All posts by Isabella Morgan

Oh La La Land: French at Kings Weston House

February 6, 2017 Isabella Morgan Leave a comment

Oh La La Land: French at Kings Weston House

A little pick me up session for those wanting to speak French in or around the Bristol area

Image result for french flag clip art

You’ve contemplated brushing up your rusty French. Again. But you’ve changed your mind at the last minute. You missed out on the September start. Then January came. And went. Perhaps you could try again after Easter. You know you want to do it. So what’s stopping you? Fear of failure? Dry lessons in cold classrooms? Turning up on your own? Committing to a series of lessons only to find out you don’t enjoy them?

Well, the highly experienced teachers at Oh la la French might have exactly what you’ve been looking for. Four extremely accomplished professionals, Sylvia Aldous, Marie-Christine Page, Malorie Newbold and Isabella Morgan have put their creative heads together to offer people who want to speak French a more immersive experience than the average French lesson. Made up of interactive activities, games, treasure hunts, singing and more, they’ve come up with a language package that is useful, engaging, active and fun.

An exciting introductory 90 minute session, scheduled for Monday March 13^th at 10.30am, will give you a lipsmackingly juicy taste of how you’ll be learning when you sign up for their five week course. You’ll be working in small groups, provided with language support, pronunciation advice, supported through every section of the morning so that by the end of the session you’ll have made new friends and your confidence will be on the ceiling. Which is very high. Which brings me to the venue. Which makes me realise that the Oh la la teachers truly have thought of everything.

Image result for kings weston house

Kings Weston House is a special venue and its lovely paintings and grand rooms will be integral to your language learning experience. No looking out through metal framed windows in grey classrooms for you. Rather the whole process is to be stimulating, an assault on the senses to excite the mind so that you are receptive to learning. That’s why the Oh la la team have chosen such beautiful surroundings for their new language learning venture. The very impressive Kings Weston House, designed by Vanbrugh, with exquisite interiors to delight and inspire enthusiastic language learners offers a unique language learning experience that will provide those fortunate enough to secure a place (numbers are limited to 30) bragging potential for years to come.

Image result for kings weston house

This event promises to be very special. The venue is a real gem as are the teachers. And even on the rainiest of days it would be worth getting over to Kings Weston House to find that crock of French gold at the end of the rainbow…and you could even stay on for lunch.

the taster session is on Monday 13th March, 10.30 – 12, at Kings Weston House, Kings Weston Ln, Bristol BS11 0UR

e-mail ohlalafunwithfrench@gmail.com to reserve your place as soon as possible as well as for all enquiries

fun filled February

Watching the telly and thinking about your holidays

January 24, 2017 Isabella Morgan Leave a comment

Watching the telly and thinking about your holidays

That’s entertainment. So goes the song. And it goes. Round and round my head at the moment. Although why Jam lyrics should want to camp out in my head all day every day for the past week I don’t really know. Perhaps it’s because of the constant warnings I’ve been waking up to every morning spreading the news about the possible health implications to those fools who persist in eating well done TOAST! Funny how the brain works, desperately reaching out to make connections while it still can. Suppose I should be grateful and listen attentively to its subliminal messages while my mind is still in a reasonable state to transmit them. And so, as I sit in front of the telly more evenings than I care to admit, while working out where to go in the summer when ‘Silent Witness’ (or whatever else it is I’m watching), hits a dull patch, I realise that it’s true. I have arrived at that point, the point where every angry young person who has ever listened to the words of Paul Weller (The Jam and not The Style Council) vows they’ll never go.

Sitting. Watching. Thinking. Sometimes eating. Maybe drinking. As opposed to doing. Oh but of course I hear you cry out to the screen in ridicule, all verbs imply that you’re doing something. But really, there’s doing and doing.

And all I’m doing is watching the telly and thinking about my holidays.

Perhaps it’s a sign.

And while the tune is going over and over in my head a poem that I studied for ‘O’ level has also popped coincidentally into the space (because, at the moment, there’s lots of room).

Lollocks by Robert Graves (although when I first remembered it I could have sworn it was by Louis MacNeice).

