November Remembered

France was in lockdown this month, so there are a lot of pictures from my daily walks, a lot of pictures of our local parks.  We are so thankful the big park has stayed open during this lockdown!  It was closed in March and April during the first confinement.  Restrictions loosened up here beginning on Saturday.  Shops selling non-essential items were allowed to re-open, and we're now allowed to go up to 20 km away from home to exercise and be outside for up to three hours.  

To celebrate we drove to a favorite store that is part Hobby Lobby, part Home Depot, part pet store, part florist, and bought our Christmas tree.  It was so fun to be out of the house even for just a little bit and to see all the beautiful Christmas decorations.  This particular store is in a mall, and as we walked quickly down the slick and shiny flooring to pop into another store, E looked at all the masked people passing and said, "It's like Christmas shopping in a hospital."  It was an apt observation...but at least we were Christmas shopping.  Be careful out there, folks. 

November 1 - Back to Church Online!

November 2 - Beautiful Words to Keep Me Company

November 3 - Rainbow Over the Park

November 4 - Mornings

November 5 - Cold Morning Walk in Woods Near Our House

November 6 - I started walking around a smaller park for variety on some days.

November 7 - Made Tom Bombadil's White Bread

November 8 - Church on Zoom and Our New Heater/Fireplace

November 9 - Sunset Geese

November 10 - I love the steeple on the hill.

November 11 - Everybody loves the new fire.

November 12 - Still Some Fiery Leaves Remaining

November 13 - The benefit of the age of big houses is the age of having beautiful places to walk (in yet another local park).

November 14 - Still Some Golden Leaves Left, Too

November 15 - Out the Kids' Window

November 16 - Baked Pumpkin Pie Oatmeal with Pumpkin Seeds

November 17 - Baking Bread, Take 2

November 18 - Walking to the Grocery Store

November 19 - Another Day Dawns

November 20 - I've started getting my walk in most days of the week in the four o'clock hour, just before sunset.

November 21 - The Local Tabac, where in pre-lockdown days men sat outside at tables drinking coffee and reading their newspapers, dogs at their sides.

November 22 - The Year of Home

November 23 - Sometimes I only have time for pacing back and forth around the garden.

November 24 - "Good-humoured, unpretentious and a bit eccentric, it's more like a well-read friend than a literary review."  Who wouldn't want that magazine?

November 25 - Cornbread made my kitchen smell so good.

November 26 - A Cold Thanksgiving Morning

November 27 - Cousin Jeopardy Competition over FaceTime

November 28 - And all of a sudden it's Christmas.

November 29 - Baked Camembert with Honey and Rosemary on a Sunday Night

November 30 - It's reached the point where my fingertips feel cold on walks, even when I'm wearing gloves.

Deck the Halls, Trim the Tree

It's here!  It's here!  The day has finally arrived!  We are not officially out of lockdown yet, but restrictions have been lifted on stores that sell non-essential items, and if a store is allowed to be open, we are allowed to shop there.  It's a Saturday morning, and I can already tell the road sounds a tad busier today than it has during the past four weeks of strict lockdown.  I wonder if everyone will rush out to do some Christmas shopping just because they can.  Hopefully people will keep their distance from one another and places won't be too crowded and France's COVID-19 cases won't skyrocket again.  As for us, we are hoping to go out and find a Christmas tree today.  

We haven't bought a Christmas tree as a family since 2015.  The past four years we were fortunate enough to be able to spend Christmas at home with family, and the last time we picked out a tree, it was in the company of K.J.'s parents who spent a few days with us on their way to South Africa for the birth of a grandchild.  We all used to do so much traveling, right?

At any rate, I hung the stockings yesterday and told J to write something Christmasy on the letterboard.  He surprised us all with something funnier than I would have come up with, and if you know, you know.  

Five Quotes, vol. xxvii

Shakespeare and Company, Paris, France

I definitely can't resist taking a picture every time I walk by it.

Happy Thanksgiving to all!  I hate to wish days away, but I have been waiting for Thanksgiving before bringing in any Christmas to our home.  This is usually not that hard for me, because I love Thanksgiving, but without gatherings and being in a strict lockdown for the past month, it's been harder to resist the siren call of twinkle lights and Christmas movies.  But the time for resistance has passed, and the pumpkins will be going out today in a glad surrender to a new season.  

 "Some might wonder that the two men should consider themselves to be old friends having only known each other for four years; but the tenure of friendships has never been governed by the passage of time.  These two would have felt like old friends had they met just hours before.  To some degree, this was because they were kindred spirits--finding ample evidence of common ground and cause for laughter in the midst of effortless conversation; but it was almost certainly a matter of upbringing."

