June 2020

June has been a weird month in the middle of an already weird year.  It's our first month of summer break, but with all the time we spent at home during the lockdown, life has continued to feel strange as we try to have fun and enjoy things while keeping our distance from other people.  As usual, I'm grateful for the discipline of putting this post together because it helps me see that there is a pattern of summer fun forming in this upside-down time, when summer should mean more time with people, not less.

So far we've done a weekly family bike ride in a different location each week.  We had a Lord of the Rings movie marathon.  K.J. and I have taken several walks together, and we took a solo bike ride around Versailles last Monday.  I visited the library for the first time in three months.  We've had FaceTime calls with family and our first outdoor lunch guests in months.  E and I have been cross-stitching, and both kids are watching every single Star Wars show Disney+ is offering.  We started meeting with EIC Ternes again in the gardens near the Eiffel Tower, which means I see La Tour Eiffel at least once a week now, so life can't be all bad, right?

June 1 - a family bike ride to start the summer break

June 2 - a clean-out-the-fridge outside dinner

June 3 - The blurb for this magazine is perfection.

June 4 - a quote from the above magazine that feels very true

June 5 - Day 3 of The Lord of the Rings Marathon

June 6 - After almost three months, our beautiful park re-opened in the second phase of France's deconfinement.

June 7 - Pugh Family Zoom Call

June 8 - Family Bike Ride at Versailles

June 9 - After-Dinner Walk in the Park

June 10 - Lego Frodo cracks me up.

June 11 - Exquisite Garden Rose

June 12 - This little cottage looks so lovely in every season.

June 13 - Brightly-colored Summer Garden

June 14 - If you look closely, you can see two little boys playing during our first church in the park.

June 15 - Family Bike Ride with a Good View of Paris

June 16 - A socially-distanced visit with a friend, who introduced me to the delights of tete de moine cheese.

June 18 - Masked up for our prefecture appointment

June 19 - I was proud of this summer salad.

June 20 - The Longest Day of the Year:  10:00 p.m.

June 21 - Bird's Eye View of Bible Study

June 22 - Morning Date Bike Ride at Versailles

June 23 - J started learning to type correctly.

June 24 - Back in our old neighborhood for the first time in forever

June 25 - The Hottest and Sweatiest Day of the Year

June 26 - FaceTime with Cousins

June 27 - The greenery is looking lush.

June 28 - The Prettiest Church Location Yet

June 29 - Spending more time noticing every nook and cranny of the garden is a positive result of pandemic-living.

June 30 - Costco Trip

Five Quotes, vol. ix

"Nobody can be uncheered with a balloon."
- Piglet, Winnie-the-Pooh by A.A. Milne


"Christopher Robin was sitting outside his door, putting on his Big Boots.  As soon as he saw the Big Boots, Pooh knew that an Adventure was going to happen, and he brushed the honey off his nose with the back of his paw, and spruced himself up as well as he could, so as to look Ready for Anything."
- Winnie-the-Pooh by A.A. Milne


"Adventures are all very well in their place, he thought, but there's a lot to be said for regular meals and freedom from pain."
- Stardust by Neil Gaiman


"The Lament Psalms teach us to pray our inner conflicts and contradictions...They give us permission to shake our fist at God one moment and break into doxology the next."
- Prayer by Richard J. Foster


"We may not see the end from the beginning, but we keep on doing what we know to do.  We pray, we listen, we worship, we carry out the duty of the present moment.  What we learned to do in the light of God's love, we also do in the dark of God's absence."
- Prayer by Richard J. Foster.

Five Quotes, vol. viii

"I allowed him to build the bridge because I dare to believe with the prophet Hosea that the very valley where evil and despair defeat us can become a gate of hope--if there is a bridge."
- Katherine Paterson, Newbery Medal acceptance speech for Bridge to Terabithia


"At this juncture, with the conversation showing every sign of being about to die in awful agonies, an idea came to me.  Tea--the good old stand-by."
- Leave it to Jeeves, P.G. Wodehouse


"...healthy prayer necessitates frequent experiences of the common, earthy, run-of-the-mill variety.  Like walks, and talks, and good wholesome laughter.  Like work in the yard, and chitchat with the neighbors, and washing windows.  Like loving our spouse, and playing with our kids, and working with our colleagues.  To be spiritually fit to scale the Himalayas of the spirit, we need regular exercise in the hills and valleys of ordinary life."
- Prayer:  Finding the Heart's True Home, Richard J. Foster


"We do not need to be shy.  He invites us into the living room of his heart, where we can put on old slippers and share freely.  He invites us into the kitchen of his friendship, where chatter and batter mix in good fun.  He invites us into the dining room of his strength, where we can feast to our heart's delight.  He invites us into the study of his wisdom, where we can learn and grow and stretch. . . and ask all the questions we want."
- Prayer:  Finding the Heart's True Home, Richard J. Foster


"Then would you read a Sustaining Book, such as would help and comfort a Wedged Bear in Great Tightness?"
- Winnie-the-Pooh by A.A. Milne

A little child shall lead them.

One of the hopes of Emmanuel International Church in meeting together in the parks around Paris this summer is that we might be a blessing to those we encounter in the city while we're not meeting in a building.  Speaking English in the middle of France can often lend itself to impromptu conversations with strangers.  It occurs to me this morning that God may have answered that prayer in our group last night in an unexpected way.

It was so exciting to see people again in person yesterday afternoon after months of Zoom calls, and I especially enjoyed seeing the kids reunite.  One little boy in particular is the most joy-filled, exuberant little fellow I have ever met, and he rushed up to greet us excitedly when he arrived at the little spot we claimed in a park near the Eiffel Tower.