I fear those accursed lollocks have come to haunt me, multiplying and weighing me down by making me eat the chocolates left over from Christmas, and the rich fruit cake which no one really likes (and even if they did they’re not around to eat it), not to mention the peppermint creams I made for the first time.

Lollocks.

‘Women can see them —
O those naughty wives
Who sit by the fireside
Munching bread and honey,
Watching them in mischief
From corners of their eyes,
Slily allowing them to lick
Honey-sticky fingers.’

Though not quite a picture of me, this black month of January, when my children have all gone, leaving me sad and lonely, I’ve come perilously close to the lazy grazer loafing on her comfortable Loaf sofa nibbling on Lindt chocolates while warming her cold feet (no doubt due to poor circulation as a result of lack of exercise) by the woodburning stove. This explaining the sum total of this month’s entertainment – the telly and the holidays.

Jam on toast (from bad to worse…)

And so, with my bleakest January ever almost behind me what am I to do? Perhaps it’s time to look at the Robert Graves poem again for an answer to that:

‘Sovereign against Lollocks

Are hard broom and soft broom,

To well comb the hair,

To well brush the shoes,

And to pay every debt

As it falls due.’

So, it’s time to get dressed up and go out. Sound advice Mr Graves. As for the jam, it’s probably a good idea to stop eating it and start listening to it again. Just to keep me on my toes.

Here’s looking forward to a fun filled February.

It’s strange how the mind works. Although I’d better get booking that holiday! And keep off the toast.

Uncategorized

Cocktail Tuesday : Moscow Mule

January 10, 2017 Isabella Morgan Leave a comment

Cocktail Tuesday : Moscow Mule

If you’re not having a dry January (or perhaps you were but have fallen off the wagon), you might want to cheer yourselves up by with slow ride on a mule, a Moscow Mule.

Over the past few years I have fallen for cocktails in the most head-spinningly giddy of ways. An as yet never ending source of amusement to me, they have injected a sense of fun and often lurid colour into my otherwise drab little world.

That’s why, on this most damp and gloomy of Tuesdays, I would like to share a simple-to-make Moscow Mule with you to kick back at those January blues.

Here’s how –

Ingredients: lime/lime juice/vodka/ginger beer/ice cubes

Preparation:

Add 1 part lime juice to 3 parts vodka (egg cup measure)
Dilute with ginger beer (half cup measure)
pour into a cocktail glass and add a wedge of lime and ice cubes
not 1 but 2 Moscow Mules

za zda-ró-vye To your health!

food for friends, Russian, Uncategorized

Food for Friends : Russian

January 8, 2017 Isabella Morgan Leave a comment

Food for Friends : Russian

Our latest Food for Friends evening was January 7th and the cuisine was Russian. It turns out that January 7th is Christmas Day in Russia. (Who knew? Obviously not me. ) So that meant that we were able to prolong the Christmas revelry, which we did, kicking the night off with a Moscow Mule.

We then had some pagach, a bread served with honey then chopped garlic. It’s traditionally the first thing eaten after the fast on Christmas Eve. The honey represents the sweetness of life, while the garlic represents its bitterness.

A type of porridge, called sochivo or kutya, consisting of grains, poppy seeds and (again) honey (where the grains represent hope, the poppy seeds peace and the honey sweetness again) is then usually brought out. However, we forewent that pleasure and went for borscht instead.

Borscht, a beetroot soup served with soured cream and a sprig of dill, was worth serving for the colour alone.

We had this with vodka which went surprisingly well.

Then came the main course. Goose with soured cream sauce is popular on Christmas Day in Russia but the thought of cooking a big bird so soon after the turkey of a few weeks ago did not appeal. Instead we had a Russian stroganoff, beetroot, cabbage pie and spatzle.

The cabbage pie was a revelation, tasting as it did like a frittata. We then had to stop for a break, a Russian cocktail break, this time a White Russian.

Feeling a little full we listened to some rousing Russian music to give us strength for the dessert.

And then it came.

I was expecting some kozulya, biscuits in the shape of reindeer, goats or sheep, as these are very popular at Christmas time in Russia. But no, instead we were presented with not one, not two, but three Russian sweet treats – a honey cake, another honey cake and a fruity little number accompanied with a sweet syrupy juice (to put down the layers of fat no doubt needed to cope with the extremes of those Siberian winters).

