"Into The Wild" Mug

 I blogged last Monday about the closure of our local Mountain Warehouse. Which is making me very sad. I buy lots of things there, even though I am not one for outdoor activities. But they have some many nice and/or useful things. Such as their enamel mugs. I buy them for Wolfie and for me, my wife isn't quite so fond of them. Not for hot drinks, because then the metal catches the heat and you end up burning your fingers. No, I only use them for cold drinks. The good thing about them is that they don't break easily. And they often have cool images on them. This is so far my favourite. I find it ironic, as like I said I don't go into the wild all that much. Barely at all, in fact. I don't go deep in the forest or on camping, where I guess this mug would be really useful. All the same, you look at this image and it's as if you're there.

Les Libraires (avril-mai)

Petite nouvelle pour les amateurs de lecture: j'ai appris sur la page Facebook des Bouquinistes que l'édition avril-mai du magazine Les libraires est maintenant disponible. Avec une jolie couverture. C'est gratuit, allez en chercher un. Quand je m'arrête dans une librairie, je prends tout ce que je peux de gratos: marque-pages, pamphlets et, ben, ça.

Rooibos (Four O'Clock)

 During my last time in Québec, I discovered the tea brand Four O'Clock. I guess they picked up the name to sound more British. Fun fact: I seldom drink tea around four o'clock. I don't think many people here make it a regular thing either, not like the ritual you see in movies. But I digress. I always like to try new teas. Although, to be honest (and precise), I did not drink any of their tea brews per se. Instead I bought a box of their rooibos. I love rooibos, because you can actually drink it in the afternoon, say four o'clock, and you don't have trouble to sleep later. And it taste almost like black tea.  Oh, and it is South African and my wife's father is South African, so yeah, what's not to love.

Feuille de chêne

J'ai pris cette photo il y a quelques semaines. Une feuille de chêne, comme il y en a tant d'autres sur le sol, quoique moins souvent ces temps-ci qu'en automne. Mais ce qui m'a frappé quand je l'ai prise, ce qui a fait que j'ai voulu la partager sur le blogue, c'est justement que c'est un arbre que l'on voit très souvent ici, alors on ne le remarque pas. Mais ces feuilles, je ne les voyais pas tomber quand j'étais plus jeune, dans la région du monde où j'ai grandi. En tout cas je ne les ai jamais remarqués.

Sherlock Holmes in London

Today, I am blogging again about this edition of The Hound of the Baskervilles by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The first edition I read of the novel and the very first Sherlock Holmes novel I read. As it was aimed at younger readers, it was accompanied by many pictures, really nice ones. We sometimes forget that a substantial amount of time of the plot is spent in London, where Holmes and Watson first see the villain of the story, although only from afar. The antagonist is also disguised under a heavy fake beard, so his identity remains a mystery at this point. It makes for a suspenseful chase in the city, which concludes with the Holmes being bested (by his own admission) by his unknown adversary. This image renders very well the tension and gives to the scene and the setting a neat aura of menace.

"Le pouvoir des mots" (Salon du livre)

Il y a quelques mois, sur la page Facebook du Salon du Livre du Saguenay Lac-Saint-Jean, j'apprenais l'existence d'un concours pour jeunes auteurs. J'aurais dû le découvrir plus tôt: les inscriptions se terminaient le 20 janvier 2026. Pas pour y participer, mais pour en faire la publicité. J'ai moi-même participé et gagné un concours de jeunes auteurs organisé par le Salon du livre. Inflation oblige, je n'avais pas gagné 25 000$ de livres, mais une somme beaucoup plus modeste. Quand même, j'avais pu garnir ma bibliothèque. C'est ce à quoi j'ai pensé en voyant cette image.

