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About Me
New to Digital Scrapbooking, just started in 2019, want to make a record of family stories before my mother passes away. My dad died in 2016. I currently live in Canada but was born and raised in New Zealand, and emigrated to Canada upon marrying my Canadian spouse. Home Country - lets see - New Zealand or Canada? Which to choose? Most of my photos will be from NZ, but any pics of my son will be from Canada. MY IP Address will say that I am in Canada which is fine. My mother and sister are still back in NZ so I will make my home country as NZ for now. For Facebook, I dont check it every day - I am not addicted to FB, and I use a different name for privacy. My image is myself as a child - aged about 2 or 3 years old
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Digital Scrapbook LayoutDescription
Apologies for the VERY LENGTHY Description!!!!
When I was 9 years old my class teacher read a book to us called "A Hundred Million Francs." This is the synopsis.
A bunch of scruffy urchin kids in the backstreets of Paris outwit thieves to uncover the whereabouts of millions of francs stolen from the Paris-Ventimiglia express. Gaby is the leader, but it is super-cool Marion with her collection of stray dogs who is the heart of the gang. It all begins when a local villain offers the children a fortune for their 'horse' - a headless rocking horse, given old tricycle wheels that they 'ride' down the steep cobbled street, but they don't want to part with it. Then, a few days later, the horse is stolen, and so begins an adventure that is full of twists and turns, leading to a satisfying conclusion when the villains receive their comeuppance.
For some reason, I still don't know why - I became hooked on France. I fell in love with the country, the culture, the language, the history and so on. I begged my parents for a french english dictionary, because I wanted to learn how to speak french.
For my 10th Birthday I received a childrens dictionary called "I can read French." It featured a number of characters centred around a tramp named Anatole. And being that this was the 1970s, this dictionary was NOT politically correct.
So I learned a whole lot of words that I could read by sight but I never learned how to pronounce them. Nor did I ever learn any grammar or how to put these words together correctly. Sadly the family kept moving and I was usually changing schools at the wrong time or place.
But I persisted. I can read a large number of words in french, even if I cannot pronounce them correctly or speak proper French.
Even now, more than 40 years later, I still read any books I can get my hands on about France. Especially those books that cover french history.
My favourite parts of France are the southeast regions of Provence and the Languedoc. These regions have a fascinating history that goes back more than 2000 years.
Sadly I have not yet been to France, but one day I will get there...
These books are some of my most favourite books about France.
The Lost King of France uses modern DNA testing to discover what happened to the murdered son of Marie Antoinette.
Four Queens ls the story of 4 french sisters from the Aristocracy of Provence, who all ended up marrying kings and queens of Europe back in the 1200s. The oldest sister Margaret married King Louis IX of France. Eleanor married King Henry III of England. Sanchia Married Henry's brother Richard of Cornwall, who became King of Germany. And the youngest Beatrice, married Louis's brother Charles of Anjou and became Queen of Naples and Sicily.
I can read French is the French Language Word Book I received for my 10th birthday.
A Hundred Million Francs is the same pink cover of the book my class teacher read to me when I was 9 years old.
Marcel's Letters is a more recent history of France during World War 2. This is a fascinating story of French citizens who were "drafted" by the Nazis and sent to Germany to work in certain industries and factories, making armaments, weapons and vehicles for the German Military. One such man named Marcel, sent letters back to his family in France, and a bundle of these letters were discovered in a flea market in Minnesota (USA) of all places. The buyer was a graphic artist and she fell love with the writing, the cursive script, in these letters and began creating a new font from them. At the same time, she was also looking for Marcel's family. She did eventually find them and was able to return the original letters. she also wrote a book about her journey to create the font and find Marcel's family.
Je t'adore France.
Supplies
Pages and elements from The Faded Pages Bundle by Jessica Dunn.
F letter from the AAM freebie Alpha by Kate Hadfield
https://katehadfielddesigns.com/blog/alphabet-freebie/
Font - Comic Sans
Book review
A hundred million francs review - Book depository
https://www.bookdepository.com/Hundred-Million-Francs-Paul-Berna/9780141368719
Book covers
I can read french - from Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Read-FRENCH-First-English-French/dp/B00EN4HANO#
A 100 Million Francs cover - Goodreads
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5967480-a-hundred-million-francs
The Lost King of France - Barnes and Noble
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/lost-king-of-france-deborah-cadbury/1112483767?ean=9781429971447
Marcels Letters cover - from Kobo Books
Four Queens cover - from Goodreads
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- Uploaded Fri, 01/15/2021 - 03:25
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Recent Comments
Very interesting your story!