The photo below shows a cutting from a large umbrella tree (a Schefflera) that I am attempting to root in water in a mineral water bottle. I've done it before, and it ought to work. The original plant had grown too tall.
The umbrella tree is symbolic of what is going on in Saint-Aignan right now. It won't stop raining. It certainly doesn't feel or look like August outside. Like my cutting, nous avons les pieds dans l'eau — we're ankle-deep in water.
We don't need an umbrella tree so much as an actual umbrella. The weather woman on Télématin just confirmed it.
they wear jeans on tv? and which one of those boxes on the map is your location?
ReplyDeleteYes, they do wear jeans on TV. French people wear jeans nearly everywhere.
DeleteHow to explain which little square is Tours.... Tours is the city we are close to. It's about 40 miles west of us. Look at the square out at land's end, the area colored orange. That's Brest, in Brittany. Southeast of there, the next square in the city of Nantes. And just east and very slightly north is Tours. That probably doesn't make much sense...
It is wet!!
ReplyDeleteWe had ten Millipedes yesterday in just a couple of downfalls...
one in the morning...
a light hammering...
and one in the early evening....
came down in stair-rods!!
Then it went bright again...
Can't plan anything in this sort of weather...
but one thing is for certain...
the top comes off our umbrella and goes into a jamjar...
the moment I can get outside that is!!
It has a nicely developing sideshoot at the bottom...
and then two pieds of bare stem before the top...
looks wierd, looks unsightly...
now I know how to do it... tareversuch!
I'm getting worried about our tomato plants. Anyway, you are right, can't plan on doing anything outdoors right now. Callie and I both got soaked when we went out walking this morning. About the umbrella tree, I have on that was nearly 2.5 meters tall. I've rooted cutting before. Actually, the stem doesn't make long roots but gets little white knobs on it. Then I pot it up and it has always worked, if I remember correctly.
DeleteThe bread lady just came by. I mentioned the tomatoes, and she said hers are all foutues. Burnt leaves and fruit with big brown spots. Doesn't sound good.
DeleteIt sounds like tomato blight is everywhere. The plants go down really quickly, and those big brown spots take over a fruit completely in a few days. It's heartbreaking after all the effort that people have put into them, and the loss of all that produce. Bordelaise just washes off in the rain that brings the spores with it.
ReplyDeleteI'm going to be really disappointed if we lose our tomato crop. But nothing in life is guaranteed, I guess. Walt went out and did a radical "leafectomy" on all the tomato plants this morning.
DeleteThe weather woman is rather informally dressed? Non?
ReplyDeleteIs there some kind of stereotype at work here? I mean the idea that all French people are all gussied up all the time? That hasn't been my experience over the past 45 years. People dress the way they want to dress.
DeleteI like your umbrella tree.
ReplyDeleteIt's too dry here now. I like those umbrella trees a lot, but they do get big!
ReplyDeleteRain, rain everywhere!
ReplyDeleteI've got to admit, it struck me as odd to see a TV News/Weather News person in jeans, too, Ken -- not because of her being French or whatever nationality, but I don't think I've ever seen jeans on a TV news/weather person before (on U.S. stations), except when they're broadcasting from the Fourth of July fair, or something like that. It's not a negative, or a judgement, just an observation that this is a little different thing than what you see here (which is funny, because so much of the U.S. seems to tend toward super duper informality, in my experience).
Whew! Off to put on my jeans shorts and head to school for the first day! *LOL* (no students yet, though )
Judy
DeleteMost of those anchormen on the evening news wear jeans unless they are like those CNN talkingheads who like to stand beside their desks. Peter Jennings , Tom Brokaw and Dan Rather were known to have a nice shirt, tie and jacket when they were sitting down at their desks reading the news but no one were able to see the pair of jeans they were wearing.
I can vouch for that, having been in a control room a few times when network news went on-air. I think they also did that in the movie "Broadcast News."
DeleteBut did that French weather person not get the memo? I thought they were all supposed to be blonde and wear red dresses. :-)
Funny, Emm. The weather women (and to some extent the weather men) do dress for the season and the prevailing weather conditions, Télématin sometimes looks like a big costume party!
DeleteThere's nothing wrong with wearing jeans in a professional environment, as long as they are clean and not full of holes. I wear jeans every day to work, and I'm (she said in all modesty :)) middle-management in an international insurance company. If you combine it with a nice and trendy top (like the weather lady in the photo) or jacket and decent shoes (no flip-flops, please!!!) you won't be frowned upon. Even if you have a meeting with your manager ...or even the big boss, who accidentally 'lives' on our floor :).
ReplyDeleteLooks as though the Mareuillais are in for a soggy Friday, too.
ReplyDeleteJudy, in my opinion Americans in general have a very "small-town" attitude about dress codes. For example, Martine, at my sister's office -- she's an optician in what they call an eyecare center -- employees are absolutely not allowed to wear denim at work. In France, and in Belgium too, from what you say, things are less regimented. People use common sense to decide how to dress.
ReplyDeleteWhen I worked in Silicon Valley, it was normal to wear jeans and, in warm weather, T-shirts. Tennis shoes too. There was no dress code.
France, including Paris, has always been more relaxed about dress styles than the U.S. has, in my 45-year-long experience.
Dean, yes, soggy tomorrow too. Our tomato plants and tomatoes are showing signs of the dreaded blight. It is distressing.
ReplyDeleteOh no!!! Not the blight on those fabulous tomato plants!
Delete'Fraid so.
Delete