Travelling and a growing family

I never thought that I would take a pause from blogging for such a long time. Since we visited Prague we haven’t stopped. We were mainly visiting towns throughout the west of France and after that, a couple of trips to England.

 I really don't remember where this tree was

 What happens when you run around the park without your shoes

A seashell penguin

Bridge we travelled over in Brittany

The trip we made to the UK in April was really special as we met our month old twin granddaughters! Dom never does things by halves. They are non-identical, I‘m sad that we can’t see more of them, but we get to see lots of photos and sometimes a video. Dom and J-M, Lise and Sofia moved back to France at the end of August. Unfortunately it’s more complicated to visit them and the girls than it was when they lived in the UK.

Their parents don’t want pictures of them on the internet so I can’t share with you how beautiful they are.

 Like a lot of places we had a long, hot summer, excellent for hollyhocks.

The 'Lac de Frace'

Towards the end of September we went for a walk at the Lac (lake) de Frace. It’s not far from where we live but we’ve only visited once before. The weather was good, it was early evening and the main season was finished so that it was very peaceful. We almost had the place to ourselves!

September

Well, what have I been up to.? Both Olivier and then Dom and J-M came to visit. Dom and J-M are now living in the UK and Dom has started work. She also went off to a conference in Malta at the beginning of the month. She said that the weather was very hot over there.

Olivier popped home for a weekend as there is a holiday mid-August. He seems to be happy and this year his sessions at university will be 4 weeks long alternated with work for 4 weeks.

Christian, who I’m unsuccessfully trying to call Chris, helped me to install Windows 10. He used team viewer to take over my computer. I’m used to Window’s 10 now – it’s not much different to Windows 7. Mahjong and Spider Solitaire aren’t there anymore. All my scores over the last 4 years have been lost. There is Spider Solitaire, but it’s not the same. I’ve managed to find the original Shanghai Dynasty Mahjong that I used to play. I need a bigger version nowadays so that I can see the pattern on the tiles.

All of a sudden the weather has turned Septemberish. We still have lovely sunny days, but with very cold mornings. The washing doesn’t dry in a couple of hours outside anymore.

 Some blue sky for you, taken in the last week of August. Even the leaves aren’t as green now…

Glory

This time last week we were still in the UK. MIL has had a stroke and we visited her in hospital several times. I stayed in the car on the last visit as my throat felt prickly and I was coughing (I now know why).

Winter Warmer, the soup was butter bean and garlic

We stayed with Christian and J a couple of nights and we went to the Cake Hole again for lunch. This time I had the Winter Warmer.

MIL planted this tree nearly 50 years ago.  It's a Red Maple and really beautiful

An Oak tree across the road

For the rest of the time we stayed at MIL’s house which was very strange as she was not there. It’s the first time we’ve been in the UK in winter in 30 years; I couldn’t get over how beautiful the trees are without leaves.

We saw an incredible sunset while driving back on evening, but by the time I’d got out of the car and run upstairs to take a picture it had almost gone.

When we were taking off on our way out to the UK I saw a Glory – a lovely name for a circular rainbow in the clouds. It was beautiful. I couldn’t get at my phone to take a pic.

A few days in England

The middle of September found us in England for a few days. We visited Christian and J and explored their new house which is lovely. Christian looks as if he’s heading for a career in interior design. He took us to an old school which is now a huge antiques shop where he finds old furniture which he turns into other things. He has the gift of seeing what could be, rather than what is. I wish I could do it.

We had lunch at a lovely place called “The Cake Hole”*, everything is fresh and local. I chose the cheese platter. We resisted finishing off with cake as we were going out for a meal in the evening.

Spot the deer

We walked off our lunch in the grounds of a local stately home. As always plenty of pictures of trees. I love trees. Trees don't grow as big as this where we live.

Christian and J took us to Ikea. Our first visit; a bit over whelming, but it was fascinating. Fortunately, we had to think of getting things home on the plane, so we didn’t buy anything.

We then went and stayed with Rob’s mother for a couple of days. She was happy to be driven around or taken out in her wheelchair. Christian joined us for a day too. We also saw my mum but didn’t really have time for much else.

 We popped in to the Colwall Coffee Lounge and had an English breakfast on the last day. I chose the vegetarian version.

I only put on 300g after all of the food we ate!

 *Christian took a lovely picture of Rob and I at The Cake Hole which I’ve used part of for my new profile picture.

Hot weather

Rob was on holiday last week so it was a busy one. On Wednesday we went with Olivier to Saumur to help him clean up his apartment and bring the rest of his belongings home. Not an easy task as it was very hot and humid. He bought us lunch at Mcdonald’s and I tried a chicken burger with avocado sauce – delicious, needless to say I ate a salad with it. We finished the cleaning in time to go for a drink before the inventory.

Rob and I spent a very pleasant hour waiting for him to finish in the park at the top of his road. We found a shady spot to sit and listen to water running – bliss on a hot day.

