We're both under the weather -- colds and that sort of thing. It's tiring since we don't sleep very well; hopefully it will be over soon.

Anyway, it gives me time to do some homey things. Two years ago I tried growing some herbs. That went well until most of them died when I forgot to water them. I'm trying it again. I'm growing only 1 herb this time, to minimize confusion. It's chervil, or kervel in Dutch, which is a popular cooking herb in the Netherlands. A few weeks ago I actually dreamt of chervil soup.

Today I spent quite some time on my French. I'm reading my first real French book in years, Salut et Liberté, which is a nice challenge. It's a detective story, 45 pages long, and it's good way of getting (re)started with a language. There is a lot of dialogue, and a story that makes you want to turn the page to see what's going on.

I'm listening to a French radio station at work, and I heard a nice pop song that I could study for pronunciation and vocabulary.

The female singer has a very nice voice, and I like her accent. Turns out that she was born in Ilpendam, the Netherlands, 25 miles from where I grew up. The song is called le chemin, performed by Kyo and Sita.

She may not be the greatest native speaker to imitate, but it's a lovely song nevertheless.