Dandelion bud opening for business
My scrap book is growing and contains some odd items One of my favourites is a page on which I have pasted 12 post-it notes. Each has a round stain left by a tea-cup . I have labelled it 12 cups of tea. It is I suppose a sort of installation.
The French word poireau, a leek, as I mentioned in a post some years ago, also signifies "a person who is waiting around, probably unwillingly.From it, is derived the verb poireauter and the expression "faire le poireau" . Today I come across another vegetable metaphor employed in French. In the novel La Malandre by Henri Troyat, the central character, Philippe, a middle aged lawyer, impatient with the new generation with whom he considers himself in conflict, refers to a successful and arrogant young man, as a salsifis pretentieux, literally a "pretentious salsify". A salsify is a long finger like vegetable with a delicate flavour, better known perhaps in France than in England.
1 comment:
Oh, I love your concept of your 12 cups of tea/post-it notes as an installation piece - just perfect!
Our gardens may be behind the UK this year, but I have seen and dug up some ever-faithful and hardy blooming dandelions!
'poireau' made me think of Poirot.
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