The way we smiled.

Having made promises and promises after last week, Sister 3 went and lost her internet connection and again cannot post. Very inconsiderate of her. So I decided to wade through old family photos to come up with a goodish fit for this week's Gallery theme: Smiles.


Here's my first:

My mother gave me a copy of this photo two years ago. This a picture of my grandmother, myself and tiny Sister3, smiling at each other across something that looks like a big square cake.

You'll have seen this one before if you looked at the About us page. There is a story behind those three very different smiles. Marianne wrote it down in a comment which I'll just copy and paste here.

OK, let the truth be told by, well, me, the "cool sister". The day that picture was taken, Sandrine wouldn't smile, so the photographer was trying to make her smile, he told jokes, made funny faces but nothing would work. Céline, who still hates being shot (with a camera, I mean, not that she would enjoy being shot at, OK, never mind) smiled the same smile, patiently waiting. I, on the other hand, couldn't stop laughing at the photographer's jokes and faces. So that he was simultaneously trying to cheer Sandrine up, making Céline's face move so that she wouldn't get cramps and get me to stop laughing, or at least, shaking. All this with our mother watching and probably secretly wishing to be somewhere else. Every picture has a story behind it, dudes.

 This is how Marianne smiles when not restrained by a mean photographer.

I still don't like it much, but I eventually had to learn how to smile for a photographer. I think I may have used up all my photo smiles on that day...

Oh, one last thing. If you liked this post, would you mind terribly clicking on the RSS feed, here, or the Google connect buttons (top left), or by email at the bottom of this page? And if you didn't like it, you might still want to look around. There's three of us, you know, so you're (almost) bound to find something you like. And then, if you've still got time, you could share this post or stumble it, or both and get in touch with your local tv station to sing our praises. We'll love you forever.

How to write a book - my post at Untemplater

As you're reading this, I'm on the beach. Or at least, I'm probably resting in the hotel room, trying to get Max to lie down a bit, quietly. Because if it's 2pm Turkish time, when this post is scheduled to come out, then it's too hot to be on the beach. We're careful about those things.

But I'm also over at Untemplater, talking about how to write a book. So this is where I come out of the closet and  say that I've written and published one book and have another one under contract. Nothing glamourous. Nothing you need a blog and lots of readers for. They're academic books. But I feel pretty smug when I thing about how I managed to put all these words together by a deadline. They're not the very best words, but, hey, they hang together, more or less.

Check it out here if you like!

If you're over from Untemplater:    

Welcome to the Paris-Ankara Express!

Please take a tour.

First, this is a sister blog. There's three of us, you see.

Except right now we're all off on our summer holiday so there's none of us.

But until we come back, there's plenty you can look at.

First there's lots of amazing photo posts from Sister 3, the one who only blogs in images because we don't allow her to write in English. Every week she takes part in Tara Cain's Gallery over at Sticky Fingers:

Then there's all the Weekend Charter posts where Marianne and I blog about the one exciting topic we choose together, or ask our readers to choose - there and back.

There's the Writing Workshops, mostly Marianne's, and the Weekend Assignments.

And  there's my new Portraits of Autism Series.

We're French, so of course we blog about food! Check out some of our recipes.

Plus a lot of fantastic posts, some of them featuring hot Swedish actors!

Others with Eighteenth Century feminist teenage zombies!

So yes, there's plenty to keep all of you amused should you wish to look around.

And if you like us, then please come back! Why don't you join us by clicking on the RSS widget or adding your pretty face to the collection on the left. And of course: spread the word about us! Facebook, twitter, digg, stumble anything you like - we'd be eternally grateful and love you forever.
Have fun looking around. Please leave comments - I'll answer them as soon as I can get my hands on a internet connection!

We're back!

Before I left for our trip to the south of Turkey, I asked God to give me a sign. Then two things happened.

I'll never know what these things were because as the woman sitting next to me started to type the first bullet point the steward came and asked her to switch her blackberry off.

No, madam, it has to be switched off completely during landing. Please switch it off completely now. Please. Yes, Madam, like that.

Motherhood

This is our entry for Tara's fabulous galleryat sticky fingers. The theme this week is Motherhood.
Please please, forgive the strange ways of speaking (writing) ! My sister Sandrine is not here to translate this week. This is why there will be much more pictures than text this week !

1944, my grand mother with her firstborn, my mum