Names

When I did A level geography, the subject I found particularly fascinating was the development of town/village names from the population of people that had gathered there and why they had - rivers, good grazing, Ikea, and so on, and how personal names had developed from the association with place/trade, etc.
Unfortunately, a large part of the rest of the course zoomed over my head (stream sections and other mathematical stuff) and I did subsequently only just scape through with an E. but, usefully, I was left with afore-mentioned curiosity into place/people's names, and an urge to visit, and ponder on, how and why towns appeared where they did.
This morning I found a very useful site which listed just about every surname one could imagine, (I was re-naming someone in my current book). A lot of names, as I imagined, were associated with hollows/copse/woods/bridges/hills - person who lived in or near one.
 I liked this one:
Acker - person who lived near a field. Surely it would have difficult not to live near a field in 1783 or whenever. Why wasn't everyone called Acker, except those who lived perhaps near water - Attwater, or Attaway - someone who lived close to the road.
My favourite name must have been, Bagley: someone who lived in a field, populated by badgers (old English - bagga 'bag-shaped animal') combined with leah (woodland clearing).
I have lost touch with my friend from school called Gill Bagley. I wonder if she was aware that her forebears lived with bag-shaped animals in a clearing.

                                       
                                                   
                                                                    A bag-shaped animal


A few other whizzo examples:

Barrett: derived from middle English, meaning dispute, originally given to a quarrelsome person.

Bush: given to a person who lived in or next to bushes.

Courtney: A person with a short nose (from old French - court nes)

Deadman - grave digger (obviously)

Ely - person coming from Ely in Eastern England, meaning 'eel district'

Garnett - occupational name given to person who made hinges, or sold pomegranates. Seeds like garnets, I suppose - rather beautiful.

Hardy (yey - me) from old French meaning, bold, daring - should have seen me on the garage roof this morning unblocking the gutters!)

Hopper - referred to someone who hopped . . . mmm?

Kellog: from the middle ages - butcher - 'killer of hogs' not squasher of corn into crispy flakes, then.

Mutton: shepherd, or someone who in some way resembled a sheep.

                                         

The blue and yellow shop

I had to go in it the other day. Our pillows had become dangerous, and as we were in Toulouse, seemed like a good opportunity.
They've stopped doing rectangular ones: square, yes - about 7,000 choices of duck, goose, hamster-down and pretend stuff, but no rectangular. The human head is not that long in relation to the body and I have never figured out why the French like resting their heads on something so meaninglessly large.
Of course, the other extreme is to lodge your brain-carrier on a giant sausage filled with lumpy pieces of cake, or rock depending on how old the bolster is, or where it came from. I think IKEA do bolsters, but I didn't check the fillings as I know this is not a road I want to go down. What is wrong with rectangular?
I know we, the British, got many things wrong: Jimmy Saville, invading Iraq, arctic roll, etc, but the basic pillow shape is good. Ah yes, but did we used to have bolsters too? I think we did, but generally such things have not survived, along with copper bed-warmers and Wee Willy Winky night caps.
Anyway, I digress . . . my point about the blue and yellow cathedral is that they are now appear to be in a 50s phase; such stuff can be gleaned from just about any charity shop; why buy a new one when when you can spend about one pound fifty and get the real thing! There was whole spawn of glob-shaped 50's coffee tables on display, people running their hands over them and exclaiming as if they were pieces designed by Le Courbusier. Just get yourself down to an auction room, or the Red Cross. Honestly!
Below, some 50's relics keening for a second home down at our local 'flea place' - Parchemin. We have already housed much homeless furniture - T.V table, Hi Fi thing, chests of drawers, kitchen dressers etc, etc from there and similar establishments. In fact, a new (old) three-piece suite is arriving from Terre de Esperance (Land of hope) this week, all for a hundred and twenty euros, inc transport and built-in 'comfortably-used' look.
I do draw the line at a few things: pillows, pants and pressure cookers mainly.

Building number 6

Hey, I've just found out how to make pictures bigger on the blog. Wooopeeee.

