1. Schadenfreude: Joy in the misfortune of others. German.

2. Wei-wu-wei: Deliberate decision not to do something. Chinese. From an on-line list compiled by Feedbacq.

3. Prozvonit: To call a mobile phone to have it ring once so that the other person calls back, saving the first caller money. Czech and Slovak.

4. Age-otori: To look worse after a haircut. Japanese.

5. Chutzpah: Cheek but with extremely self-confident audacity. Yiddish.Nominated by Rafael Behr.

6. Zeg: The day after tomorrow. Georgian. Sometimes English lacks subtlety. Here it lacks simple utility.

7. Stramash: Fight, uproar. Scottish and northern English.

8. Esprit de l'escalier: The brilliantly witty response you didn't think of until too late. French.

9. Fremdschämen: Being embarrassed for someone else, often someone who should be but isn't. German

10. Pesmenteiro: One who shows up to a funeral for the food. Portuguese.

All of €10 in a Trocante in Carcassonne, has already found a home in our downstairs loo.

It's not often one gets to combine two passions but just before I finally shut the Restaurant I did a Bloomsday dinner for the English department in the WIT.
I managed to work out a whole menu from Ulysses (with a touch of "Portrait " and "Finnegans Wake")-which I had studied hard for my finals in UCD, 35 years previously.
(And with some help from Declan Kiberd and who pointed me to Alison Armstrong's "The Joyce of Cooking")

Bloomsday Dinner In Dwyers Restaurant
Wednesday June 16th 2004

Lambs Kidneys with Mustard Sherry
("Most of all he liked grilled mutton kidneys which gave to his palate a fine tang of faintly scented urine.")
or
Devilled Crab with Cucumber Salad
("A nice salad cool as a cucumber,Tom Kernan can dress.
Pure Olive Oil...God made food, the devil the cooks. Devilled Crab.")
or
Gorgonzola Salad with Mustard Dressing
("Gorgonzola have you? Mustard Sir?..
a warm shock of air heat of Mustard hanched on Mr Blooms Heart")
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Green Pea Soup
("Whats in the pot?--Shirts, Maggy said. Boody cried angrily-Crikey is there nothing for us to eat? Katey, lifting the kettlelid...A heavy fume gushed in answer...-Peasoup")
or
Fennel and Pernod Sorbet
("Somewhere in the East....Drink water scented with fennel, sherbet.Wander all day")
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Roast Fillet of Beef with Cabbage
("His heart astir he pushed in the door of the Burton restaurant....
.Wonder what he was eating...Roast Beef and Cabbage")
or
Fillets of Sole de la Dudebat
(with White Wine and Mushrooms)
("May I tempt you to a little more filleted Sole Miss Dudebat?
Yes ,do bedad.And she did bedad")
or
Crepes of Onions and Mushrooms
("After all,Bloom relents,there's a lot in that vegetarian flavour
of fine things from the earth,crisp of Onions and Mushrooms.")
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Molly's Pear and Almond Tart
("I'd love a big juicy pear now to melt in your mouth
like when I used to be in the longing way")
or
Brown Bread Ice Cream with Caramel Whiskey Sauce
("Round Rabaiotti's halted ice gondola stunted men and women squabble"
"Our Lady of Mount Carmel.Sweet name too:Caramel")
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Glass of Sloe Gin
("...and a sloegin for me...Boylan eyed,eyed. Tossed to fat lips his chalice,
drankoff his tiny chalice, sucking the last fat violet syrupy drops")

Breakfast on the Terrace this morning.

It is our 7th summer in Thezan (even before Sile retired we were able to spend the school summer holidays here) and I am doing one of my very favourite things- sneaking down the stairs early (around 6), making myself a sneaky coffee and drinking it slowly on the terrace while I watch the morning creep in.
There have been a couple of changes in these seven years. The principal one must be that in this time Sile has tamed the gone- to- seed garden into colourful order, and this summer, after the very heavy rains of spring here in the Languedoc, it is looking the best it ever has.
Our summer Jasmine, which covers the old stone stairway down to the garden, is, for the first time ever covered with buds and flowers and its fresh smell is already scenting the morning beautifully.
Our white rambling rose which climbs up to the terrace from the garden was under sentence of certain death last year because of its miserly production of flowers, but, because of the spring rain showers it is giving us its best display ever and has secured a reprieve.
Our great glory; the huge Chinaberry tree is also, just, in flower and now in leaf and is providing an excellent hiding place for our new and welcome population of birds, as I write there is a fledgling sparrow making drunken forays from the safety of the tree on to the strings which support our bird feeders- he is beginning to get the right idea.
We now have families of Coal Tits and Sparrows in the garden who come to eat at the feeders and a very discreet Black Cap who hides in the foliage of the tree and sings beautifully. Our Black Redstarts have become rarities but the Swallows/Swifts/Martins (I still cannot tell the difference) continually bombard the tree in the morning and evening presumably feeding on the insect population feeding there. With such noble work on hand I can easily forgive their screaming cries as they swoop around.
All this is possible of course only because the weather has turned from cool spring to hot summer as suddenly as if someone had thrown a switch. This not only pleases me, there is not much joy in sitting in the early morning on the terrace in the cold, but obviously delights the plants and birds as well.

The roof of the Chateau de Mus, seen from the quarry near us, remind me of Alain-Fournier's lost demesne

And it is interesting that this is what the French think of the weather we have been having here so far.

Truth is the summer in France is WAY below par but as one who has been raised on what is called the summer in Ireland we are not really feeling any pain as yet- especially since the Meteo promises temperatures of about 24C for the next week and very little cloud.

Of course being from Ireland has its advantages, in today's "Le Monde" they tell us that there has been a fall of 15% in holiday bed nights during May throughout France. As our main cachement area has had even worse weather than here in the Languedoc we aren't suffering as badly as some of the others.

As the front door faces due north we only get a tiny window of opportunity to take pictures of it in the sun; viz. early mornings in mid-summer.
Today we were blessed with such a day when the sun was shining, we had friends prepared to act as photographers (Thanks to Petra and Donal) and as an added bonus there are roadworks outside the house so all the cars were banned for the day from parking there.

In the summer of 2006 Síle planted a vine, a Chassalas ; a Table Grape in our garden here. The -rather ambitious- intention- was that it would rise up to the terrace- a whole floor away- and then be trained to provide shelter from the hot summer sun of the Midi. This was its size in 2007 , it nearly died during the winter of 06/07 but Sile brought it back to life and it was healthy, if tiny, in May.

Oner the next four years it crept sinuously up the wall towards the terrace and by the summer of 2011 it was reaching towards the canopy.

Today it now is providing shade for about a third of the terrace, we reckon we will have to put a much reduced canvas cover up this year for our guests.

You can hire these little boats by the hour on the canal, as Petra, Donal and I did yesterday.

A few days ago, with a heaped trolly (Chariot here!) I let a woman with a loaf of bread go ahead of me to the check out.
She flashed me her very best smile and said "C'est gentille Monsieur"

In English "gentle" has got to mean soft and delicate, where as here in France it has retained some of the meaning inherent in the word Gentleman, meaning courteous and mannerly.

The second word "Genial" has almost entirely slipped from usage in English, except perhaps in the TV announcers cliche "Our Genial Host". But Dickens used it a lot and it always brings to my mind one of his more rotund gentlemen with a twinkling eye.
In France it is still much used, even perhaps over used, for "nice".
No matter, every time I hear someone say "genial" the portly twinkler comes to mind.

Early morning coffee on the terrace, before the sun gets to it, the Swifts and Martins dive bomb our tree.