- A Gentleman in Moscow, Amor Towles

"For when life makes it impossible for a man to pursue his dreams, he will connive to pursue them anyway."

- A Gentleman in Moscow, Amor Towles

"The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes."

- Marcel Proust, quoted in A Writer's Paris by Eric Maisel

"There is one essential truth in the stories of Nicholas and Santa Claus:  the goodness of the gift offered with no expectation of anything in return.  The value of three bags tossed through a window in Patara long ago does not lie in the gold they contained.  The act of giving and the effects of the act make those bags priceless.  That same spirit lives in our time in a parent or other adult who with secret joy watches a wonder-struck child discover on Christmas morning that Santa has paid a nighttime visit."

- The True Saint Nicholas:  Why He Matters to Christmas, William J. Bennett

"Santa Claus is, in a very real sense, the result of a Christ-inspired goodness that has rippled across seventeen centuries, from Nicholas's time to our own.  Despite secularization and commercialization, Santa Claus is a manifestation of Nicholas's decision to give to others.  The history of Saint Nicholas and Santa Claus is a kind of miracle in itself.  It is a legacy that resonates with God's love."

- The True Saint Nicholas:  Why He Matters to Christmas, William J. Bennett

Five Quotes, vol. xxvi

 

The Cut-Price Bookstore

Helmsley, North Yorkshire

The above photo is one of the first times I decided I should take a picture of every book I bought outside the bookshop where I purchased it.  I don't always remember to do this, but I wish I did!  It's a special reminder of all the little shops I've happily browsed.  I must confess that sometimes the reason I don't take a picture is because my purchases are too many for me to hold up by myself and take a picture.

"Christians, especially ministers, so often think they must always contribute something when they are in the company of others, that this is the one service they have to render.  They forget that listening can be a greater service than speaking."

- Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together

"Dwell I but in the suburbs

Of your good pleasure?"

- Julius Caesar, Portia to Brutus, William Shakespeare

"Passion, I see, is catching, for mine eyes, 

Seeing those beads of sorrow stand in thine,

Began to water."

- Julius Caesar, Mark Antony, William Shakespeare

"Cowards die many times before their deaths;

The valiant never taste of death but once."

- Julius Caesar, William Shakespeare

"Never lose an opportunity of seeing something beautiful.  Beauty is God's handwriting."

- Charles Kingsley

Three Stories from La Place de la Concorde

The first story takes place at a time when the traffic driving around this square is much more plentiful, before télétravail--working from home--becomes the new normal.  My family and I wait for the little green man to light up, signaling it's probably safe to cross.  You have to keep your eyes and ears open in Paris, no matter what the crossing light says.  While we wait, our attention is caught by a white van stopped in the middle of the road.  A workman gets out in distress because his van has hit a besuited man on a bike.  The man in the suit stands up on the cobbled street, presumably angry at the offender who even at a distance we can tell is making profuse apologies.  The suited man will have none of it.  The owner of the white van holds out a conciliatory bottle of water, perhaps the only thing he has to offer as amends.   The man in the suit refuses, straddles his now slightly wobbly bicycle and pedals off.  Maybe this is the wrong reaction, but I find myself feeling really sorry for the man in the white van.  But also, be careful riding your bike in Paris!

The year is 1940.  The French government has abandoned Paris, and the Nazis are coming.  The United States is not yet involved in this latest European storm, and Paris is full of at least 30,000 Americans.  Many of them flee, too.  But the American ambassador remains.  William Bullitt is made provisional mayor of Paris by France's Prime Minister and Interior Minister, entrusted with the safety of Paris as she awaits the arrival of the German army.  When the Nazis arrive to claim and occupy the French capital, it is an American who meets them and oversees the transfer of power.  Many Nazi officials take up residence in the Hôtel de Crillon pictured above.   Just across a small street, peeking out behind the hotel sits the American Embassy, and when the German occupiers attempted to run a telephone cable across the street to be hooked up to the embassy's line, the Americans said a bold, "No."   

Two days after I snapped my latest picture of the Luxor Obelisk (I can't help but take a picture of this shiny-topped beauty every time I pass.) it marked its 137th anniversary of presiding with pride of place over the Place de la Concorde.  Someone once told me Napoléon brought this massive stone back from Egypt, but this turns out to be misinformation.  This obelisk, erected by Rameses II in front of the temple in Luxor, was in fact, a gift to Louis-Philippe, the last French king, from the viceroy of Egypt in 1833.  I'm happy to know it wasn't stolen, because covered in hieroglyphics, it's a treasure indeed.