Yawara (Signature Weapon)

This post is part of my Signature Weapons series, which I only officially started this year. Although there were a few older posts that could be considered officiously part of the series, such as this one. Anyway, so I am reading at a slow pace Fight Write, by Carla Hoch, to help me depict fights and violence in my own crime fiction writing. And the book made me discover one exotic weapon from Japan, called the yawara, or yawara stick. It looks like nothing, it is as it says a short stick, a blunt instrument that is barely bigger than the palm of your hand. Yet apparently it can be quite effective and is even used by Japanese police forces. I checked a few videos on YouTube and I must say I am a bit skeptical. Sometimes people praise a thing only because it is exotic and think the world of a weapon simply because it's use by martial artists in the Far East. But since Japanese police officers use it, it must have some utility. In any case, it's a simple device and from what I understand fairly easy to make weapon, so I might add it to some of my character's arsenal. Heroes or villains? I'm not sure yet. So yawara is the word of the day, as well as today's signature weapon. If you have used one, or seen one (if you visited Japan, for instance), please let me know in the comments.

Rosettes au chocolat des Pères trappistes

 Une fête débarrasse le plancher assez vite, une fois terminée: si nous avons encore des chocolats de Pâques à terminer, les épiceries et les commerces ne vendent même plus les stocks de chocolat pascal à rabais. Et selon ce que je vois sur la page Facebook des Pères trappistes, ils ont changé d'état d'esprit aussi, se concentrant sur la vente de rosettes: aux atocas, aux bleuets, au chocolat noir, au chocolat blanc, etc. Des rosettes au chocolat pour les temps morts avant la saison des bleuets. On est quand même gâtés au Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean, côté sucreries.

Time to grow a pumpkin patch?

 I found this meme a few days ago in one of the Halloween pages I follow. Now is the time to grow pumpkins, apparently. I am not so sure I should: last time I did was catastrophic, the slugs ate them all, no matter what I tried to keep them away. It broke my heart, it really did, and crushed my hopes of becoming a half-decent gardener. That said, I love this meme because it reminds me I am not so far away from spooky season. I just need to be patient.

Mafalda s'en vient

 Grâce notamment à la la page Facebook officielle de Mafalda, je peux suivre au moins un peu l'arrivée (encore lointaine) de la série télévisée sur Netflix. Bon, c'est encore très fragmentaire, mais nous avons quand même eu droit à un trailer, qui est vraiment plus un teaser, parce que c'est vraiment très court. Je n'ai pu trouver de sous-titres nulle part, ni en français ni en anglais, mais j'ai trouvé quelque part sur YouTube un doublage (grâce à l'intelligence artificielle?) en anglais. Dans tous les cas, je vous partage ce nouveau teaser, en espérant qu'il y en aura d'autres. 

Wanderlust (word of the day)

As you may know, I have started reading William Boyd's Gabriel's Moon. So far it is a solid spy thriller set in the sixties. And it made me discover a term, which I have seen before, but never paid attention to it: wanderlust. It is our word of the day. It means "a strong desire to wander, to travel and explore the world". I have ambivalent feelings about it: I do experience it sometimes and I suspect it is because of wanderlust that I ended up in England. Wanderlust made me an expat, if you will. Anyway, I am not complaining and whether you experience wanderlust or not, it's a feeling that comes in handy when your are writing an adventure novel or... a spy thriller. And reading a spy thriller, or indeed any other novel where the protagnist travels, might make you feel wanderlust yourself. Anyway, that's the word of the day and my take on it. What do you think about wanderlust? Did you ever experience it?

Pain aux raisins (et thé)

 Ma belle-mère nous gâte quand on la visite. Lors de l'une de nos récentes visites, elle nous a offert ça pour le dîner: une tranche de pain aux raisins et du thé ( du café pour ma femme, mais pour moi c'était avec du thé). L'légance dans la simplicité. Elle a fait le pain aux raisins elle-même. C'était la première fois que j'ai mangé un pain aux raisins fait maison. Il y a une première fois pour tout.

Farewell to the local Mountain Warehouse

 I learned some very sad news last weekend. As we were walking downtown, I saw that there was a closing down sale at the local Mountain Warehouse. Now I know I'm not exactly the natural target customer for Mountain Warehouse. I don't do hiking or much outdoors activities. But I still enjoy their products, especially their clothes. And their enamel mugs, and other things. Anyway, the shop os going to close down permanently at the end of May, so I have time to make a few purchases at a really good price. I guess that's one positive thing. All the same, I wish it didn't have to shut down.

