Sunday, August 15, 2010

Croque la vie



Dear Readers, do I dare write to you, when I've been absent for so long? Coming back to tend my garden here, I wonder if it will be overgrown and wild with weeds -- difficult to enter. Will tender plants grow here again? I always hope to write while away- why, other people do it! -- but it doesn’t seem to work out for me and my family life (with the exception of that last post - a miracle!). When will I learn?! C'est comme ça. 

A fine thing to write about style and various aesthetic concerns with brimming baskets of laundry to iron a few feet away and an invasion of Things waiting to be put away.  Straw hats and baseball caps, pretty pebbles, bunches of lavender, and other more curious dried flora nuzzle travel brochures and exhibit catalogues, piles of books and sundry souvenirs, all of it taking on an expansionist attitude as it conquers the dining room table top, sliding little by little into a teetering tower of unread mail. Should I mention the thick coat of dust that cheers up the atmosphere? Why don’t we drape the furniture with sheets any more?

Dare I write when my house is still a shambles from all the various comings and goings, packing and unpacking of the summer season's trips?
I DO! With hopes of sharing once more with some of you…


1935 Peugeot ad illustration by Girard

Some sights cleanse the mind suddenly like a whoosh of fresh air - after making it through the heavy traffic jams on that grand route leading south, that is.


It was time that I learned that 'colorado' meant red rock.



Warm tones of ocher



have a way of spilling over into everything around.



From saffron, to rust and on to violet.

 

Though we take a short cut and speak of ocher as one color,


 these mineral oxides form a wide, warm range of tints whose properties as a pigment are highly appreciated because unaltered by light and weather wear. Just as important, they seem steeped in sunshine and douceur de vivre. 










Pretty stucco grapes grace this façade -- click to enlarge!





Now here's some good advice: croque la vie -- take a bite out of life !
Living life to the fullest is easier said than done, but it can mean getting away from the computer
from time to time. 

11 comments:

  1. Welcome back, and I hope you had a nice holiday. My turn next - first week in September - and I'm looking forward to it.

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  2. It's good to get away from every day habits, though you could say the French habit of summer vacation is very ingrained! You have two weeks to prepare and anticipation is half the joy!

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  3. miam miam la vie (avec un petit rosé bien frais)

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  4. Beautiful photos of wonderful color, stone and architecture. Our summer vacation happened in May with two trips to New York and one to Pittsburgh but the winter vacation is already planned and all is booked.

    Welcome back.

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  5. TG: à la votre!

    Blue: Thank you! Summer comes and summer goes - you are so right to plan for winter. I'm a bit more of a Grasshopper and have a hard time doing that!

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  6. Welcome back! I can't stop sighing at these photos. I didn't know 'colorado' meant red rock; and the inviting garden atop!

    We're preparing for Spring here and I'm writing to you with heavy rain on our iron roof...a wonderful sound after so many years of drought!

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  7. Alaine: then I'm not the only one! Do you have pretty little ditties about April showers adapted to your seasons?

    Victoria and Little A: Thanks to you both. I miss my blogging community too, but the clothes will have to be ironed and the maid won't be back until September. Aggggh!

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  8. In the photo, the leaf pattern on the window glass looks like metalwork? Very nice.

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  9. Yes, indeedy. It would also be very pretty in front of a window that needed a little masking.

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