What’s On

To start the year 2012, we shall be eating at the newly five starred Hôtel Pigonnet and if you would like to join us or would like further information, please contact me on receipt of this newsletter. The hotel has a special seasonal menu (minimum eight people), the Menu de Fêtes - three courses including wine, water and coffee for 50€ or four courses with the same extras for 65€. Cheese is an additional 8€. This should be a lovely start to the year.

Come and share a traditional Galette du Roi with us. The cost will be 4€ each to cover costs. If you would like to join us please contact Marietta. Thank you!

Start the New Year with a clean sweep and get all those unfinished projects out of the back of the cupboard and join us for a very companionable couple of hours knitting and sewing. Don’t know how to?? Then come along and we will teach you whatever you need to know – this is the time to learn a new skill! Tea and coffee is provided but bring your own lunch if you want to stay all day. Let me know if you want to come.

We shall be reading ‘Absurd Person Singular’ by Alan Ayckbourn and copies of the play have already been ordered. If there is a good turnout we may have a last minute change of venue that will be advertised by the usual method, before the date concerned. If you would like to join in please contact Gilly. A Very Happy New Year to you all.

Share a warming cup of coffee with us and indulge in some cheese cake and muffins! Please contact Marietta if you would like to come along. Thank you!

Liz and Susan have offered to introduce us to the Irish author and playwright William Trevor (b. 1928). He is considered one of the elder statesmen of the Irish literary world and is widely regarded as the greatest contemporary writer of short stories in the English language. Trevor has lived in England since the 1950s and over the course of his long career has written several novels and hundreds of short stories for which he is best known. He has won the Whitbread Prize three times and has been nominated five times for the Booker Prize, most recently for his novel ‘Love and Summer’ (2009), which was also shortlisted for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award in 2011. Tim Adams, a staff writer for The Observer, described him as "widely believed to be the most astute observer of the human condition currently writing in fiction".

Born William Trevor Cox in Mitchelstown, County Cork, Ireland to a middle class Protestant family, he moved several times to other provincial towns as a result of his father’s work as a bank official. He attended eleven schools in total, often with periods of no schooling at all. He was, he says, quoting Agatha Christie, “ ‘terribly lucky to have had such poor education:’ you take life more easily as a child, you don’t care if you do well or badly.” He was useless at everything, he says, except composition. Trevor worked as a sculptor under the name Trevor Cox after his graduation from Trinity College, supplementing his income by teaching. He married Jane Ryan in 1952 and emigrated to England two years later, working as a copywriter for an advertising agency. “It was a horrible job, but they didn’t bother him too much so he hammered out his first stories when he should have been writing ads for fancy fabrics and wallpapers.” (Interview Guardian 5th September 2009 by L Allardice). In 1964, at the age of 36, Trevor Cox changed his name to William Trevor and won the Hawthornden price for ‘The Old Boys’. The win encouraged Trevor to become a full-time writer and in 2002 he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II for services to literature. Despite having spent most of his life in England, he considers himself to be “Irish in every vein”.

Trevor, influenced by Chekhov, has written several collections of short stories that were well received. The characters are typically on the margins of society: children, the elderly, single middle-aged men and women, or the unhappily married. He has acknowledged the influence of Joyce on his short story writing and “the odour of ash pits and old weeds and offal” can be detected in his work, but the overall impression is not of gloominess, since, particularly in his early work, the author’s wry humour offers the reader a tragicomic version of the world. He has adapted much of his work for stage, television and radio.

Everybody can choose any novel or short story by Trevor (we have a few of his books at the Library) so we will have a lively discussion about all the tragic elements of life! Please let Liz or me know what you will bring for an Irish/English pot luck lunch before 10th January.

As well as the usual we shall exchange ideas on different topics. If you have a specific question, please let me have it before the meeting and then I can prepare the answers.

Come and join us for lunch at a traditional French restaurant in the Mazarin district of Aix. At this time of year, a blazing log fire greets you as you enter. For your very reasonable formule, you get a great choice of hors d’œuvres and then a main course. If you are hungry enough for 3 courses, you will still have change from 20€. Of course, if you prefer there is a wide choice of entrées, main courses and desserts à la carte.

Please contact me by 11th Jan to book your place. Looking forward to seeing you.

If you have a favourite place that you would like to share or would like to organise a lunch, please let me know.

We shall meet at the car park in Marseille, and from there leave on foot in the direction of the Calanque de l'Oeil de Verre. The path is a gentle one which passes through pine forest landscape and which will lead us to our picnic spot by the seaside. After our lunch and a rest we will return to the car park via the Val Vièrge which is rather steep, including a passage up loose rocks, from which we emerge at the col de la Candelle (approx. 250 metres altitude). On our way back to the cars, and if there is good visibility, we will enjoy a good view towards Callelongue on one side and Cassis on the other.

Please bring food and water and wear proper hiking gear for winter conditions. For any further information please call me.