Guille, c'est moi

Je reviens sur mon sujet de billet de vendredi dernier, sur le prénom Guillermo et son diminutif Guille. Je dois m'y faire: Guille, ou plus précisément sa prononciation de Guiché, façon Argentine, est mon nouveau surnom au travail. En ce qui concerne mes collègues hispanophones. Qui sont à peu près tous originaires d'Amérique du Sud, ce qui j'imagine tombe sous le sens. Bon, ça va, je ne meplains pas, j'en ai eu des pires. Et puis je trouve assez flatteur de partager le même nom qu'un autre Guille/Guiché, lui aussi d'Argentine. Tout ça pour dire que j'aime bien ma nouvelle job et mes collègues.

Sunday Roast In the Pub

Two Sundays ago, after a friend informed me that we could walk to a country pub from our house, we did just that. We walked from our home, into the nearby woods and we walked to a country pub in a nearby village. It used to be one of our favourite pubs, before we became parents, but since then it had shut down, had new owners and we hadn't had the chance to go and eat there. Of course I had a Sunday roast. The first one I had in a long while. In fact, I can't remember the last time I ate one. It was long overdue. As you can see on this picture, I didn't stay hungry. And there is not many things as rewarding as talking a walk and then having a hearty meal in a country pub.

En avril...

 Voici une autre photo prise par mon père au début du mois d'avril. Chicoutimi et le Saguenay au printemps...

Future Train Travel

I took this picture last year at the National Railway Museum in York and I am putting it here because it goes with today's topic. So the family is going on a train journey soon(ish) to celebrate one of my wife's cousin's birthday. I'm very happy about it, not only because it's always nice to celebrate, but because we will travel by train. I haven't been on a train since February, therefore it is long overdue. For me, every train journey is always a bit of an adventure and often a bit of holiday in itself. So I am really looking forward to it.

Taureau hispanique

Parfois, voyager quelque part nous permet aussi de s'imaginer ailleurs. Ainsi donc, j'ai pris cette photo aux Roman Baths de York. Apparemment, la neuvième légion (est-ce que ça ne devrait pas s'écrire IX, d'ailleurs?) a déjà été en Espagne, ou plutôt en Hispanie. Moi je n'y ai jamais mis les pieds. Je sais que ce n'est pas une affiche authentique, mais j'aime bien l'image quand même, ça fait un peu exotique, même si les chiffres romains ne sont pas exacts. De l'Hispanie jusqu'à York, c'est un long voyage, en tout cas ce l'était à l'époque de l'Empire romain. 

"My cat is named Odin"

 Oh the things you discover sometimes thanks to old friends. My Italian friend sent me this picture a few months ago and I wanted to share it here. This is the book she read to her two boys during the summer holidays: Il mio gatto si chiama Odino. Translated into English, the title would be "My cat is named Odin". The book is about a black cat with one eye. My long-time readers will remember that I once had a black cat with one eye, also called Odin. I guess I was not entirely original naming him. He was the best of cats and I miss him very much. So I think I need to brush up my Italian and get my hands on that book to read it.

Guillermo, Guille et moi

J'ai blogué il y a un mois sur une collègue hispanophone qui m'appelle Guille, le diminutif de Guillermo, qui est l'équivalent de Guillaume. La collègue en question est d'Argentine (en fait elle y demeure, nous nous connaissons via Teams) et depuis avant-hier est ma manager pour un projet, alors j'ai pu lui parler plus longtemps. J'ai donc appris une chose ou deux choses sur mon prénom en espagnol, façon Argentine. Guillermo se prononce "Guichchermo/Guichermo" là-bas, les l étant prononcés "ch", en tout cas s'ils sont placés au milieu du mot. Enfin selon ce que j'ai compris. Guille, encore une fois si j'ai bien compris, se prononce également "Guiche". Morale de l'histoire: j'en apprends tous les jours.