alliance Française de Bristol had a game of skittles at the end of June, not in France but in England so it was an English version  of the game. All the same, it was great fun!

If you wish to learn about French traditions as well as the French language, go to the Alliance Française de Bristol et Bath website. For more info...

Connaissez-vous Aragon?

Aragon is a French poet of 20th century. A lot of his poems have been put into songs.

"Que serais-je sans toi qui vins à ma rencontre 
Que serais-je sans toi qu'un coeur au bois dormant 
Que cette heure arrêtée au cadran de la montre 
Que serais-je sans toi que ce balbutiement?"

What would I be without you who came to meet me
What would I be but a heart in the sleeping woods
But this still hour on a watch's face
What would I be without you but this unfinished word

The repetitions in his poems give them a rhythm perfect for music. Countless French artists have used them. Here are a few:
Il n'y a pas d'amour heureux- Georges Brassens

Que serais-je sans toi? - Jean Ferrat

If you would like to discover more poems by Aragon please follow this link: 

http://www.poetica.fr/categories/louis-aragon/