We finished the evening with a warming vodka shot before smashing our glasses in the fireplace and making our way home…or is that a national stereotype for another country?

Recipes to follow.

Music

http://christmas.lovetoknow.com/Russian_Christmas_Carols

dress

Russian peasant-look Lena Hoschek F/W 2013, Berlin Fashion Week:

Happy New Year, novel, Proust, writing

Happy New Year

January 5, 2017 Isabella Morgan Leave a comment

It’s a new year and time to brush away the cobwebs…

take down the tree (distraction activity one)

show you my oh-so-funny Proust Christmas card. He’d have split his sides at this… (distraction activity two)

re-assess why I’m writing a blog. Do I really quite like the cobweb look? Goes with my home after all.

As you might have guessed I’ve let it slip for a while.

Easily distracted, I lost focus which led to a phase of existential angst. I mean, why was I writing a blog in the first place? To give some meaning to my formless little life? Failed on that score. To keep a record of places I’ve been? Couldn’t keep up. A file to keep the notes for the Proust reading group? Now that would have been so useful today at the first Proust reading group meeting of the year. And what about the sewing? What about that? As for the cooking and the eating?

As my formless little life became more formless so I had to let it go. It was all getting out of control.

Too busy (cooking and eating most of the time), I let it drift off, sad and lonely, bobbing about, anchorless, until it got swept out to the very edge of the big world wide web (because, as we all know, it’s a flat world, like any other), only to fall over the side and float about in a big, getting bigger all the time, cloud, full of useful things, as well as cobwebs and other stuff that nobody knows exist.

And I was happy with that. For a while. But then 2 things happened. Plus one discovery.

The first was that I wrote a novel. Surely I should have written about that? But I felt too self-conscious to confess to this. Then I wanted to look back at my notes on Proust on Mme de Villeparisis (who? Quite. That’s why I wished I’d uploaded them here). But I’d been too lazy to add them.

As for the discovery. Oh how sad for me! I’d curbed my worst writing excesses, sparing my nearest and dearest from reading about their foibles and idiosyncrasies of which they have many (instead forcing myself to go to cafes and restaurants to have something useful to post here). I hadn’t wanted to upset the poor, sweet loves. In fact, subconsciously, and on every other level, I’d wanted to please them. However, when I realised that not one of them (and I have an unbelievably large family) could be arsed (yes, arsed. Swearing can be such a comfort in times of family betrayal) to even remember that I had a blog, never mind remember what it was called, I decided that I would start again. Evidently there was going to be no chance that they were ever going to read it so I decided to give it another go. And vent my inner bad fairy who’s not been invited to the all-the-fairies-in-the-kingdom party.

Wonder if I’m adopted?

Now, in an ideal world I should have two blogs, one for Proust and one for my novel (and three if you count the rest of the hotch-potch of posts and pages) all far, far away from one another BUT in the real world, my real world, life is just a mish-mash to which I struggle to give some intelligible order. So, why try? Why pretend by imposing a perfect structure on a gloriously imperfect, haphazard set of disparate experiences? Why indeed. Let the writing chaos begin.

Happy New Year and I wish you every joy and success in your own gloriously imperfect lives and endeavours.

