If you like walks and bird-watching...

On the first of December K.J. wanted to go on a morning walk.  I wanted to go with him but wasn't quite ready so he said, "I'll go now and walk clock-wise around the park; you come when you're ready and walk counter-clock-wise, and we'll be sure to meet."  And so that is what we did.

It worked out well for us because it gave us each some moments walking alone and also some time to spend talking.  In these pandemic days, these are our dates.

Since I was meeting K.J., I didn't bring my earbuds along to listen to music or a podcast, and my walk through the town and the misty morning park was quiet.  The silence is good for my soul.  I've been reading The Imitation of Christ by Thomas à Kempis with E for school, and you can see how much emphasis monks in that time period put on quiet and withdrawal.  I can't help but think we need times of silence in this world of constant access to information even more than in those 15th century days  

My quiet mind gives space for me to notice the gold-domed tops of the trees hanging on to their leaves amidst all the bare branches of the crowd.

I spent some time watching this black bird fly low over the water the week before, and a quick Google this morning told me it was a cormorant.  I asked K.J. to walk toward him so I could take a picture of him in flight.  Ever the good photography assistant, he obliged, and it was satisfying to watch him spread his wings and dive into the water for a morning swim.  

There's a gaggle of geese (how fun is that to say?) that live in our park, and we got a big kick out of watching them wander to the pool in a line, jumping in one after another in an orderly manner.

Here's our cormorant friend back for his swim.

And the award for farthest traveled goes to this seagull who flew in on some salty breeze.  

I was happy I brought my big camera with me because there were some spots I'd been wanting to take pictures of that my phone can't quite capture, like the steeple of the church framed between these two trees and the rooftops of our little town.  We've had a string of cold days since just before Thanksgiving, and you can often see smoke billowing up out of a chimney or two.  This was a perfect walk to welcome December.

A Sunday Walk in Luxembourg Gardens

All of our work and school is very much intertwined with home life, so there's not always a differentiation between the two.  I love this about our life.  It gives me what I call in my head "the Little House on the Prairie" feeling.  From my youngest days the Ingalls' family home life resonated with me as something so wholesome and good.  They worked hard together, the played together, they rested together; they had a life that really was very whole, wholly centered in one place.  And though they often shared heartache, too, they were in it together.  

As much as I love our intertwined life it doesn't always give me the feeling of the weekend.  Weekends didn't exist back in the good old days (as the Dowager Duchess of Grantham could tell us), but as much as I love the old days I'm also a child of the modern age, and I've been trying to plan at least one thing that makes the weekend feel invigorating and refreshing, a taste of the freedom of being off work and school.  

via GIPHY

So far this year that has looked like meals with friends.  This weekend K.J. had Saturday meetings, so I was hoping to go into the city a little while before church on Sunday and do something not too difficult or time consuming. 

The perfect idea appeared in my mind Sunday morning, and while the idea was a good one, Sunday morning is not the ideal time to present a new plan for the day to my preacher husband whose plans always mature over time, while mine come to me as a sudden spark of inspiration I need to act on immediately:  Let's take a walk in Luxembourg Gardens!  It's a part of the city we don't visit often, it's free, it's exercise, it's perfect!  And as an aside, isn't it where Jean Valjean walked every Sunday morning with Cosette?  A literary reference makes any outing better.

la fontaine de Médicis

Parking in Paris is easier on Sundays because it is free, though it's still not easy to find a spot.  I thought this would be K.J.'s biggest hurdle to get over, but instead it was the memories of the last time he took the kids to le jardin du Luxembourg on a hot April day after a crowded, sweaty bus ride.  The complaints of the children still lingered in his ears, but we made it work, and after we'd enjoyed a nice walk, Ella remarked, "That was a lot better in January."  Win.

It's unusual to see fountains running in the winter, but I noticed several flowing yesterday.  It is still one of our favorite things to hear K.J. tell us what the statues are saying or thinking as we pass by them.  

