International Women's Day - March 8th, this year and every year

Problem
International Women's Day passed by and I didn't note it. I am a woman every day of the year. However, my friend Jilliana wrote a comment on Facebook on a photo of myself and a friend, so I thought I'd make a note now, in order to be prepared when it comes around next year.

Answers
People I should note:
1 Myself, my mother, grandmother, aunts, sister-in-law, niece by marriage.
2 Famous women I learned about in school: Florence Nightingale; Grace Darling.
3 Famous authors (in their day one might have said authoresses): (alphabetically by surname) Jane Austen; Charlotte Bronte.

4 Women in science: Marie Curie, pioneer in X-rays.

Tips
International Women's Day - a good day to write about and visit and re-visit homes of famous women:
Homes of famous women which I have visited and written about:
UK Charlotte Bronte, Haworth, Yorkshire, England, UK.

Jane Austen house, Bath, England, UK.
A BBC website shows a video of Jane's Austen's desk and around her home.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-16302982
Other BBC websites show supposed paintings of her, an analysis of the family nose in pictures of other members of her family, and a waxwork. I suppose eventually they will look for her skull and get a recreation of what she would have looked like.

Anne Frank House, Amsterdam, Netherlands.

Most men do not live in isolation. So visiting the home of a famous man you are likely to learn about his mother, wife, fiancee or lover, daughter, employee, servant.

For example, visiting the Marcel Proust museum in Prague, Czech republic, I was interested to read about the girlfriends he ski not marry, especially the last one who stayed with him at the sanitarium where he died.

Living women I admire:
Catherine Lim, author, Singapore.
Angela Lansbury, actress, UK and USA, my namesake.

More in Wikipedia.

Angela Lansbury

French literary words: nom de plume and more

In literature we find many French words.
I shall search for a pen to write a novel under a pen name. If I can remember where I put the pen.

á la recherche du temps perdus - searching for the lost past (title of Marcel Proust's novel)
bon mot - good word or witty word
bonjour Tristesse - hello sadness
madeleine - the cake eaten by Marcel Proust which starts his daydream of the lost past
mot juste - right word or exact word or precise word
nom de plume - pen name
roman á clés - mystery (literally novel with a key)

Angela Lansbury, author

France where you can eat a Madeleine for Breakfast and follow the Proust trail

A madeleine is traditionally eaten in France for breakfast, with coffee, and it's claim to cultural fame is that it is eaten by Marcel Proust at the start of his trilogy A La  R e t o u r Du Temps Perdu, translated as (recalling or returning to) Memories of Times Past. 

I ate a madeleine for the first time at breakfast at a small hotel in the Loire valley, not knowing I was a short distance from the factory, which you can see from the packet is on Contres which is Centre, the centre of France.

I was given the Madeleine on the French stand at the World Travel Market exhibition at Excel in London in November 2015. Now, I am surprised but  pleased to see there is no need to travel all the way to France to enjoy a Madeleine. You can order them online from Waitrose (their online website is confusingly called Ocado), as well as buying madeleines from Tesco and Sainsbury's. 

The cakes cost is currently (November 2015) about £2 for 7 pieces. The little sponges come in two flavours, plain and chocolate.

Of course there is something very satisfying about eating a Madeleine in France. 

If you are interested in Marcel Proust, you can visit, eat in or stay in the Grand Hotel in C a b o u r g where he lived from 1907 to 1914, and follow a Proust trail nearby around the clifftop coastal road where plaques at various points relate to Marcel Proust. Proust is known as the father of the modern French novel.

It's handy to have a reminder of some French words, translating the nutritional information on the packet.

arome - aroma / flavour

b e u r r e - butter

blé - wheat

bonne - good

energie - energy

farine - flour

f r a i s - fresh

nutrionnelles - nutritional

o e u f s - eggs

poudre - powder

sucres - sugars

http://en.normandie-tourisme.fr/articles/cabourg-387-2.html (Grand Hotel, C a b o u r g, Normandy.)

(Spell check note: The spell checker tried to turn C a b o u r g into cyborg and R e t o u r into detour. That is why I have needed to insert spaces.)

If you are interested in French, I write a post on French language two or three times a week. Please follow my blogs, like me on Facebook and link to me on LinkedIn.

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author, speaker, teacher of English and French.