1.136 litres of milk please

If you go into a shop in the UK to buy milk you will notice that the capacity of the plastic bottles is slightly unusual in that it is 1.136 or 2.272 litres.

To the English the size of the cartons are the same as they have always been. In fact that’s a clue as to what’s happening.

If you can find a conversion chart for SI to Imperial measures you will find that 1.136 litres is 2 pints. As you may know, imperial measures are still used in UK although much more than the government (and the EU) may like.

Most English people (including me) were taught SI measurement (mm, cm, m, km etc) at school and yet there is the most enormous resistance to change to use them domestically.

A couple of years ago the government changed the law to make it compulsory to price things using metric (SI) measures when they are sold. However, rather than change to using SI measures, the retail industry just converted our pints into an equivalent number of litres. Change yet no change!

In fact if you look on the milk carton, you will still find the capacity in pints – just in a slightly smaller typeface.

Petrol is also priced and dispensed by the litre in UK. However, always remember when you are in the UK, every speed limit is in Miles per hour (not Kilometres) – no exceptions!

Drive safely.

Dave

I have seen the photo of Dave's garden and I hope that there is no water inside his house, in France some people have been flooded and it's a disaster for them (but not in our area) because they have lost many furniture or personnal things.
Is there many material damages in Solihull area ?

In France today it's not raining but it's a very bad weather for the season.
On Thursday evening, we went to music fête in Cholet. We were sitting at a café pavement to listen a group and we were cold.

Is there music fête in England ?

I think of all english people who welcomed us and I want to thank them again

Best regards from Mortagne
Christiane

Heavy rainfall in Solihull

Last Thursday, the midlands experienced very heavy rainfall. In fact we had about a month’s rain in one evening.

On Friday morning I woke up to find that my garden has changed somewhat.

Still at least I managed to find the hedgehogs and make sure that they were safe.

Dave

Everything is back to noraml

Sorry if you've been trying to get on the blog we've been having a few technical problems alls well that ends well. All sorted out now anyway.

So I've heard that Dave has a great photo to show us. Watch this space ......

Bye for now

Juliet

Any Photos of the Brits?

Anyone got any photos that can be put on the blog? You can send them to me by email or give it a go if you're feeling brave!!

Juliet

Message from Lindsey

Hi everyone!

Gosh - it is difficult to know where to begin to thank you all so very much for making our stay with you so fantastic. We could not have asked for a warmer welcome and such an interesting - and tasty! - trip.
For my part it was really lovely to catch up with old friends and have the opportunity for a 'proper chat' - and I was thrilled when you all said how much 'my students' had improved with their French from last year - wonderful to hear with my teacher's cap on!!!!!!!!! I think Andree and her crew should be running the country - I think I will drop Sarkozy a line next week to that effect!

We had a great drive back - stopping off in Lisieux overnight (thanks to Nathalie having arranged the overnight stop for me). We had a few minor problems finding the hotel, but Derek was on the case and my did his French flow. I made them all book in at the hotel in French and then do all the talking in the restaurant - no English was allowed! Not sure that they will be speaking to me at our lesson next Thursday.
We stopped off in Old Town Boulogne (I know it quite well from all my weekend trips) - and I even got a suntan from sitting outside having lunch - bit odd considering I was still wearing boots and socks though!! The journey home in England was not too bad at all once we had cleared London. In fact the M40 motorway home was virtually empty which is a first as far as I am concerned. I finally arrived home just before 10 pm. A long drive - but who cares after such a fabulous holiday in France! Merci mes amis!

Well I will sign off now and wish you all a super summer. We all greatly look forward to seeing you all here in England again next year (or sooner)!
Big hug from us all

Lindsey xx

Some news about our day not far from Doué la Fontaine

Last Thursday, we were very exited about meeting English people from Solihull.

First, we visited a park called "Chemins de la rose". It was a wonderful park with many kind of roses which we could admire and smell. There were old and modern roses. The varieties of roses(about 1300) were really amazing. Then, after this little walk, we went straight to a wine cellar. There, we tasted different wines.

Afterwards, we had lunch in an underground restaurant "les cathédrales de la Saulaie" (an ancient stone quarry). Everybody tasted the speciality : "les fouaces". Here is the menu :

a glass of local wine

Fouace with mushrooms

Fouace with rillette

Fouace with fresh butter

piece of duck, ham and black pudding with white beans

goat cheese with salad

dessert : choux à la crème

red wine

Later in the afternoon, we visited the "cathédrales souterraines, site des Perrières". There are a lot of ancient stone quarry which made us very impressive and we were also impressed by the high of the rooms (about 20 m)

However close we live from "Doué la Fontaine", it was the first time we visited this park, this wine cellar and this underground world. That's why we thank English people for this wondreful day. It will stay in our mind forever!

Moreover, it was a great occasion to improve our English and for English people, improve their French!

However rainy the weather was, we did spend a beautiful day!

On our way back, we stopped at Françoise's who welcomed us very well. She and her husband sang a popular song from Georges Brassens : "Un petit coin de paradis contre un petit coin de parapluie" Congratulations for this little show!

In the evening, at the IML, we had a lovely time with the play producted by Juliet and Cie. Well done for the teacher and actors students. They surely spent a lot of time to prepare this show.

Thanks a lot to Lindsey who planned this trip.

Odile and Dominique

Some explanation

Fouace : bread which is cooked over a wood fire in an oven.

cathédrales : underground cathedrals were built many years ago with falun and used as a refuge during the religions wars and world wars : (14 - 18; 39 - 45)

Falun is a king of rock (conchiferous rock) extracted from the subsoll and used to build houses.

Layon : a sweet wine. There is a concentration of sugar that make a naturally sweet wine.

Saumur wine : Wines produced on the local tuffeau (limestone) develop like wines in France's Champagne region. 15 millions bottles of bubbly are exported world wide every year.