Reports from the France foreign field

Lyon evening

2013-08-04T13:29:00.002+02:00

It's evening in Lyon. I get one of the Velo'v hired bikes out of the station and take to the 'Berges du Rhône' - the non-stop north-south route made for cycling and running.

I stop by the bleachers that are dotted by little groups of people out savouring the night air. The air is a little fresh but full of the sounds of mid-evening in a European city. Behind me to my right is a duo playing Eastern European music on the Violin and Accordion, and in the distance I can hear the faint sound of the bongos.

Then there are the lights. The bridges are under lit with different colours, each one having it's own character. The Basilica on the hill stands out as a beacon, visible from the hills far the other side of Lyon. The replica Eiffel tower, bristling with cell phone antennae.

Wheeling off for home I head downstream and pass by the pontoons of the various bridges, around which the Rhône rushes noisily. There must have been rain upstream. The swans have roosted for the night in a small eddy by a pier. They are being watched by a large white cat that I scare off as I swish onward toward the bike station towards the dark end of the river.

What we learn from Jesus series

2012-11-24T10:26:00.002+01:00

The Watchtower published a series of articles with the heading 'What we learn from Jesus - About ...'

Just for reference sake here are all links to all the articles in the series:

Accrobranche

2011-10-11T22:03:00.001+02:00

Last June - Simon and John came over to visit. Since Simon is a pretty energetic character I decided that we would have to think of something active to do to keep him busy.

A popular pastime in France is 'AccroBranche'. The name is taken from a shortened form of the word 'Accrocher' which means 'hang on to', and 'Branche' which is where we get our word 'branch' from. Thankfully, while Accrobranche does involve climbing trees you have more than Branches to hang on to.

When you arrive at FranceAventures they provide you with an abseiling harness with two climbing clips, and a zip-line pulley. You grab your pair of gloves, head for the forest

After safety briefing, you follow a short training course where you are observed by a member of staff to make sure you have understood and will comply with the training.

There are a series of courses with increasing levels of difficulty. The hardest for me was climbing the nets. It looks simple, but it's extremely taxing.

A view of the Saône from the canopy near Fourvière

Eliminating the overflow in GPS Visualiser

2011-07-12T19:52:00.005+02:00

If you are using GPS Visualizer you may find that you end up with too many points in the Marker List at the right of the map. You might end up with scroll bars, that prevent you from being able to print the full list of markers. For example:

To fix this problem:

Show advanced options General map parameters section
Append the following to the Custom HTML styles field

#gv_marker_list { overflow:visible !important; }
#gv_marker_list_static { overflow:visible !important; }

Click 'Draw the Map'
Click 'save your Google Map' or click the 'view' link.

You should see that the list of markers extends below the bottom of the map.

Adding a Firefox quick search to find the origin of a family name

2011-06-02T21:34:00.005+02:00

If you use Firefox you can add a quick search to find the origin of a family name.

Here's how to set it up:

- Open Firefox
- Right-Click the Bookmarks toolbar at the top of the browser (underneath the web address bar)- Click 'New Bookmark'
- Fill in the following values:
Name: Last Name Search
Location: http://lastnames.myheritage.com/last-name/%s
Keyword: lastname

- Click save, and then you are done.

To test it, type this in the address bar:

lastname jones

Hope it comes in handy!

Pennines

2011-03-06T14:33:00.004+01:00

Last April and May I spent some time in the Pennines near a place called Loxley where, legend has it, Robin Hood was born.

He wasn't around by the time I got there, but there were a few trees around that looked old enough to have been. The whole area was at one time covered with forest, but now a lot of land is farmed.

Here are some of the images I was able to capture whilst I was there. Damflask reservoir was the cause of a famous flood in Sheffield in 1864, when the Dam wall burst.

What is a Shrew?

2010-11-01T17:08:00.003+01:00

By popular request - here is a photo of a shrew, here is an article about these little cuties ...

Having said that the one I saw could be a pygmy shrew ... it was a little hard to tell and I didn't have the courage to ask which type of shrew he was. It's just not good manners.

