Risking.
I looked around then put the cap back on the highlighter. Nine-hour tealights from Ikea are set ablaze. And Laughing Buddha smiles down at them. A tiny lamp glows in the corner of my desk, which is actually our dining table. The lamp sits atop a stack of books: Paris – an Inspiring Tour Through ...
French Life Friday: The Green Velvet Chair
I didn’t mean to do it. I didn’t mean to open that can of worms. But there I was—in my pink plaid pyjama pants—watching in horror and amazement as the computer mouse tucked under my hand began clicking and moving seemingly all on its own. I had to face the facts: I was googling “Paris ...
French Life Friday: Eau de France
I want to return home new. I want to be a new woman. Vivacious. Alluring. Bold. Feminine, but not dainty. I wanted to be French when I got back on the plane to fly home. This was part of my secret plan for the time I would spend in the southwest corner of France, midway ...
French Life Friday: Champagne Apocalypse
Finally, finally after three years of fretting over when to drink a gleaming bottle of Amour de Deutz 1999 Champagne, the answer is obvious: now. I love bubbles. Bubbles of all kinds: soapy, frothy, foamy, bubble-bath-y, summer bubble blowing with kids in the sunshine…. and champagne. And here’s where the snobbery enters. It must be ...
French Life Friday: Christmas in Paris
To stroll through Paris is gift enough, but to happen upon the beautiful Place Vendome bedecked with glistening Christmas ornaments? Wondrous. I wish I could gloat that the photo was my own and I had the pleasure of experiencing this Christmas dream in the flesh. Alas. Not true. The photo belongs to Carla Coulson, the ...
I bit off my nails (most of them, anyway).
Change is afoot. It’s in the air. There’s nowhere to hide. Something is simmering in me. Something wants to express. And I’m not letting it out. Yet.
French Life Friday: Parisian Social Stationery
Books, paper and pens turn me into a ravenous beast. I can’t get enough. Visiting a proper paper shop—especially a traditional stationer’s lair—is likely to send me into fits of bliss and I can easily foresee myself fainting with delight…
French Life Friday: Why Are Window Shutters in France Always Pastel Blue?
It’s impossible to ignore. Nearly every window shutter in the south of France—spanning from east to west—is painted a très particular blue. The blue is unmistakable. Strangely, it manages to be milky, thick and luminous, all at once. It is its own kind of blue….. a pastel blue. It is ancient. Familiar. During my months ...
French Life Friday: Hemingway & Paris
Why do we want to visit the actual place someone important-to-us has been, or a place where an important-to-us event played out? Surely it should be enough to read about the place, hear about it, see photos of the person or understand the event through others… But it is not. I want to visit the ...
French Life Friday: Not Friday At All
French Life Friday came and went. I did not post. Hmpf. This is a first since I started, months ago. I’m not sure how to feel. In fact, I don’t really feel much at all. I am happily indifferent. Relaxed. At least, for my part. I do regret not doing what I set out to ...
French Life Friday: My (Real) French Cat
Sure, I was jet-lagged, but I couldn’t be so delirious as to see my favourite feline who had passed away years ago in Canada, here, on the chair out front of my hotel in France… My bloodshot eyes stared in disbelief and I motioned to Hubby to come witness the miracle. There she was, curled ...
French Life Friday: A Most Elegant Rail Journey from Paris to Versailles
I’m a sucker for the romance and slow-travel appeal of journeying by rail (even if recent SNCF experiences were slightly traumatizing, I’m holding on to the ideal). My dear uncle clearly knows this about me and alerted me to a most elegant new rail experience aboard the Paris to Versailles RER train. The rail cars ...
French Life Friday: Car Rentals in France
Usually it’s the dreamy, romantic aspects of France that I share with you on French Life Fridays. But today, I’ve got some practical bits for you. Let’s just say, if, theoretically one were to be in Nice, France, say, last month or so, and perhaps one had not planned ahead in securing a car rental, ...
Open Letter: People Who Say, “Must be nice.”
Above: having a “nice” time in Vernazza, Italy Open Letter (which might be offensive) about the People Who Say, “Must be nice,” Side A Screw you. Don’t say to me, “Must be nice,” when you have no clue what it took for me to get the thing which you clearly think is ‘nice.’ You don’t ...
French Life Friday: Flop
Was it Tony Bennett who sang that he left his heart in San Francisco? Well, I think I left my brain in France. The dizziness and “am-I-walking-on-a-boat?” feelings have not subsided all week and my thoughts are unfocused and skitter-scattered everywhere. Maybe my mind is still sitting by the pool on a continent across the ...
Jumbled Thoughts.
I can’t seem to string together a coherent thread of thoughts. It’s all fragments. I look at one sentence. I think I see a theme. I try to write the next (logical) sentence. But what comes out has a different message. And the thread splits. Then I have four different draft posts floating around. And ...
French Life Friday: la Fraise, la Vie à la Française
How is it possible that something so simple and seemingly identical to what can be had in North America, can be so much more fantastic in France? Case study: Strawberries & Cream Cheese on Toast, in France. The glossy strawberry goodness seen in the photo here was assembled, snapshot and eaten on location in Gascony, ...
French Life Friday: Le Comptoir Familial, Nice
In the maze of cobbled alleys in Old Nice we happened upon a most delightful petite shop, Le Comptoir Familial. Loaded with soaps, salts & spices both local (lavender) and exotic (Moroccan Rose salt!), the perfumed air floated out into the street. Every flavour and colour could be had, and for just a few euros. ...
French Life Friday: Villa, Anyone?
I’ve been manifesting my ass off the past few months, with the ultimate prize as a villa in the country in the south of France. And, voilà! It seems to have materialized in more than fantastic form.
French Life Friday: Aix-en-Provence
Oh…. the dappled sunlight of Aix-en-Provence… A little piece of me is still wandering the boulevards and splashing her fingers in the fountain that spills hot springs water… I’m still trying to find adjectives worthy of describing the light. Shimmery? Opalescent?…. Nothing seems quite accurate, perhaps there is no English word for it. Perhaps there ...