Tea or Coffee: the Blog of Chateau de Jonvilliers - Château de Jonvilliers - Bed & Breakfast and Self-Catering - Near Chartres, Versailles and Rambouillet

Monday

01Feb2010

Winter Scene

Monday, February 1, 2010 at 8:44AM

I spotted these icicles along the banks of the stream that runs through our woods.

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Friday

15Jan2010

Welcome to our new website. Well, technically speaking, it's the same site, just a new design. Anyway, I've spent the past couple weeks getting this new design ready. Most of the changes aren't really visible to the naked eye.

The goals, based mainly on feedback from guests, were to speed up the load times, simplify blogging, make it easier to add new content and change the design, and make it iPhone-friendly.

This last point was the most difficult. Paradoxically, Apple's web-building tools aren't well adapted to making iPhone-friendly sites. But in the end, we were able to do just about everything we wanted. So, take a look around and let us know what you think. We hope you'll find it does all this, and more.

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Wednesday

13Jan2010

Charming French Traditions: Les Voeux

Wednesday, January 13, 2010 at 2:14PM

Ever heard of the French tradition of "les voeux"? Roughly translated as "greetings" (a greetings card is a carte de voeux) it's an annual ritual that takes place in January. First, you present your "voeux" to friends and family the first time you see them in the New Year. Every conversation starts with some version of "best wishes for the New Year, good health, etc."

Every mayor holds a town voeux ceremony (ours was last Sunday and Virginie was there in her role as town councilor). Depending on the size of the town, he or she may hold several: one for city employees, one for the public, etc.

The same scene is repeated all the way up the ladder of power, from the mayor to the deputy to the senator and all the way to the President. He is subjected to a grueling "voeux" marathon. He travels around the country presenting his "voeux" (in the form of a agenda-laden speeches) to the different sectors of French society: from businesses to the media, healthcare to education, art and culture to the army, justice and legislators, farmers, unions and religious communities. I'm sure I'm forgetting a few.

Anyway, here's my chance to wish you our "meilleurs voeux" for 2010.

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Thursday

07Jan2010