Today is a dreamy day for some reason. Perhaps I slept badly and that has left me feeling sleepy. The weather echoes my mood, being neither one thing nor the other: no rain but a cloudy sky with the occasional sunny interval; neither cold, nor hot (18°C, 64°F), so that you don’t whether to wear a coat or not.

Over the weekend I finished reading the philosophy book (see A book on Philosophy), yes, all 996 pages of it. This left me free to start on my next project which is to read and study Jane Bliss’s An Anglo-Norman Reader. This consists of a selection of texts written during the period (roughly 11th to 14th century) when French, or rather the dialect of it derived from Norman French that became known as Anglo-Norman or Anglo-French, was the language of the royal court and elite classes.

Contrary to what you might expect, some very interesting and entertaining works were written in this language, some of which came to form part of the cultural heritage of France. For example, the famous historical ballad La Chanson de Roland (The Song of Roland) was first written in England, not France (though later versions were edited there).

The book is not an easy read if you take it seriously because medieval French is as different from modern French as Middle English is from modern English. Added to this, one must take account of the various dialects in use at the time. The more you read, however, the more familiar you become with what are at first incomprehensible words and phrases. The selected passages are all translated into English but – unfortunately, in my view – the translations are literary rather than literal, leaving the reader with a lot of work to do if s/he wishes to get to grips with the grammar and syntax.

Shopping trolley in waiting

We went for our usual afternoon stroll, covering by now familiar ground. I photographed the shopping trolley which was lurking in more or less the same place as the “Bicycle in waiting” that I photographed in A stroll with fanlights. I could point out that whereas a hire bicycle can be put to use by anyone who needs it, that’s not true of shopping trolleys and that the people who take them and dump them are both selfish and irresponsible but, if I did, no one would take any notice of me and so I won’t bother 🙂

The only other photo I took today was of this tiled entrance to a house in Myddelton Square.

Tiled entrance

It is a fine piece of work, colourful but not garish, perfectly in keeping with the style of quiet elegance of these houses. I don’t know whether it is original or whether it has been repaired or is even a replacement of the original but it matches similar tiling elsewhere in the neighbourhood.

Several people liked the French poem I posted yesterday, which was by Guillaume Apollinaire, so I shall post some more from time to time. I will add translations in English though I don’t expect you need this 🙂 Translating poems poses its own problems and it is rather fun to do.