Proust

Proust Book Group : le Côté de Guermantes

October 6, 2016 Isabella Morgan Leave a comment

Summer is fast disappearing and we have dug out our forgotten copies of Proust and tried to remember what it was all about.
As we have stalled at different places in the book we decided to go
with our slowest reader from p143 of Volume 2 ( Penguin Kilmartin
edition), in The Guermantes Way.
We have been reading together for about one year now and have agreed that quality, not quantity, works best for us. So we gave ourselves 2 weeks to read about 40 pages to half way down p187. We all managed to achieve this and were happy to take a bit more time to just enjoy it.
This is what we covered:
Page 143. the Elstirs, as an excuse to see Mme de Guermantes. N (the narrator) mocks his younger self while at the same time showing the real importance of art in life. St Loup promises to write to her, and we and N believe he has done this but only a few pages later it becomes apparent that he has not. We all liked the description of “setting our mental stage with little puppets…”, and felt it applied to all of us.
Jupien is briefly mentioned here, almost as a non-sequitur, but we
think this is part of Proust’s way of weaving stories in and he will
be back.
P.146. We noted that his admiration for Mme De Guermantes is of a
similar pleasure he might get from a work of art, like “watching the
brush strokes of a great painter.”. We would have liked to have seen
the red dress.We also like the humour of him pretending not to be
interested in her.
p.147 Seems to be about the power of the dream in creativity – the
dream creates something more intensely artisitic than in real life.
The theme of synaethesia.
p.157. The pear trees in blossom. images of virginal beauty and art
with religious overtones which refer to the Jeunes Filles en Fleur of
the previous book, and provide a stark contrast for the introduction
of Rachel, who is immediately recognised as a cheap tart, not worth 20 francs. The story of St Loup’s love for her has clear parallels to
that of Swann and Odette..
St Loup is shown as deluded and tormented. For him she is an ideal,
in contrasted to N’s view of her. But all is much more complex as
usual; the Narrator’s opinion of her slowly rises as his experience
shows him her great talents as an artist. He is learning the truth
through experience.
p.163. Aimé the waiter, is part of the homosexual theme which threads through the novel, clearly there, though obliquely referred to.We felt that St Loup’s unconscious/ suppressed homosexuality is shown, for instance, by the fact he notices that Aimé might be attractive to Rachel.
p170 There is also comedy in the appearance of M de Charlus, clearly interested in Aimé, but this is misinterpreted by St Loup, in a
self-centred way as being about himself. He seems not to recognise his uncle’s homosexuality – (or not to want to).
p174. N’s drunken image in the mirror – the theme of fractured personality.
p.177 The humiliation of the actress and the theme of sadism. We spent some time discussing the subtleties here of the difference between hatred, (which he attributes to Rachel and her friends here) and sadism (which would just be to take pleasure in cruelty).
p186 Rachel flirting with the dancer to torment St Loup, his suffering and the 2 unexpected outbursts of violence which shockingly rupture his aristocratic civility. We felt they were at the same time painful and comic, and that again there are strong allusions to homosexuality in these scenes.
We all felt that while at times we had to puzzle out what was meant in a long difficult passage (and sometimes fail), that we were finding it was getting a bit easier, that you can develop a bit of an ear for his
style.

Proust

Proust Book Group : Le Côté de Guermantes

May 22, 2016 Isabella Morgan Leave a comment

Proust book group. Yes, we’re still going! Although I’ve not posted anything for a while. But all that’s going to change.

Especially after the realization at our last meeting that we’ve read so much but can’t always remember it… time for some judicious note-making and keeping.

We’ve also decided to read just 55 pages at a time just because the writing is so dense. So this should keep us going as a reading group for years…

Here’s something from Kate to start us off. It’s based on our discussion of pp55 – 119 Penguin edition ‘Le Côté de Guermantes’ :

The background story here is the narrator’s ‘love’ for Mme de Guermantes.

1. The Art of War. As a parallel to the creation of art works and
also in the context of the First World War.

2. The character of St Loup. As a good kind loving person, as an
idealist and hero worshipper, attracted by cleverness and reacting
against his background, holding court ( with Narrator providing the
entertainment), as the last of his line. His jealousy and the
homosexual aspect of the friendship, which Proust makes us consider whilst appearing to deny it.

3. Comic elements and also the rude meaning of Cambremer (as explained in ‘Who’s Who’).

4. Francoise in contrast to St Loup and also what she teaches him about people. Francoise and characteristics she shares with narrator.

5. Sleep, dreams and the act of artistic creation. Memory as the
immortality of the soul – as part of a work of art. Also is Proust
reflecting on the religious doctrine he grew up with?

6. Proust mentions works of art. If you know the reference it creates
a picture. eg the shops lit up like a Rembrandt picture. Scenes from Breughel.

7 A pan of boiling milk described poetically. An invalid would have
time to notice.

8. Synaesthesia and the effect of the loss of sound.

9. the writing of a novel by the narrator. The untouched pile of papers.