I got lost in Toulouse yesterday after spending too long aimlessly wandering in IKEA looking for . . .  actually, I wasn't looking for anything. I had gone to collect Alvin from the airport, but got caught in the IKEA spectrum laser field that they cast over the interchange where you can choose to go to Bordeaux or Foix. I will never get to Bordeaux even if I wanted to as I am always overcome by a sudden idea that our bedlinen must be looking a little grey, or that one can never be happy with only four scatter cushions.
In the restaurant, I declined the reindeer balls, or whatever they are, and chose some odd chicken thing. The red drink was quite fun however, and I wrote a whole chapter involving something a tad cheeky so it was worth going to the blue and yellow cube after all.
Afterwards, I got lost, and ended up on a road full of shops called 'Carpet Mania' or they would have been in the UK. In the distance I could see a group of sleek clouds, strangely close to the ground. As I got nearer my brain informed me that they were, in fact, buildings.
I love architecture like this. How totally fabulous it must be to draw it out on the back of a fag packet, 'Hmm, this looks good, think I might work on this a bit - wonder if anyone would ever go for it. Then fast forward a few thousand meetings, yellow diggers, a million tons of concrete, glass, lots of sellotape and suddenly there it is, or there they are in this case - weird and beautiful pods. Alien eggs surrounded by carefully landscaped grounds.
I was so excited that I drove up and down for about twenty minutes trying to work out how to get in to the grounds so I could take photos. I couldn't frame the magnificent entrance area as I would have to have stopped in the middle of a dual carriageway. This was the best I could do. It's not really pink; I got carried away with the adjustment sliders on iPhoto.

3,000 KM, 30 black bags to Oxfam, 13 stops on the autoroute to throw up.

Good journey through France, gradual changing foliage, appearance of sheep in place of vines, stayed awake by listening to Oliver Twist and Dracula - an odd contrast with sun and springtime but it seemed to work.
Few intense days of clearing a million items from Mark's mothers house. Compared the UK tips to the French ones, and gave more stuff to Oxfam than they knew what to do with.
Oddly enough they weren't going to let us into the tip as we didn't have a van permit but one of the employees came over and started asking about rugby and then Blanquette de Limoux. He was from Tours, but had lived near Liverpool for 37 years, and obviously thought we deserved a break. Merci mon brave!
Following, was an enforced trip to Ikea to collect Ezra from his aunt in law; escaped with only one rather dandy cushion and a washing up brush. Nothing like clearing four van loads of unwanted stuff from a house to make you realize that you really don't need that rather funky unusual table lamp (oops, don't forget 58,000 people on the planet have the same one).
Homeward bound. M6 nightmare, closed lanes and near misses with tired lorry drivers.
30 miles from my Godmothers for night stopover, Mark swore; a rare event — could only signify end of the world. At that point it seemed like it. He had booked the return date for a week later. Drove in black silence thinking about volcanic ash cloud-mass transport panic, van hire companies reaction, our lovely house sitter, dogs, etc.
Phew. New ticket, and few hours later were on slow return ferry.
Dead calm, great; no lying on anything horizontal for hours, even managed to eat late lunch. A big mistake. Four hours later I started to feel nasty. Delayed psychological sea sickness? Worry about where we were going to put the van load of stuff we seemed to have acquired? No, roti de agneau (roast lamb) farcied with lively bacteria.
Horrible journey down France, swerving to halt in Starsky and Hutch style to verge to throw up every half an hour. Stopped at Tours and checked into an auto hotel so I could vomit in comfort. Actually amazingly well designed and smart place 'B and B hotel'. A change from weird old rambling places with 1930's plumbing that we would normally opt for.
Arrived in Limoux next day at 6.00pm: sun, people in shorts, the square full of people lounging in baggy holiday fashion, and back at home, rampant spring garden. Onward and forward with our own house purge. Vide grenier, Pauligne this Sunday!


Picture of me proving that I can stand up on a ferry.