This month we are discussing ‘The Heart is a Lonely Hunter’ by Carson McCullers. Written in 1940, this is the debut novel of this American author and is about a deaf man named John Singer and the people he encounters in a 1930s mill town in the US state of Georgia. The cost of the meeting is 4€ each to cover costs. Do join us; contact Marietta if you would like to come along.

I am hosting a book discussion group in the evening at my place in Aix. Everyone is invited to present something cultural, which interested them during the month: art, cinema, politics, literature or society. We will consider these topics in the light of the multiculturalism - American, English, French, Spanish, German, Italian, Indian, Chinese..... I propose you read: ‘At Last’, by Edward Staubyn. Please contact me for further information.

Please join me for tea at my apartment, where you can taste, at this special time of year, the Galette des Rois. It will be a lovely opportunity to catch up with friends who may have been away for the Christmas holidays. To reserve your place at the table, please call me or e-mail me.

I will be getting in touch with our new members who have recently joined to invite you to share in a relaxed evening in a friendly restaurant. At this stage I have not chosen a restaurant, but I will be contacting you. Existing members are welcome to contact me and come along as we need your friendly advice and experience to share with those who need your help.

This will be a fairly easy walk of about 3 hours along the picturesque coast towards La Couronne, with no difference in altitude to cope with. The ramble is open to everyone who is reasonably fit and you are welcome to bring well-behaved dogs. The pathways are fairly wide, but there are some loose stones, so we insist that walkers wear sturdy walking-boots. Also, make sure to wear appropriate clothing for the variable January weather.

Following on from last year’s January ramble, we shall have lunch in a small restaurant in La Couronne. Because of the likelihood of cold weather, we feel it is not conducive to having a picnic, so for this month and February we shall be eating inside. Please note that we are fair-weather walkers, so if it’s raining the ramble will keep for another day. Should there be any doubt about the weather on the day, please call either Annie or Chris around 09:00hrs for clarification.

It is not necessary to sign up, but if you need a lift please phone either Annie or Chris a few days before. We want to start the walk at 10:30hrs, so please allow enough time to arrive, park and get ready; we leave on time (in fairness to everyone) and do not wait for latecomers.

Our monthly language afternoon tea will be held at one of our favourite places. If you would like to join us please contact Marietta. Thank you.

Christmas and New Year celebrations are over so now is the time to visit an absolutely integral part of Marseille’s past and in true AAGP fashion to also sample a marvellous restaurant! We shall be guided by our favourite Marseille Tourist Office guide. Many of you will remember her from our visit to Notre Dame de la Garde. Afterwards, we shall pop into at the 19th century navette biscuit shop and have a tour of the Santon museum, workshop and boutique.

The Abbey has known many changes from the monastery founded in the 5th century, through extremely pagan but necessary uses as a barn, prison and garrison after the Revolution and including losing many beautiful pillars in the 19th century to a Prefect who thought they would look nicer in the centre of town. (Where are they, I wonder? I haven’t seen them gracing the Canebière!) The visit includes the crypt which has some 5th century remains and reminders of the 3rd century martyr Saint Victor.

Our lunchtime restaurant is a very attractive place only minutes away from the Abbey with a very “bio”, locally sourced menu, vegetarian for those who would like it. There’s a super outside garden but probably not a good idea in January! And after lunch we shall visit the santon museum/shop/ boutique; a bit too late for this Christmas but the moment to enhance one’s collection with new figurines for next year, or replace those we broke!

Price will vary according to the number of participants. But reckon on about 7€ for the Abbey and crypt and about 20€ for the restaurant. The santon museum is free. For all details of how to get there, park etc. contact us.

We're looking forward to welcoming Scots and non-Scots to Burns Night, our annual Scottish event. There will be a haggis supper, followed by bagpiping (just listening!) and then lots of Scottish reels. If you'd like to come, or need directions, please phone Lish or Marjorie after January 4th. Your reservation will be confirmed once we receive your cheque. As usual, members will have preference over non-members. Children over 10 years of age are welcome. The haggis has to be ordered and paid for in advance, so please pay by the 21st January. When you sign up, we'll ask you to pay 12€ for members or 15€ for non-members, to cover the cost of haggis, salmon, wine, whisky, and the cleaning lady. We'll also ask you to bring either vegetables, dessert or fruit juice.

We'd also appreciate volunteers to help either set up the room on the Saturday afternoon or take things down again on the Sunday afternoon.

Thanks and looking forward to seeing you.

Please contact Marietta.

As well as all the specials listed above, don’t forget the Regular Activities that offer new skills, fun and friendship all year round. Contact details are in your yellow Members’ List book.

Tuesday: Bridge 14:00

Thursday: Coffee (Croquemitoufle) 10-11:30

Thursday (first or second): Computer Club 14:30

Friday: French (Aix) 14:30

Friday (last): Poetry Corner
Held in conjunction with Book In Bar

Saturday: Coffee (Croquemitoufle) 10-11:30

Sunday (first): Pétanque 10:30