Provençal expression

avé bèu tèms, bello ouro

Weather and Time

Literal translation

To have fine weather, fine hour.

Meaning

to have all the time in the world

Explanation

This double phrase pairs two images of abundant available time: tèms, time in the sense of duration, and ouro, the hour, each preceded by the adjective bèu, fine or beautiful, agreeing in the masculine and then the feminine according to the noun it qualifies. Avé bèu tèms, to have fine weather, and bello ouro, fine hour, reinforce one another to strengthen a single idea: having enough time in reserve that nothing needs rushing. Despite the appearance of the word tèms, the expression is not about the weather: it describes a state of temporal ease and availability, that of someone under no pressure whatsoever. The near-rhyming repetition bèu tèms, bello ouro gives the phrase a proverbial, easily memorised shape, typical of fixed expressions passed down orally. It is used in ordinary register to describe a situation where nothing is urgent, or to gently tease someone who is taking their time while others hurry.

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Other expressions on the same theme

duro que duraras, marcho que marcharasas long as it lasts, it lasts tua lou tèmsto kill time siéu dins mi cinq crousto be between forty and fifty years old un an dins l'autreone year with another, on average A toujou un pet que li courrehe's always got some small nagging worry À cado còup, li toumbo un ueiit never happens