Une maman c'est une montagne

 

Une maman c'est une montagne de compréhension // A mother is a mountain of understanding. Jean Gastaldi

Mémé m’a envoyé un colis

Mémé m’a envoyé un colis // Granny sent me a package

Today’s prompt is “mom”, maman.

The word maman led me to think about jams and preserves by Bonne Maman company, which we used to buy a lot in the UK. Yes, I know it might sound strange, but to a Russian ear maman in its original meaning sounds either awfully pretentious or somewhat disrespectful (long story). While about Bonne Maman jams I have only good things to say. So. Bonne-maman means “granny”, and so does much shorter and childish mémé. I think I managed to explain it away, mmm?

The cat just got a parcel full of home-made jams from his granny. He looks happy, I know I would be. My favourite is sour cherry, what’s yours?

In quarantine news, messages are still very much mixed about what is allowed and what is not starting tomorrow. The thing that puzzles most (myself including) is that you are apparently allowed to go and drink in a bar or shopping any time of day, while sports and simply walks are still restricted to the same hours of day as before. I tend to think that people devising the phases are focused of getting the economy going somehow, while the sports and walks schedule is managed by the Ministry of Health, and they are not on speaking terms with each other.

C'est une règle de grand-mère

Grandma rules!

It took me a long time time to recover after the binge-drawing of Inktober .

Didn't really know what to draw, so here is a little episode from our French class. I was late as usual, and as I was entering, I heard our teacher say "C'est une règle de grand-mère", It's a grandmother rule. I wasn't really surprised, since surely some such rule is bound to exist.
Only a few minutes later, when we were told to look the rule up in our books, I realized it was not grand-mère, but grammaire that was ruling. 

To my ear these two sound remarkably similar.

Dans la neige

Les enfants jouent dans la neige. Un moment parfait pour une tasse de thé. //
The children are playing in the snow. A perfect moment for a cup of tea.

The phrase about children comes from today’s Word of the Day. The other one is mine.

The kittens seem to be playing two different games. One on the left is making a snowcat (bonchat de neige), and the one on the right is playing hide-and-seek (le cache-cache).

Pictures related to cats, snow and tea @ Shutterstock.

Family event

Et si l’on invitait mes parents pour Noël? // What about inviting my parents for Christmas?

Poor cat. He only just settled down with a good book.

I don’t know whose voice it is. I don’t even know if it’s the same voice that asked not to leave jam on the table or if the tap was closed. For all I know, they are three different voices.

Pictures related to cats and Christmas @ Shutterstock.

As-tu fermé le robinet?

As-tu fermé le robinet de l'évier ? Il me semble entendre l'eau couler ! // Have you turned off the sink faucet? It seems to me that I hear water running!

I suspect water is indeed running, but the cat is oblivious, obviously.

When I half-finished the drawing I noticed that the earphones are not where they should be (for a cat). Never mind, though.

Elle était cramoisie

Ma nièce avait si chaud qu'elle était cramoisie // My niece was so hot that she was crimson

Today's phrase from Transparent Language makes me think of somebody annoying people with their family pictures (rather like in "uncle Ted and the Spanish Inquisition" sketch).

Just patching up

Mes cousins sont en train de rafistoler mon vieux vélo pour que je puisse participer à la ballade avec eux // My cousins are patching up my old bike so that I can go join them for a ride

Weeeell. It looks to me that only one cousin is engaged with the bike in any way. The other is busy facepawing.

Qu’est-ce qui s’est passé ici?

Beaucoup de choses peuvent se produire pendant trois cent trente-trois générations //
Many things can happen during three hundred and thirty-three generations

We started on family (a cousin of my half brother is not my sister and all that jazz).
So I thought it will be fun to build the family tree (arbre généalogique) of the cat. But I very soon understood that I need to leave a lot of lacunae in it — in fact, one very large lacuna.
333 cat generations might not be exact but the number pleases me visually.
Bastet is his 333^rd great grandmother. I am not sure if arrière (x333) is correct, but I think it conveys the meaning. Ra, the Sun god, is “The Great He-She” so (s)he is Bastet’s father and mother (Egyptians were funny that way).
In other news: my laptop started to miss almost all of the “h”s. So I am acquiring a sort of written Cockney accent ’ere.
More pictures of cats @ Shutterstock.