Five Quotes, vol. xxv

 

Sitting Room at James Herriot's House

Thirsk, North Yorkshire

I'm adding to my commonplace book this week two more quotes from my slow re-read of A Gentleman in Moscow and some quotes that came out of E's reading assignments.  This Roman jurisprudence law made me laugh out loud, and reading Shakespeare made me marvel at how one man introduced so many phrases to the English-speaking world.  It's enough to make me want to investigate those conspiracy theories about him not really being the author of all we attribute to him...but methinks there are too many conspiracy theories afloat these days.

"After all, isn't that why the pages of books are numbered?  To facilitate the finding of one's place after a reasonable interruption?"

- A Gentleman in Moscow, Amor Towles

"For there is nothing more essential to the enjoyment of a civilized lunch than to have a lively topic of conversation."

- A Gentleman in Moscow, Amor Towles

"He whose witness has failed to appear may summon him by loud calls before his house every third day."

- from the Roman Twelve Tables of Law

"The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, 

But in ourselves..."

-  Cassius, Julius Caesar, William Shakespeare

"...it was Greek to me."

- Casca in Julius Caesar, William Shakespeare

Confinement 2.0, Day 13

• finished reading The Fabulous Showman
• scrambled eggs
• led a ladies' Bible study over Zoom - If there's one thing the pandemic has taught us all it's how to use Zoom, and that's not totally a bad thing!  Truthfully, getting together in Paris takes a lot of travel time, and I wish we'd been doing these weekly Bible studies before this summer.  Discussing God's word with women every week has been such a delight for the past 3 months.
• took a family walk to the boulangerie - I watched a video about the way we process time and how we need novel experiences to wake our brains up and make time slow down and feel rich and meaningful.  Lockdowns seem to pass relatively quickly because we have the same routines day after day.  So today we all walked to a boulangerie we've never visited before within our perimeter just before lunch and bought goodies that prompted me to put together a snack lunch, or when we're feeling fancy, we call it a charcuterie board.

• read about the ancient city of Ephesus - I had no idea it was the third largest city in the Roman Empire at one time!
• graded history work and writing
• filmed the kids doing science experiments
• did a French grammar lesson with J
• invited Noreen over for a visit and a cappuccino 
• washed dishes, swept, tidied 
• read a news article that made me feel distressed about the state of humanity
• read a Remembrance Day/Veteran's Day poem
• cooked cabbage, leek, and bacon in good salted butter - I bought the most beautiful cabbage at the supermarket Monday, and I needed to cook it.  
• laughed at The Andy Griffith Show with the kids

Confinement 2.0, Day 12

During the last confinement I kept a short list of things I did each day that I shared in my Instagram stories.  It was a manageable way to record snippets of life during what will surely be a historical time, something my grandchildren will interview me about for school the way we had to interview people who lived through WWII or the Great Depression.  

I picked up this daily habit again when the second French national confinement was reinstated at the end of October, but while out for my allotted hour of fresh air this afternoon I thought I might try moving my lists to my blog where I could still keep a simple list, but I could elaborate when I wanted.  So, here we go.  For my posterity, who won't have any trouble finding out about this time in history unless the internet goes bust.  Some days that doesn't seem like it would be a bad thing, right?  Moving on...

• Read The Fabulous Showman - I serendipitously found this 1950s biography of P.T. Barnum at the Tuscaloosa Friends of the Library store while having a quick browse with K.J. after a date night where we'd just come from seeing The Greatest Showman at the theater...or cinema as it's called here.  (My brain often thinks about what things are called now in Alabama, North Yorkshire, and France, and it's fun to see which word surfaces first.)  The movie is obviously a very glossy and shiny version of events, though I'm sure it accurately captures Barnum's joie de vivre. 
• checked on the delivery time for a package - We have to be on high alert when packages are coming because we live behind a stone wall, and sometimes people can't find us, and sometimes we don't hear the bell.  Today's delivery was from an American online shop with a few items for the holidays including canned cranberry sauce (because I really like those lines in my cranberry sauce), pumpkin puree, and graham cracker crusts.  

Our cottage behind the wall is on the left, and Noreen's house is on the right.  It's amazing how quickly October's glory is replaced by November's slow decay.