10. Mme de Guermantes. The narrator thinks he loves her but he doesn’t know her. The comic elements in his inability to even recognise her at times.

11. Humour. How the narrator can laugh at himself and make himself seem ridiculous to show his lack of self-knowledge (like a Molière character).
Phew! Is that it??

Uncategorized

here are a few of my favourite things

February 16, 2016 Isabella Morgan 2 Comments

Here are a few of my favourite things … to moan about!

First off, new phrases. One moment no one’s saying them (never mind understanding what they mean), the next they’re being used by virtually everyone. All of the time. Sounds like a good thing? Well let’s see.

Culprit number 1 : ‘Back in the day’

What?

Seems to refer to some non-specific period in the speaker’s past when everything was possibly better. Or possibly not. Though, grudgingly, could be said to be useful for those of us who have trouble remembering dates…

Culprit number 2 : ‘Happy days’

(uncannily similar to culprit number 1)

What’s wrong with that?

When I first heard this I confess to having found it really quite charming. Full of joyful enthusiasm. Sort of catchy. So ‘sort of catchy’ in fact that I found it escaping from my mouth all too readily. Soon sounded rather simple.

Culprit number 3 : ‘Mac and Cheese’

Odd to find it here you may think, but think again. When I first heard this I thought it had to be something far more mysterious, more exotic, than ‘macaroni cheese’. Even now I wonder whether I’ve got this one completely wrong. But I don’t think so. It is ‘macaroni cheese’. I’ve googled it (!). That dish that we had as kids when we’d run out of everything else. Suddenly it’s everyone’s favourite, and even my own kids bandy its name around as if they loved it ‘back in the day’. But they must have been chowing down on it at some other family’s table because they certainly didn’t have it at mine. I don’t know why but it sounds as if it belongs to the same family of words such as ‘dude. Or ‘bro’. (Which makes me think of ‘bromance’. And ‘Brovember’. And…Stop me. Stop me now.)

Culprit number 4 : ‘enjoy’

Now this is an old one. The first time it irritated me was back in the late 1980’s. Now I’ve got nothing against the sentiment. Please, do enjoy yourself. But just ‘enjoy’? It used to be so cool it made me want to stick my fingers down my throat. But I’ve grown up now. And calmed down. And whereas I can forgive, I can never forget.

Although I’m trying to distance myself from the times that I’ve succumbed to ‘enjoy’s easy charms myself. But it never did make me sound cool. More a people-pleasing, crowd-following twerp with no resolve. Damn.

Culprit number 5 : ‘fess up

So, time to ‘fess up myself. I cringe as I admit that I’ve used this one. More than once. How did it’s annoyingly catchy sound get so hardwired into my brain that I found myself reproducing it? Against my better judgement?

(For those of you who may still be ‘fess up’ virgins it’s simply a contraction of ‘confess’ + ‘own up’ = ”fess up’. Sorry to have corrupted you.)

Culprit number 6:

and this is the one, my nec plus ultra (at the moment, at any rate) of irritating phrases. Wait for it –

‘First World problems’.

Though on first hearing it this one bowled me over.

Not least because I’ve come up with my fair share of moans deserving of such an epithet (is that even the right word? Please feel free to help me out here.)

‘I’ve not managed to get fresh clams for tonight’s spaghetti alle vongole.’ ‘I missed the last episode of War and Peace.’ Sadly both mine. I was nearly reduced to tears by one of them.

So, the reason I hate this phrase is that I’ve started to use it after nearly most things I say. And so have many of my First World chums. Instead of making us reflect on more serious problems it’s just served to give us a chummy, back-slapping out.

When I used it after ‘Waitrose has run out of hazelnut croissants!’ I realised I had a problem.

But here endeth the rant. For now.

*************************************************************

Adelheid Popp

Reading Matters

January 19, 2016 Isabella Morgan Leave a comment

Reading Matters

Reading. That most solitary of activities which has helped me understand and connect with others in the most profound of ways.

Pretentious, maybe. True, most definitely. And so I’ll lay myself open to derision because I would really like to share my latest reading discovery.

I was researching women who lived in fin-de-siècle Vienna recently because...well, that’s another story, when I stumbled across a short work by a woman called Adelheid Popp.

