paris, tired but a good tired

our apartment, the richelieu

it is our second day in paris and we've continued to walk non-stop as we have done in london. katie met us friday and we all walked up to rose bakery. katie thought it was funny that our first meal in paris was at a british establishment, but she had never been and we all loved it.

my lunch

cakes at rose bakery

after lunch we walked around the marais and got ourselves a bit more oriented.

the bibliotheque historic

bon bons

katie left to meet a friend for dinner and leigh and i came back to the apartment to rest for a few minutes before my birthday dinner at le fumoir. our dinner was delicious and we had secured a reservation in the "library," which turned out to be a dark and cozy room filled with books. we didn't want to leave but two hours later we were stuffed and so tired that we were happy to have a very short walk home.


i slept badly that night so it was 8am before we woke up, and we got off to a late start. on the advice of the apartment owners, we stopped in for pastries at stohrer's.

leigh got this shot of me looking at postcards before we went inside

next we walked a few short blocks to the bilbiotheque nationale. i was a bit overwhelmed and unfortunately hadn't really made a plan so we looked into some of the reading rooms and headed off to the centre pompidou. a few hours looking at braque's, picasso's, matise's, and léger's and we needed to eat again.



after eating, our next stop was pierre herme, which entailed a walk across the siene and down to st. germain. after snagging some confiture de framboises a la violette, which i had been dreaming about since katie brought me some two years ago, and some sablés citron, we were off to the have a glass of wine then stroll through jardin du luxembourg.

the wind kicked up and the rains came in so we hopped into a taxi to come home, warm up and plan our dinner outing. we're both very tired, but in a good way. the city is beautiful and inviting and it does feel like you are walking through a movie.

chelsea

another great day today, i keep thinking that each day is better than the last. we walked through battersea park over chelsea bridge to chelsea. the neighborhood is gorgeous. we go on lots of amazing strolls every day, but the destination today was the chelsea physic garden which was on my list of things to do and on leigh's as well. we were lucky to get another sunny morning and soon stripped off our jackets and sweaters and we were still really warm.



the homes surrounding the garden are so beautiful, you can tell this neighborhood is ritzy.

lots of lavender in this section, lots of bees, too!




the dark brown building behind the greenhouse above is so stunning, i want to go inside.


old greenhouses, filled with botanicals from different parts of the world.


so many lovely poppies and aliums all over.



after a long stroll around the paths and lots of photos we were ready for lunch. we stopped at daylesford organic and had a two wine lunch - lois was a handful and we needed the juice.

yum

after this week all i can say is thank god for whisky. now if only i could sleep.

Photograph by Romulo Yanes, Gourmet Magazine, 1940s Favorite cocktails.

pacific blues

last week at the cabin it really felt like all we did was tile. the area was a total of 32" x 92" and took 4 of our 5 days. various factors for this session of torture include:

1. never tiling anything before

2. tiling an area behind a non-movable object

3. using hand-made heath tiles that are not square or flat

4. never tiling anything before

we never imagined this would take us so long, but for the most part it's done. we just need to remove the tape around the edges when we go back (the grout really needed to dry) and wash off the grout haze. i'll be doing that next weekend when i head back up without al. it really looks gorgeous and adds a nice bit of color and texture to the living room.


we did get to spend a lot of time at mother's beach, which is basically across the street. we packed up one of my new baskets with towels and books, packed a cooler with snacks and booze, and hauled over a lounge chair, umbrella and inner-tube for a few hours of lounging and cooling off in the 90 degree sun. we only saw one beer induced fight.

next projects include harvesting from the garden bed (me) and finishing the workroom downstairs (al).

cheerwine

i'm making some cherry infused vodka for the ladies, or for the men who like lady-like cocktails. i started the pickle jar full weeks ago, but wanted a bit more so made this little weck jar full today. the cherries look so pretty at first, but the vodka sort of bleaches them out so it's nice to see this new batch looking bright. as i was working on it, wilco's theologians started playing. i was singing "i'm a cherry ghost" along with jeff before i realized that was sort of funny.