• read about the Apostle Peter with J
• tried to remember which was the divisor and which was the dividend - My children's math books always insist on learning these terms, and I can never remember.  Maybe this time...
• read The Bronze Bow aloud to J
• read about Caesar Augustus in E's history textbook - E mostly reads things to herself now (unless she's tired or finding the language difficult, at which point I eagerly read aloud to her), so my role is merging into that of guide instead of teacher.  I try to stay up to date on her reading so I can start riveting dinnertime conversations.  😀
• did some lessons on Duolingo
• did a Pimsleur French lesson - I doubled down on the French today, which rarely happens.  Just when I think I've learned some things I go into the world and draw a blank when someone rattles something off at me.  My standard reply used to be:  Je suis desole.  Je suis americaine.  (I'm sorry.  I'm an American.)  This is easy to say and is pretty self-explanatory:  I don't speak French.  I'm a little more advanced now and will either say:  Je ne comprends pas tres bien le francais. or Je ne parle pas tres bien le francais.  I don't understand French very well.  I don't speak French very well.  People have always been kind to me, except for that security guard at the grocery store once...
• graded math
• Marco-Polo-ed a lot
• read about how amazing our bodies are with J
• went for a late afternoon walk

I take a picture of this cottage every autumn.

• tried a new recipe for Chicken Korma
• read a little Julius Caesar - E is reading her first Shakespeare play this week, and reading the opening pages was so thrilling.  I can't say enough how much I loved our trip to Rome last October.  It was so exciting to be in that place where so much human drama was played out, and reading Julius Caesar brought it all back.  I also read I, Claudius while we were on that trip, and it made me feel very familiar with all those Romans.

Standing at the spot in the Roman Forum where

Julius Caesar was cremated.

That's an average day in lockdown for us:  work, read, walk, repeat.  What did you do today?

Five Quotes, vol. xxiv

 

Blenheim Palace Library, Oxfordshire, England

Home of the Dukes of Marlborough and 

Birthplace of Winston Churchill

"The unexamined life is not worth living."

- Socrates, as described in Plato's Apology

"With purity and with holiness I will pass my life and practice my Art."

- original Hippocratic Oath

"So, against all odds, he fought to make entertainment and amusement respectable.  That he succeeded is evident with every circus, concert, legitimate play, motion picture, and television program that we, his heirs, freely and guiltlessly attend."

- The Fabulous Showman, Irving Wallace

"Taking a sip, the count reviewed the menu in reverse order as was his habit, having learned from experience that giving consideration to appetizers before entrées can only lead to regrets."

- A Gentleman in Moscow, Amor Towles

"It is commonly said that the English know how to celebrate Advent best.  But with all due respect, to witness the essence of winter cheer one must venture farther north than London.  One must venture above the fiftieth parallel to where the course of the sun is its most elliptical and the force of the wind its most unforgiving.  Dark, cold, and snowbound, Russia has the sort of climate in which the spirit of Christmas burns brightest."

- A Gentleman in Moscow, Amor Towles

Ode to October

October began as expected, with J's birthday, and ended in an unexpected way, with the second national lockdown in France announced.  In between there were a lot of beautiful leaves and time spent enjoying some beautiful places near us with people in the safest ways we could.  I am so grateful we seized so many of the October days.  Some were sunshiny and glorious; some were drizzly and grey, but now we have sweet memories of connection to carry us into November.  And the month we spend in intentional gratitude couldn't come at a better time this year.

October 1 - Eleven Years

October 2- The Beginnings of Change

October 3 - Around Town

October 4 - Friends who Read Together

October 6 - Apples Hanging over a Garden Wall

October 7 - I want to know everything about this house at the top of the hill.

October 8 - An Early Evening Walk (I got captivated by the streetlights coming on in our little town.)

October 9 - A Very Parisian Scene

October 10 - Picked Zucchini at a Local Farm

October 11 - When My Spring and Autumn Windowsill Collide

October 12 - I wonder which way the wind blows...

October 13 - Walks with the Most Patient Listener

October 14 - Bow your heads and pray...and snap a picture of your Zoom Bible study group.

October 15 - Sometimes the fishing line won't cooperate, and your Nitrogen 14 atom goes all wonky.

October 16 - Autumn Perfection

October 17 - Maybe our House's Peak Autumn Beauty?

October 18 - Has this restaurant seen an uptick or a downturn in business this year, I wonder.

October 19 - A Bright Spot on a Walk

October 20 - Listening to Him Tell Stories

October 21 - Are you tired of leaves yet?  I love this one.

October 22 - I walked in the park a lot this month.

October 23 - Paris in the Fall

October 24 - Outdoor Book Club Location

October 25 - It doesn't photograph well, but this sausage and lentil casserole was the perfect autumn meal.

October 26 - There was a nice moon for Halloween week.

October 27 - I love E's drawings.

October 28 - Taking selfies in Portrait Mode after President Macron's speech and trying to take it all in

October 29 - Aubergine Tart and Paris Cafe Lights

October 30 - Bedtime Reading

October 31 - 1 Hour of Outdoors Time