Jam-tastique

It would seem that my husband has a brand-new hobby...

making jam.

It's a bird... it's a plane... it's a tray of home-made confiture!

Which do you prefer?  {He's also made fig!}

This cute jar is my favourite.  Swoon!

Not that I mind, of course...

Home-made jam + fresh baguette + big cup of tea 

= happy me.

E & me {fire hydrants}

This week's E & me features something a little different.

Pourquoi ?

Well, we can't have lovely things like

summer skies,

gorgeous flowers

& beautiful produce every single week.

Sometimes you just need...

fire hydrants.

So there you go.

As always, feel free to leave a comment

if you want to guess which photo was taken here in France

& which comes to you via Erin in Canada.

And if have any requests for future E & me posts,

{perhaps real firemen instead of those boring hydrants...}

please let me know!

Nasty French driving theory test = 0. Moi = 1.

I passed! I passed! I passed! 

image via this website, which also explains the procedure for getting a French driver's license if you're interested and/or completely crazy like me

Yesterday I took the theory part of my French driver's test.

It was a bit nerve-wracking.
You see, it's been a long while 
since I've been in an exam-type situation.

It sure reminded me of my student days.

I was surrounded by other nervous people 

{ok, most of them a good 15 years younger than me, but whatever...}

It was quite fun observing them as we all stood around 

waiting for things to begin.

You had the "cool worrier",

listening to his iPod, trying hard to look blasé.

{He didn't fool me.}

Then there was the "nervous-energy worrier", 

biting his nails & pacing back & forth.

{Take a Valium, will you?}

A few girls were in the "last-minute panic" category,

looking at the road signs in their exercise book 

until the last possible moment.

{Too little, too late.}

As for me?

I had a stomach-ache, but otherwise I was ok.

After a lot of waiting around,

we finally went into the test room, which was a small lecture-hall

with a big screen at one end.

We all lined up to have our ID cards checked

& to be given the remote-control you use to answer 

the multiple-choice questions during the test.

Each person was also given a particular seat in the auditorium.

I was very relieved to be placed in the second row.

{What?  I'm short... & easily distracted!}

Then it was the moment of truth.

And you know what?

The exam actually seemed to be easier than the ones on the DVDs 

I'd been obsessively doing allllll weekend to prepare.

Thank goodness.

There were 40 questions & just 2 or 3 that stumped me.

{Good thing, because the maximum number of mistakes?  Only 5.}

So I felt pretty confident, but I was still beyond relieved  

when {after lining up again} the examiner took my remote-control,

placed it in some fancy-dancy box thingy, 

waited for a label to be printed out,

stuck that onto my file,

handed me my paperwork

& {finally!} said,

"C'est bon." 

***

Now all I have to do is learn how to drive standard (yikes),

handle roundabouts (double yikes) 

& deal with crazy French drivers (triple yikes!)

But let's not think about all that just yet...

Les Scènes du Week-end {19}

Let's sum up the weekend, shall we?

Saturday morning:

* wake up early & head to driving school to do practice DVDs

* after a few hours, feel like head might explode

* catch the tail-end of the market

* go home & eat lunch

Saturday afternoon:

* go back to the driving school to do even more DVDs

* after a couple hours, feel like head may in fact honestly explode

* go for bike ride between rain showers

Sunday morning:

* wake up unable to deal with the thought of more driving DVDS

* decide to go to Geneva for brunch

* walk in the park in Geneva in-between downpours

Sunday afternoon:

* sit on couch & watch driving DVD I borrowed from the driving school 

* drink tea

* too much tea, too much DVD

* wander down to the lake despite huge threatening clouds

* try to not feel cranky about driving test, terrible weather

or insanely long line-up outside a fancy luminarium we wanted to visit

* go home

grapes from the Saturday-morning market

I treated myself to this bouquet from the market

at our favourite brunch place in Geneva

blue eyes & beverages at brunch

post-brunch dessert options

water lillies in the park in Geneva

 our balcony garden's cherry tomatoes are finally ready!!

 Behold the luminarium:  a huge bouncy-castle type thing set up by the lake in Annecy with a light & sound show inside... unfortunately the line-up was never shorter than 2 hours long, so we didn't get to go.  Le sigh.

 Tired of Annecy's beautiful canals yet?  Me neither.

Annecy's vielle prison at night makes the tourists (& me!) swoon

So... there you go.

Not such a bad weekend after all, despite the DVD overload.

As for the result of my theory part of the driving test this morning?

Well, you'll just have to check back tomorrow!

À demain !

And zee winner eees...

... Karina over at

Félicitations, Karina!
There's an e-mail coming your way right now...

Merci encore to all of you for entering.
Turns out it's really fun to host a giveaway!
I guess I'll just have to do it again some day soon...

Bon week-end tout le monde ! 
I'll be back here on Monday with les Scènes du Week-end.

{I have a feeling most of my photos will involve me

trying not to pull my hair out, 

cry 

or panic

while frantically cramming

for the insanely-complex theory part of the

French driver's license exam which I take next week.}

Wish me luck!