All around La Tour Eiffel there are men selling miniature Eiffel Tower replicas in several sizes.  They approach everyone who meets their eyes and some who don't to try to sell a key chain for un euro.  They spend their days selling some, being rejected a lot (much more now I imagine without tourists in the city due to COVID-19), and packing up in a hurry if law enforcement tells them to clear out.  It can't be fun.  Many of these men are from Northern Africa and beyond, far from home and family.

Last night as our church family gathered on picnic blankets, I looked up to see a man walk to the center of our group.  Before anyone could say, "Non, merci." to his offerings, this 3-year-old boy ran straight to him with a huge smile and joyful laughter, wrapping his little arms around this big man's knees, and looked up at him with shining eyes.   The man smiled in surprise and immediately dropped his offerings on the ground and dug out a key chain to give as a gift, free of charge.  To this little boy, this stranger was one of the family, deserving of a happy welcome, and after a day of rejections, I can't help but think that adorable hug and grin was a highlight.

I think I'm going to bring some extra euros to church in the park next week.  Everyone needs a miniature Eiffel Tower or two.

Five Quotes, vol. vii

I finished reading through Tolkien's Lord of the Rings trilogy this week, so this is the last of the Tolkien quotes until I tackle The Silmarillion.  It's unlikely my weekly quotes will ever be as consistently beautiful and timely to a world going through hard things without Tolkien, but I'll carry on anyway.  Here are four quotes that caught my eye in my reading this past week and one thing my daughter said that made me laugh.

I did not read these particular books

this week; I'm just happy to have occasion 

to share a picture of my book collection or

someone else's each week in this post.

"Well, dearest friend, the tree grows best in the land of its sires..."

- Aragorn to Frodo, The Return of the King, J.R.R. Tolkien

"All things now went well, with hope always of becoming still better..."

- The Return of the King, J.R.R. Tolkien

"But Orcs and Trolls spoke as they would without love of words or things; and their language was actually more degraded and filthy than I have shown it...Much the same sort of talk can still be heard among the orc-minded; dreary and repetitive with hatred and contempt, too long removed from good to retain even verbal vigour, save in the ears of those to whom only the squalid sounds strong."

- from The Appendices of The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien

"He didn't like books in which dull, cranky writers describe humdrum events in the very humdrum lives of humdrum people.  Reality gave him enough of that kind of thing, why should he read about it?  Besides, he couldn't stand it when a writer tried to convince him of something.  And these humdrum books, it seemed to him, were always trying to do just that.

Bastian liked books that were exciting or funny, or that made him dream.  Books where made-up characters had marvelous adventures, books that made him imagine all sorts of things."

- The Neverending Story, Michael Ende

"The galaxy would be such a nice place if Palpatine didn't exist."

- Ella after watching The Clone Wars one night

June 18, 2014: The Peak District

This is the day K.J. and I found out we would be moving our little family to North Yorkshire.  After the end of an assessment conference we drove our rental car into the Peak District for a day of exploring and decompressing before flying back to Alabama.

This is my husband carrying my tripod.

The day begins cloudy and overcast, as days often do in England, but beautiful sunshine is coming.  Look at the lovely ferns.  Ferns now remind me of Miss Penelope Lumley from The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place, who frequently taught her pupils about Victorian England's obsession with pteridology.

Do you have landscapes that cause your whole body to exhale?  My body physically relaxes when I'm surrounded by countryside anywhere in the United Kingdom.  Peaks, valleys, seaside cliffs, and even wooded areas--they're all my favorite.

"What IS it about the English countryside--

why is the beauty so much more than visual?

Why does it TOUCH one so?"

- I Capture the Castle, Dodie Smith - 

In Pride and Prejudice Elizabeth and her aunt and uncle must content themselves with the "beauties of Matlock, Chatsworth, Dovedale, or the Peak" when Mr. Gardiner's work keeps them from traveling further north to the Lakes.  This is all we had time for as well:  a walk in the Peaks and a visit to Chatsworth.

We stood at the brink of a new season of our life together, and we were excited.  If I had to speak in Lord of the Ring's terms, maybe I'd call this our Fourth Age.  The Elder days were our brief time together before children, the Second Age was living in Louisville with baby E, the Third Age was Alabama again, and now something new was beginning.  (If it's not obvious I definitely just finished reading through The Lord of the Rings.)  Our ages are a lot shorter than those of beings who live for thousands of years.

E made it to the gates of Chatsworth with K.J. one Sunday when he preached at a church in the Peaks, but we never made a family trip there.  We did, however, take two family trips to the Lakes, so the kids weren't completely deprived.

Five Quotes, vol. vi

"Work of the Enemy!" said Gandalf.  "Such deeds he loves:  friend at war with friend; loyalty divided in confusion of hearts."
- The Return of the King, J.R.R. Tolkien


"For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing:  there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach."
- The Return of the King, J.R.R. Tolkien


"Many folk like to know beforehand what is to be set on the table; but those who have laboured to prepare the feast like to keep their secret; for wonder makes the words of praise louder."
- The Return of the King, J.R.R. Tolkien


"Yet it is not our part to master all the tides of the world, but to do what is in us for the succour of those years wheren we are set, uprooting the evil in the fields that we know, so that those who live after may have clean earth to till.  What weather they shall have is not ours to rule."
- Gandalf, The Return of the King, J.R.R. Tolkien


Me:  "Did you say 'bonsoir'?"
J:  "No, I just said 'hey.'"