Two months in a nutshell

I've been feeling a bit guilty about not writing. Every two weeks a calendar alert tells me it's time to write a post and I do something else. I bet that after the last post, in May, I was thinking that I'd wait until we got back from England when I'd have something more interesting to say.

Westminster from the London Eye

It's true, the trip to England was wonderful. I'll be putting up the pictures for family to see and will send them the link. C. had asked us to come for a longer visit than usual this time. The purpose was to keep A. company during the school holiday. We were asked to come early, in the middle of the preceding week -- mystery. The mystery was lifted on my birthday, when C. announced we were going to the Laurent Voulzy/Alain Souchon concert in London on that Thursday. My birthday was in February and all I had to do was wait. As soon as she got home from work, we set out by train to London and got to the concert hall early enough to have a light dinner at one of the many fast food places in the neighborhood. We made the good choice of Lebanese.
Those who really know me know that I've been a fan of both Voulzy and Souchon for years, probably more of Voulzy than Souchon. They have collaborated since the beginning of their successful careers: Voulzy composing the music for both and Souchon writing the lyrics. Occasionally, they have each gone solo, but most of their hits are the fruit of their collaboration. They manage to maintain their uniqueness; the music Voulzy writes for Souchon is not the same as for himself and the same holds for Souchon's lyrics. I'm not really too familiar with the joint album that came out in 2014 and was a tiny bit apprehensive about that being the concert content, but no, there were some takes from that album, but the rest of the concert was the hits we could all sing along to. The house was not quite full and we were able to slide over to seats with a better view. And we sang. There were lots of parent/child pairings at this concert and they comments between songs were specific to the London audience of French expats. It was a perfect birthday present! This clip is from the concert in Geneva; it happens to be a song Souchon wrote on his own.
We then went camping for the weekend. Well, WE didn't go camping; we stayed at the pub next door to the campground. The rest of the family stayed at their new (used) trailer (or caravan, if you are British). The campground is like a little city; I don't know how many lots there are -- lots. It's on an old quarry site with several lakes for boating and fishing and swans and geese. Geese! Thousands of geese! It's great for the kids, as the speed limit is 10mph, so they can scoot and bike and walk more freely than around home. There's a very large playground with areas set off for the little ones. There's a café with a good Sunday roast and there's a little fish & chips take out place. There's a swimming pool and more. It's not far from "French school", the Saturday morning activity for them, so they can go on Friday, spend the night and not have to get up so early to go there, and they can have lunch at the caravan. If the weather is nice, they can spend the weekend, or if it's not nice, then just go home.
I had arranged to see one of my old high school mates who came to Paris last summer for the reunion. We met her at the National Space Center in Leicester. It was good to see her and I hope we manage to keep it up. The Space Center was a bit disappointing. A. is in year 2. That's 2nd grade in the US and CE1 in France. The center is organized by theme, but it was very difficult to figure out what age the exhibits were aimed at. We felt the whole thing was rather disorganized. The planetarium show was really just a film -- could have been shown on a regular screen rather than having us crane our necks in the planetarium. I was happy to see my friend; A. was happy to be out with us.
On Thursday, we took her to London. This was planned, and it turned out that she had a research project on William the Conqueror, so we made a point to go to the Tower of London, originally built under his reign. The adventure started with taking the train to London and then the tube to Tower Hill. Getting out at Tower Hill, the first thing to see is the remnant of the Roman wall, then on to the Tower of London, where we took a picture of the Tower Bridge before going in. We visited the crown jewels and then had lunch. We had our tickets for the London Eye, so we went on to that. The weather was cold and cloudy, but at least it didn't rain that day. We got some nice photos from the Eye.
We came home and did our regular things. I knit a sweater for myself on the knitting machine I restored last year. I also finished off some socks for the girls, by hand. There was a get together of ex-KDS staff. It wasn't a big to-do, but was just a very pleasant evening among friends who, for the most part, haven't seen one another since they left the company.

Chagall at the Carrières de Lumières, photo from the website

Last week we went on what has become our annual visit to Six-Fours, passing through Avignon to see a friend and then a stop at Les-Baux-de-Provence to see the show at the Carrières de Lumière. It's Chagall this year. The music accompanying each segment of the show tells a story. It's a good show and I recommend it. I also recommend getting there early (opens at 9:30) in order to park in the lot at the entrance. Also, be sure to take a sweater; the temperature inside is 15°C. You can take pictures, but no flash. This was our third show. We then meandered down to Six-Fours for our family visit and relaxation. It's always a good visit and we really should go down more often.

First little trip of the summer

Last week I went to a little AARO board gathering at Châtelet. As I was walking down the Rue de Rivoli, I saw that one of the old Samaritaine buildings had already been demolished, so I decided to take a picture of one that had not. It's just a souvenir. I'm not sure how many will be demolished in the end. This one shows off the Art Nouveau architecture really well.
This other photo, copied from the Wikipedia page, shows the Seine-side building, the landmark building.The store closed 10 years ago, because, supposedly, the landmark staircase and the new building code could not be reconciled. When they closed the store, the remodeling was supposed to be done and there were promises about it not being a permanent closure, but it was. The advertising slogan for the Samaritaine was, "On trouve tout à la Samaritaine" (You can find everything at the Samaritaine) and it was true. I enjoyed shopping there. Now, the buildings are either abandoned or rented out to individual shops. You can see that the one in the top picture has a Sephora shop on the ground floor.
The next day, we headed down to Avignon for what has become an annual visit with T. -- always a pleasant stop either on our way to or from our visit to family in Six-Fours-les-Plages. We spent two nights in Avignon this time and visited Roussillon on Thursday. It was exactly a year ago I had spent a few nights at Roussillon while the Pickars were renting a house nearby. I didn't get to walk along the ochre trail last year and wanted to do it, so we did it this year. It was a hot day, but we got to Roussillon fairly early and had finished the trail by 11:00. There were not too many people -- mid-week and not yet July -- but as we walked back through the town to the car, it was starting to get crowded. We drove off to Bonnieux for lunch and, there, the crowds had not yet started to invade this village. All these villages around Roussillon are tourist magnets in summer. They became popular with the French, when actors like Brigitte Bardot would have homes there in the 60s, and popular with Americans after Peter Mayle came out with A Year in Provence. We had an original lunch at "La Table de Sylvie" in the shade of the terrace overlooking the valley. For the return to Avignon, we continued south to the Durance river and followed the river westward to Avignon.

Friday, we headed to Six-Fours, but it was early and we stopped at Les-Baux-de-Provence to see the new show at the Carrières de Lumières. This year, it's the Renaissance -- Da Vinci, Michaelangelo, Raphaël. I didn't care for the musical accompaniment, but the show is excellent. I especially liked the way they showed the sculptures as if they were carved into the quarry. And the way they made the floor of the quarry look like Italian church floors, or the ceiling like the Sistine Chapel.
We ended our trip with a delightful stay with P and G. We caught up on all the children's and grandchildren's doings. I even sunbathed and got in a bit of swimming.
Yes, we are aware of what's going on in the world, but right now, I don't want to write about that. We're on the verge of a heatwave, here, and I'm getting off this heat-producing machine.