Autumn

2010-10-26T12:55:00.003+02:00

It's well under way. The days are a little shorter, and the nights are certainly colder. I have closed up the top part of the house and moved into my Winter bedroom. We now have the wood stacked in the barn to keep dry. The fire is being lit most nights.

The other day on the way home, the wind picked up as we drove past the Plane trees lining the road. The sky filled with dry leaves floating toward the ground. It really was beautiful. We have been having frost because of clear nights - that should hopefully get the Autumn colours going.

I have been taking to the woods several times a week for walks. Behind our village there is a warren-like network of farm tracks that lead inquisitive travellers into another world of natural beauty. It's simple - there aren't many major land marks where I have been going, but the peace one can find in the quiet forests and meadows has a healing power not found in the city. Indeed there are some parts where even the pleasant sound of cow bells does not reach. There the wind in the trees and the occasional call of a bird of prey complement the quiet sound of autumns approach.

Clambering off the edge of flat meadows and into the forest yields delightful surprises - Ceps, Bolettes and other fungus decorate the leaf-strewn floors. Signs of life are evident there in the nibbled edges of the caps, perhaps by Hedgehogs, perhaps by the small forest birds or rodents.

Since time is short - winter is fast approaching - it is not rare to find a shrew above ground rustling in the leaf litter, cursing and complaining as she searches for a morsel of something or another.

The normally quiet villages and fields feel uncomfortably noisy on emerging from the calm of the lost natural world of the forest.

France under strike

2010-10-22T17:44:00.002+02:00

As you might have heard from news reports such as this:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/oct/22/french-police-break-fuel-blockade

... France is undergoing protests again. Day to day life is somewhat interrupted if you want to go anywhere, but at home things are continuing as normal here in the rurals. The other day we went to go and get fuel for the ministry, but there were signs on the pumps saying 'Dry Station' (in French.) We still managed to get fuel down the road, though.

The effect is also that I'm not that keen to travel as far as usual (often an hour and a half to get to the territory.)

Rafting

2010-09-26T14:58:00.004+02:00

This summer we went rafting. There is a local rafting club nearby and one of my brothers colleagues invited us to join him.

We got in the river in the middle of Oloron and headed for about 2-3 hours towards the Atlantic. It's surprising how little ground you can cover when you are meandering with the river, even though the river was swift.

There were a few 'energetic' moments as we navigated rapids. We completely messed up our entry into one section, got the front of the raft caught on a rock and ended up going sideways into some pretty reasonable waves. I was perched on top of the side of the raft that was now heading downstream and nearly fell in when we hit our first wave!

Much of the video in this post is in relatively calm water because when things got a bit wild I had to wedge my camera in behind my lifejacket.

At the end we landed at a beach we didn't even know existed just 5 minutes drive from my parent's place. We have been back several times for a few swims.

The "Gave d'Oloron" is the section of river that is created when the "Gave d'Aspe" and "Gave d'Ossau" meet in Oloron. Those two rivers flow from two valleys in the Pyrénées. The Gave d'Oloron later joins the Adour river which flows out to sea near Biarritz.

The water wasn't particularly warm, but very clear. They are quite a picture as they flow through Oloron over waterfalls and under bridges.

Reports from the France foreign field

2010-07-24T20:07:00.001+02:00

Generally in July we hide from the oppressive heat of the summer, this week however we took advantage of the protective cloud cover and headed for the winding lanes of southwest France.

Ours is the privilege of sharing in the preaching work in the English foreign field in a particularly beautiful part of the world. It's not South America here. People don't queue for Bible studies yet, however people everywhere deserve the opportunity to hear the good news in their own language.

I'm a native English speaker with a New Zealand or a British accent (depending on who you ask.) I moved here a couple of years ago after a couple of French friends came to New Zealand to learn to speak English in order to do this work. They encouraged us to join them and so - somehow - we ended up here.

Moving to another country brings a number of rich experiences. As I think of them I will relate them here - like the time a sheep farmer pulled a knife on us miles from anywhere. Perhaps I'll write about how tubing was introduced to Europe, rafting in the Gave d'Oloron, skiing on the Pyrénées, or surfing in the Atlantic Ocean.

DISCLAIMER: If I include photos of people skiing in the Pyrénées or surfing in the Atlantic - they are probably of someone else. I can do tubing.