BELGIUM: TINTIN & NÚRIA'S HOMETOWN

Tintin & Milou

Yesterday was a hard day for The Holmes. They reviewed some modal verbs (Need and Can) and they wrote two Florence’s postcards to MJ. They also practised some Social English and other themes of English grammar while The Grandma was explaining a story about an old friend who she loves a lot and once had to take another path in her life far away from her.

More information: Need & Can

Today, the family has continued its preparation learning some new things about Adverbs of Frequency in comparative and superlative forms; Relative Pronouns and Conditional Tense. After MJ visit, the family has been talking about the convenience of doing the Cambridge Exam with advantages and disadvantages.

More information: Relative Pronouns

The Grandma appreciates the huge effort of her family day after day and trust on them because she knows that they have nothing to lose and the only possible final is success

Tomorrow, The Holmes will recycle with modal verbs, count with their little calculators and play bingo with Luisa Holmes, the croupier, like party’s soul. After this, the family, who is now in Lîdje, are going to travel to London where they’re going to stay some days and where The Queen, an old Grandma’s friend, is waiting for them, in the same way, that The Collins who are going to receive them in Downton Abbey.

More information: Conditional Tense 

By believing in his dreams,

man turns them into reality.

Georges Prosper Remi, Hergé

BRITISH CELEBRITIES (III): ILYENA VASILIEVNA MIRONOVA

Hellen Mirren

Ilyena Vasilievna Mironova (26 July 1945) is an English actress also known as Helen Mirren who was born in Chiswick. Her paternal grandfather was a Russian Colonel who was in the Imperial Russian Army and negotiated an arms deal in Britain when he and his family were stranded during the Russian Revolution. Her father was one of the Queen Victoria’s butchers. Helen studied Speech and Drama and was accepted in the National Youth Theatre and in the Royal Shakespeare Company.

After a successful theatrical career, she changed to TV and cinema. During the filming of White nights, she met her future husband. In this film, she played Galina Ivanova, the Nikolai Rochenko’s ex-girlfriend. He was a soviet dancer who had defected from the Soviet Union. The scene between Rochenko (played by the professional dancer Mikhail Baryshnikov) and Ivanova (Helen Mirren) in the Kirov Theatre of Leningrad (now Saint Petersburg) is one of the most beautiful and touching in the cinema story. Although, Helen considers herself “very anti-monarchist”, she participated in The Queen, where she played the main character of Queen Elizabeth II, winning an Oscar with a memorable interpretation of the British Monarch and she received a Dame Hood in the Order of the British Empire for services to the performing arts in 2003.

More information: Helen Mirren Official Site

As we go down life's lonesome highway
Seems the hardest thing to do is to find a friend or two
A helping hand
Some one who understands
That when you feel you've lost your way
You've got some one there to say "I'll show you".