Last weekend I got to spend some time in my favourite place on the planet, Portstewart. I’ve spent a lot of time in Portstewart over the last few years; it’s a place that fills me with peace, that allows me grace to slow down, to slow, slow.
Slow.
Wendy wrote recently that maybe this will be the year of slow.
Maybe it will be.
[More photographs on flickr here.]
Can I say that as someone who speaks French, and has done since before I could remember, it is WAY overrated. Only the French speak French. Which means France, and a few colonies, and countries which USED to be colonies but the French like to think they still are, and therefore spread their “well-meaning” wings over whenever it suits them. That makes a lot less people than you’d think. And really, there is very little magic to it.
Learn spanish instead. Almost an entire continent speaks it, and the literature written in it is far more life-enhancing. Or Italian, although there again, useless because only one coutnry speaks it, and it IS the “enfant malade” (excuse my french) of Europe. But it is prettier, and the men have smaller noses. Then again, if we’re going for strength and usefulness, I’d opt for Chinese (Cantonese vs. mandarin, the decision is up to you), or Hindi. But whatever you do, save yourself the trouble of weaving through endless grammatical rules (which then have to be broken more often than not), learning to make those ghastly “rrrr” sounds (catarrh, anyone?), and resist the temptation to carry a baguette under your arm and a beret slapped on your head, and learn something other than French!
(oooh i hope this starts a big rowdy argument!!)