The Folly

Place des Vosges

ballycroy — Sat, 31 Dec 2011 05:20:44 +0000

So very beautiful. It was here we found the courtyard with the Mole Hill. Art galleries that make the mouth water. Designers. And in wandering through one of the courtyards – residents identified on their buzzers only by inititals. Which tells one all one really needs to know about who might have an apartment at Place des Vosges.

Just lovely. Even in winter.

A few pictures

ballycroy — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 20:18:02 +0000

Roof Line. Fire escape?

Lunch

Windowsill

Place Dauphine

Mole Hill

Flowers on the street.

City of the Dead and the Permanent Residents of Paris

ballycroy — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 07:40:34 +0000

The day I missed. Dang. Although the Catacombs was not for me in any event. Although I would very much have liked to have seen this – I was not prepared for the very narrow, winding and enclosed staircase that is the exit. Nope. Just thinking about it makes me feel anxious.

H’s photos.

6 million souls.

But I am sad that I missed a return trip to Pere-Lachaise.

Darn it – I really wanted to see this subway stop. And this would be a ..?

Rodin and Angelina’s

ballycroy — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 06:47:33 +0000

This was Wednesday. Sadly Thursday went up in smoke for me. But Wednesday was grand. We paid a visit to the Rodin Museum – which I had visited before and loved. The gardens even in winter are lovely.

Roses in December. While we walked a gardener was slowly clipping off the last blooms.

Then we walked back to Rue de Rivoli and found a place famous for its hot chocolate. All but M pronounced it a worthwhile once in a lifetime experience. Essentially piping hot melted chocolate with a dash of creme. M sipped. Noted that it was too much like pudding for her taste. And will be giving the chocolat chaud a miss for the balance of the trip.

Angelina’s. The place of chocolat chaud. Is right next door to another book store bearing a plaque advising that it was the first english language bookstore on the Continent. Galignani. We spend more happy time browsing shelves. I have tried to think of an Ontario equivalent. Nope. There isn’t one.

Honestly – it is the most beautiful of cities. I thought we would go and see the water lilies after lunch. Sadly the line here too stretched to the horizon. In light drizzle it seemed unwise.

Above – a small section of the Gates of Hell.

Thursday I woke with a cold and a fever. Which seems bloody unfair. Tim and H headed out to the Catacombs. They waited over two hours to enter the City of the Dead. Then they headed off to my favourite cemetery. Concluding, correctly, that if could not go myself I would want them to go to wander its streets.

On the way to the Catacombs

ballycroy — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 15:30:43 +0000

We found approximately three hundred people lines up – winding down the street and around and around the corner and around another corner. At 60 visitors an hour it was not an attractive prospect. We left. Walked up (or down?) to St. Michel in search of St. Germain and lunch at Deux Magots.

On the way.

We had lunch here. Don’t ask. Really. But let me say that the people watching was out of this world.

A park dedicated to the great explorers.

And Luxembourg Gardens without her finery.

Shakespeare and Company

ballycroy — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 09:43:15 +0000

Refuge of the Lost Generation. Where Ulysses was first published. Still a refuge for writers in Paris. H purchased Christmas gifts and an exquisite edition of poems by Pablo Neruda – Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair.

Below a picture of H leaving the Antiquarian section of the store. In the window a first edition of Hemingway’s A Moveable Feast. 160 Euros.

In the afternoon, on the way back from the Tower, we walked to Notre Dame. The line up to get in stretched around the Cathedral.

My favourite picture of the day. Nuns outside Notre-Dame. Please note the end of the line… Taking photographs of the Cathedral with a telephoto lens.

Bookmarks

ballycroy — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 09:15:23 +0000

If you don’t read the fine print. If you hurry through. You may end up with two sets of tickets to the Eiffel Tower. Just suggesting that it is possible. Unlikely perhaps. But possible.

But such was my experience. So we made two trips yesterday to that famous tower and saw the city spread out before us at 10:30 am and again at 9:00 pm

The fact is that it was H who stopped to take the iconic photograph in the morning from the Trocadero. (No accents – working on the Mac – all asleep – no assistance to be had.) I will add H’s far superior photo later today.

Photo editing is dismal. I have absolutly no idea what I am doing with this computer.

And the photograph I have wanted to take all my life. Of course when I have the chance I am far too taken with what I see with the eye.

Crepes.

Three of them on the Trocadero.

Chair No 1

ballycroy — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 01:58:46 +0000

Rest easy. I will not do four chair posts.

Every chair however does have its own story. In this three years did make a difference. Three years ago I was luke warm about fluted backs on chairs. No longer the case. But I had completely forgotten I had asked him to get rid of the fluted back. Oh well. Just an excuse to need another chair.

This chair came from the Ballycroy garage sale. Truth be told I didn’t actually buy it. I traded it. I had two identical 1930s armchairs. I only really wanted one. So I switched them out and we sold the 1930s chair instead.

Haven’t made a final decision about its final resting place. It is in the living room settling in.

I do wish I had taken a picture of them all coming the door – like a bouquet of flowers. So grand.

More about the house…

ballycroy — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 12:38:11 +0000

In July 2008 we left the house in the country for the last time. And moved to the wee house – the 500 square foot bungalow where we would spend ~~five~~ eighteen months before finally joyfully moving into the house on the Little Street. Just before we moved we took a truck full of furniture, 4 armchairs of the smallish sort and a couch to amazing upholstery guy – who at the time resided just outside Orangeville.

There was as you know absolutely no room in the wee house for 4 armchairs, no matter how diminutive, and certainly no room for a couch. So the furniture stayed with amazing upholstery guy. Flash forward a couple of years and I place a call to amazing upholstery guy only to find the number not in service. Ahhhh. I remember suddenly that he said he was thinking of moving – to the Kingston area. Searching memory banks and internet (what on earth did we do before the internet?) I came up with a relative in the Orangeville area. Thank god for distinctive last names. I found a brother who gave me a phone number. Eureka!

This past weekend the furniture came home. Most importantly my mother’s couch came home. All dressed in its new finery. In the week before the furniture arrived I would have been biting my nails if this was something I did. I remembered vaguely the fabric I had chosen almost three years ago. Sort of. I envisioned hating it. I envisioned having so moved past the choices I made.

Eureka again. Not so. I love it all and it fits just right as if it was all made to be here. Happy happy about that.

We have not seen the couch without a child reclining on it all week. No idea where they were when I snapped these pictures.

Sadly the picture also shows the trim painting that remains to be finished. All in good time.

Now in the Globe and Mail!

ballycroy — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 13:22:20 +0000

Again with a story about Weston. The little village that could. A place where most everybody knows your name. Or failing that your dog’s name. One of Canada’s most diverse communities. Honestly – what I can’t understand is why all my friends are not packing up to move to Weston:)

Picture is from the Globe and Mail article.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/home-and-garden/real-estate/buying-and-selling/old-weston-villages-new-wave/article2232417/