We walked through the park and up to the Panthéon because the ceiling of the porch is so beautiful and intricate, and you can see the tip of the Eiffel Tower as you look down the street.  I knew we wouldn't be able to see much yesterday because it was so foggy, but Ella and I like when the tops of the buildings are concealed in fog; it gives a great air of mystery.

I like how people aren't in a hurry to take down the

Christmas decorations here.

Can you spot the middle of the Eiffel Tower between the Christmas trees?

I'm really glad we made this weekend outing work.

Paris in the Fall

When the sky is a bright blue the Arc shines white against its backdrop.  I sit on a bench with a friend and talk while more and more tourists crowd the sidewalk.  The chestnut trees drop their leaves first.  They’re brown and crunchy under my feet as I walk down the garden paths beside the Champs-Élysées about an hour later.

A man with a crêpe stand on a bicycle jogs beside it as he pushes it quickly down the path.  The fountains in the Jardin des Ambassadeurs spray water cheerfully.  It won’t be long before they’re turned off for the winter.  I notice a grouping of statues I’ve never seen before, but I don’t see a sign explaining what they are. I walked to this park a lot when we lived in the city.

I sit on a bench to rest my feet.  Even small outings in Paris begin to hurt your feet, and I’ve walked the length of the Champs-Élysées.  I scroll through Instagram and listen to an American couple on the bench next to me debate which way to go as they study a map, rotating it to get the direction right.  I stop and offer them help when I get up to leave, but they’ve figured it out.  They were looking for the nearest Metro stop.  

I continue walking through construction work still happening at Place de la Concorde and make it to W.H. Smith.  It’s a haven of beautiful books, but I have no budget for buying new books, except I do pick up the newest illustrated Harry Potter for Ella.  We had it on pre-order at Amazon, but we’ve had so many problems with deliveries lately.  I’m happy with the decision to stop in and buy it here, because I get a free tote bag with the cover illustration on it.  The only downside is I now have to carry this very heavy book that I don’t want to get damaged around Paris the rest of the afternoon.  

I cross the Rue de Rivoli for a little walk in Tuileries.  I sit in a reclining chair and people watch for a few minutes, drinking the Strawberry Cream Diet Coke I picked up at W.H. Smith.  I keep wishing they’d stock Diet Mountain Dews again.  It was such a fun surprise that time I discovered them there, a happy reminder of home.  It won't be long before the long rows of trees have scrawny bare limbs, but for now, autumn is in Paris.

Down the Rabbit Hole

It's that precious, quiet time of day when I'm the only one awake, and the rest of the house sleeps.  It is an in-between week for us.  We've moved out of the big-city apartment and are staying with friends while we do a few projects in our new place.  It's hard to believe that in a week and a half we'll be living in our own home again!  In the meantime, I'm still sorting through pictures from last year, and I couldn't remember if I ever wrote about a small adventure I had one spring night in the barley field.

K.J. and I loved walking in the field up the road from our house in the spring and summer because there was a full-fledged rabbit warren living around the Devil's Arrows.  If you went out at twilight and walked quietly and carefully and no dog-walker happened along, you could see dozens of rabbits enjoying their nightly silflay.  (I read Watership Down last summer, which is full of special rabbit language.) 

About two weeks after I took the above photos I went out again one night.  I walked down a different path and spotted several more rabbit holes as well as a poor, wounded warrior who looked like he'd lost an eye.

I don't know if these pictures are as interesting to anyone else, but I just loved these guys.  

I was snapping away, trying to get as close as possible without making them scatter.  I stopped to look at the screen on my camera to see how the pictures were coming out when I noticed an extra face in the background of one picture.  What is that??  I looked down.  Then I looked back up at the rabbits.  At the very top right side of the picture there is a sly face in the shadows if you look closely.

Look at him!  I couldn't believe it.  I'd always wanted to see a fox but so far I'd only seen one at night and never in Boroughbridge.  I think I saved a few bunnies' lives that night because not long after I noticed him, he looked up and noticed me, too, and bolted.  I left pretty quickly after that, too, because all of a sudden I wasn't sure about what else was concealed in the barley field.  But I'll never forget the night I watched a fox prepare to pounce on these unsuspecting rabbits.