Restoration Friday, 7 January The 6th of January seems a date destined to mark important moments in our lives. Fortunately, in the private sphere, it has more positive connotations than in the public, where it may yet go down in the history books as the day democracy in America received a
Told You So Friday, 17 December “Stop being such a pessimist.” “I’m not being a pessimist. I’m being a realist.” This exchange occurred between my husband David and me on several occasions last summer, i.e., every time someone asked us when the renovation project on our house in the Perche
Long Live Duality Friday, 3 December I've been going to the dentist a lot lately, thus giving me occasion to consider a particularity of the French medical world. Doctors here are highly professional, but their context is often quite personal. Rather than being situated in sterile, neon-lit anonymity, the cabinets médicaux I visit
Paris Poubelle Friday, 19 November “Paris is a rubbish bin.” Thus spoke Stéphane Bern in a recent front-page interview in the daily newspaper, Le Parisien. Calling Paris une poubelle made a splash not just because he’s a media personality and President Macron’s guru for France’s cultural heritage. A lot
Plant Me Friday, 5 November Maybe it was the travel, an activity that now seems almost unnatural to me. Maybe it was just the contrast between the two destinations, Arles one weekend and Vienna the next, the first city intimate, winding and narrow, the other outsized and of Habsburg imperial design. Long
Full Circle Friday, 22 October Late last year our son William joined the Covid-inspired urban exodus and moved from Paris to Arles, where his girlfriend Margaux was already living and where he'd spent the various lockdowns during the pandemic. We visited for the first time last weekend. As the high-speed TGV train
A Room of My Own Friday, 8 October Something wonderful has occurred the last couple of weeks: for the first time in years—since we started living half-time in Berlin in 2013—I’ve got my old Paris rhythm back. The beat is not complicated: reasonably uninterrupted days where I work mornings, and in the
Birthdays Friday, 24 September My birthday is in April, but I got my present late this year. Daughter Georgina and son Christopher, born on the 19th and 15th of September respectively, decided that they wanted to spend theirs together and chez nous. With brother William, plus partners, plus newly minted grand-daughter
Seasonal News Friday, 10 September In times as out of joint as ours, why wouldn't summer wait until September to appear? Certainly August here in the Perche showed scant sign of the season, being cool, often windy or rainy and not everything I cracked it up to be in terms of a
Confession Friday, 27 August In my many blog posts over the last year about the renovation of our property in the Perche, there is one element of the project that I have studiously avoided, both textually and visually. Rather like tiptoeing around the elephant in the room. And it is large,
Request Granted Friday, 13 August When I pushed ‘Publish’ two weeks ago, it was with a limp finger. I was not completely satisfied with the blog I’d just written and not happy with myself either. Quiet, Please, seemed unfinished, missing a descriptive detail here, a clarifying thought there, but I pushed
Quiet, Please Friday, 30 July Incessant noise hews the mellow summer air and crushes the ability to think. In Paris yesterday, hands over my ears, I stared at our kitchen wall, expecting it to crumble at any minute under the deafening, juddering drilling from next door. In the Perche, the hammering and
Grains of Sand Too many grains of sandFriday, 8 July William Blake may have been able to see a World in a Grain of Sand, but I need something a little bigger to encapsulate my Paris life, which last Saturday 3 July clocked in at 40 years, close to the Eternity evoked by
Deconstruction Friday, 4 June The last couple of months, we have been attentive observers at an archaeological dig. Or so it has often seemed, since the re-haul of our old house got underway early April. Part One of our renovation project in the Perche transformed a 19th century barn into living
Lost Time Friday, 22 May Two days ago, I had a Proustian moment. The reverberating memory in my case did not involve a spongy cake; rather, it was conjured by a trip to the Préfecture de Paris. For those of you unfamiliar with Marcel Proust's A la recherche du temps perdu (In
Semi-Detached Friday, 7 May One recent lockdown evening, I watched the new film version of Rebecca on Netflix. Based on Daphne du Maurier's 1938 novel, it's the story of a young woman who becomes the second wife of the wealthy Max de Winter after his first, apparently beloved wife's tragic death.
Nesting Friday, 23 April I’ve been thinking about the swallows. As regular readers know, we displaced a large family of them when we began to convert a barn into living space last year out here in the Perche. Before the works started, while we were locked down last April, David
What About the Garden Before - 13 April 2019Friday, 9 April If our house weren’t at the end of the lane, we might have driven right by it. Such were the changes to its outward appearance when we recently returned from a long trip to London. We had been warned. Claire, our green
When Dreams Really Do Come True, Part II* Moving? Again?Friday, 26 March On Tuesday evening, we walked through the newly opened passage and our hearts fell into our dusty shoes. The long-awaited move into the renovated barn was taking place the next day. Cleared and ready, the space was not. No room for Carl the piano here.
Mira-cle The Fleming-Kotharis and the Arnolfini Friday, 12 March “What if she’s late?” Georgina asked when we were planning a month-long London trip to coincide with the birth of her and Amal’s baby, our grand-daughter. An astute point from the mother-to-be. Humans can land on Mars and engineer
Compelling Motives Friday, 19 February It felt like we were preparing for a dangerous, perhaps impossible mission. All week long I was amassing staples – oil, pasta, tins of tuna and tomatoes. Closer to departure, I bought perishables and David stocked up on another essential, wine. When not shopping and packing, I was
Overturning Earth Friday, 5 February “By the end of next week,” our green guru Claire said, “it’s going to look like Verdun.” That was in early November last year. The indoor renovation of our property in the Perche had been going on for months, and it was finally, much to David’
Four Years On Friday, 15 January If you saw the above photo while still deranged with grief over the recent death of your last beloved lost dog, would you have been able to resist saving her from the pound? If you are normally a responsible, rational adult, the answer to the above question
Looking for the Light Friday, 1st January For the last weeks, it seems I have been living almost constantly in the dark. I wake and work and walk Tasha before the sun comes up, and often don’t go outside again until the dog’s late afternoon promenade, when the day is well on
The Netflix Life Friday, 11 December In the sweet and funny 1993 film Groundhog Day, Bill Murray plays Phil Connor, a curmudgeonly weatherman sent to small town Punxutawny, Pennsylvania to cover the eponymous event.* A snowstorm retains him in the town and, it turns out, in time: he keeps waking up to the