‘Who,’ I hear you cry, ‘is Adelheid Popp? Never heard of her.’

Well, after reading her autobiography you might start to question why that is. Why have you not heard of this most inspirational of women?

A Socialist and a Feminist, her story is charmingly written and beautifully moving. One of 15 children born into the most desperate poverty she rose to become one of the leading pioneers of her age, calling for fair wages, improved working conditions (including sick pay), all the while campaigning for universal suffrage and against sexism and exploitation of women in society.

Haven’t we heard it all before? I’d thought so too but it was only when I read her personal account of her youthful experiences and the hardships she endured that I actually felt it.

It will inspire, amaze and move you and the foreword written by Ramsay McDonald sets the scene.

https://ia802304.us.archive.org/15/items/autobiographyofw00poppiala/autobiographyofw00poppiala.pdf

And it’s all accessible for free. I downloaded the pdf version (which I’ve linked here) and finished reading it in hours.

Adelheid Popp. It’s a crime that I’ve not heard of you before now.

wassailing

Wassail!

January 18, 2016 Isabella Morgan Leave a comment

Wassail!

Tankards, earthenware drinking cups and glasses clink, chink and clunk together as wassailers bid each other good health.

Wassailing. It hadn’t registered on my ‘excuses to eat and drink to excess’ before this year. And so when Martina suggested that we have a wassailing evening I didn’t really know what to expect.

But I do now.

Wassailing is a very ancient tradition involving drinking to good health and to a good apple crop for the coming year. The word ‘wassail’ itself comes from the Anglo-Saxon ‘waes hael’, meaning ‘good health’ though it refers also to the drink traditionally drunk while wassailing. Wassailing is usually done on or around 12th Night, and the wassail itself was originally a drink made of mulled ale, roasted apples, curdled cream, eggs, cloves, ginger, nutmeg and sugar (sometimes known as ‘Lamb’s Wool’ due to its white and frothy appearance caused by the pulp of the apple and the cream ).

However, Martina thought that we could have a wassail feast too. And I was to bring a starter. A starter?

I didn’t know much about wassailing but from what I did know it seemed fairly obvious to me that starters weren’t big in wassailing circles. And so it proved. I spent hours pouring over recipe books and getting lost on the Internet.

But then I found it. The perfect wassailing menu on the site of ‘The Ethicurean’, a…but before I attempt to describe the place perhaps you’ll get a better idea of what ‘the Ethicurean’ is in their own words –

‘This is the idea of having a connection with the native land, its history and the community who grow food locally upon it. Our family team seek to discover harmonious pairings between the ingredients that surround the walled garden.’

‘The Ethicurean restaurant is set in the enchanting Barley Wood Walled Garden, a perfectly restored Victorian kitchen garden, bursting with fertile life. But far from your usual garden cafe fare, gardener Mark Cox sends his produce to the restaurant in the delightfully scuffed former glasshouse to be made by the team into some of the most delicious, innovative, vegetable-focused cuisine in the land.’

Get the picture?

And so it was here, perhaps unsurprisingly, that I found a wassailing menu. Once discovered I managed to find wassailing menus from previous years and eventually opted for Caerphilly and Cider Rabbit (posh cheese on toast), although I wouldn’t do this ever again, not least because it was too filling. In fact, the entire evening seemed to be a laying down of fat to cope with the harsh winter months ahead. A veritable festival of fat, sugar and stodge…

The Menu

food

just click on dish to find most recipes

Caerphilly and Welsh Rabbit (The Ethicurean Recipe Book)

Belly Pork (The Ethicurean Recipe Book)

Apple Brandy Sorbet with Cheese Batons (The Ethicurean Recipe Book)

Apple. Mincemeat and Nut Strudel (Delia)

drinks

Lamb’s Wool

Mulled Cider

Locally Produced Cider (from Grape and Grind, Bristol)

Locally Produced Wine (from Wrington)

Somerset Cider Brandy

Apfelkorn (a schnapps-type drink which Martina had at the back of a cupboard…)

I couldn’t get to sleep that night because I’d eaten so much… Although, thankfully, due to a bad cider experience in my youth, I’d refrained from drinking too much.

‘Wassail!’