I love trees

I had a walk around the park and discovered a charming alley. Eventually the arches will be covered in roses.

On Friday we went to visit one of Rob’s colleagues who is working at Georges Clemenceau’s holiday home in Saint-Vincent-sur-Jard, Vendée. There is an excellent gift shop, I bought a rose scented drawer sachet and some rose scented sweets in a pretty tin. We also bought presents for up and coming family birthdays. Again, it was a very hot day, the sea looked very tempting.

On the way home we drove through storms, the temperature dropped by 15°C within an hour. There was a lot of rain once we arrived home. It disappeared very quickly and by Saturday you wouldn’t guess it had rained at all.

I think that I shall never see A poem as lovely as a tree

Whenever we go back to England I'm always struck by the greenery and how large the trees are! C & J took us on a walk through the fields which I thoroughly enjoyed!

 Would you believe that this is a public footpath?

We also crossed a golf course (on a footpath) and the golfers very kindly waited for us to go by.

Trees 

I think that I shall never see 

A poem lovely as a tree.

A tree whose hungry mouth is prest 

Against the earth's sweet flowing breast; 

A tree that looks at God all day, 

And lifts her leafy arms to pray; 

A tree that may in summer wear 

A nest of robins in her hair; 

Upon whose bosom snow has lain; 

Who intimately lives with rain. 

Poems are made by fools like me, 

But only God can make a tree. 

Joyce Kilmer, 1913

Nature notes and stuff

Summer seems to have arrived within a week of winter. I’m sure that we’re going to pay for it. Strange things have happened in the garden, I had tulips and daffodils where I didn’t plant any. I think the birds must have uprooted and dropped bulbs at some point. There were lots of violets on the lawn too. One morning a couple of weeks ago, I opened the shutters just as it was getting light and I saw an owl on his way home. Rob and I stood in the park one afternoon when the leaves weren’t quite out and watched a squirrel make its way along the tops of 5trees before losing track of it. I’ve had my phone ready every time I walk through the park hoping to get a picture of the jays. no sign of them this year, nor across the road.

Dom came for the weekend. We went window shopping together and I showed her my short cut to change buses which takes me past a row of birch trees. She explained to me that they were the only trees that would grow in region of Russia where she stayed a few years ago. She and J-M will be back in a couple of weeks. I know they are making a special effort as they both have a lot of studying and preparation to do. Dom is preparing what is called her ‘mémoire‘ in French. I don’t know what the word is in English, I know it’s not a theses. I just discovered the difference: At her level of studies Dom hasn’t created a concept or new theory yet. This only exists in France it seems. J-M has finished his written exams and is preparing for his oral exams. They have a good system. They leave home every day and work in the library, very businesslike.

Olivier is home for two weeks before his exams. Not much sign of him revising… When he arrived home he’d got a copy of the Financial Times in his hand, so I suppose that counts

Next week I’ve got exam supervision, that seems to have come round again very quickly

Third Forth time lucky

Since Friday I’ve been trying to write a post about our visit to Tours last Thursday. I’ve finished the first sentence a couple of times only to be interrupted by major events like tea making or urgent ironing..

Anyway, we went to Tours for the viewing of an upcoming auction. This time we took an earlier train so that we could explore the historic part of the town during the morning. We weren’t disappointed. It’s lovely. We had a great lunch too, a little way from the very touristy part – which just seems to be restaurants and very crowded when we went back later. During the afternoon we went off to the viewing. Lots of good postcards and albums, it was hard to prepare a list, if only we could afford to buy all of them.

The best part came afterwards. We had a little time left before the train home and wondered through a little park. My attention was drawn by a huge cedar tree. Just like the one in Nimes. The cedar tree in Tours is just over two hundred years old and needs a bit of support, but is magnificent nonetheless. Rob called me over to see a poster on the wall. It was Fritz! I’d forgotten that I was intending to find out where Fritz was. When I finished reading the poster I turned around and there he was, on display. Fritz was big as elephants go. The link to my post about him, explaining his sad story with a picture is at the bottom.

When I’d finished admiring him it was time to get the train. It wasn’t too crowded, but we were still glad to be liberated at la Rochelle station. Just as we came out of the station my phone rang. Dom phoned to give me her news about what a lovely time she was having in Chicago. She was making useful contacts and her work has been appreciated by the right people. She’s got some pictures of some paintings by Monet which are in a gallery somewhere in Chicago, but I’ll probably have to wait until after her trip to England to see them. She remembered my copy of the Chicago Sun Times.. we talked for five minutes.

Since then she’s confirmed she got home safely on Saturday. I expect she’s dealing with the effects of jetlag as I write.

Now all I have to do is find the time to get this posted to my blog and wait to see if our bids were accepted. (It was then time to go for a walk so I had to wait yet again – hopefully I can do it now)

Cedar tree image

Cedar tree in Nimes

Fritz