well, this semi-job stuff is really cutting in to my days! I'm just about worn out ... (smile)
I know I know, happens to the best of us ... but I'm juggling quite a bit these days trying to keep up with the garden ... including harvesting and preserving the fruits and veg ... keeping the yard cut ... trying to clean house every now and then ... searching every Wednesday for old furniture to renovate, renovating said furniture for the shop (finished three pieces thus far plus one for Étienne's bedroom) ... and various other sundry items.
in the face of a heat wave no less.
yesterday something kind of cool occurred. I was in the shop and a little lady with a younger woman entered. She was excited to tell me in her rapid french that she knew the property ... in fact, as I began to comprehend I realized she was the daughter of Monsieur Briant, the former owner. Her eyes were welled up looking around at the renovated forge where her father used to work. She was so pleased to see so many original touches remaining! Jean-Yves reminded me, "the photo, Kim...the photo". Ah yes, we had recovered only one personal item in the house and that was a very tiny photo of a man holding the hand of a young girl, standing in the garden. I ran to the house to retrieve it.
It was her uncle, the brother of Monsieur Briant. She asked to see the garden and I also showed her the new kitchen with the 2 new windows. She gave me her address in la Rochelle.
They also bought some things. In fact, they got a few extras that I forgot to charge them for ... oops! JY and I had quite the lunch yesterday with aperos and a bottle of wine ... so I was a bit perky, to put it nicely! lol.
well that was fun. I'll have to see about scanning that photo and sharing it.
Blogging is getting tighter and tighter, now that I'm supposed to be doing 3 of them! two shops and mine ... le sigh.
but I keep hope alive!
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about me.
- Non Je Ne Regrette Rien
- France
- I'm a somewhat contrary woman who, in March of 2008, decided to leave corporate life behind and pursue a dream. The resulting misadventures are documented here, as I reinvent my life in France. On a side note, I write as I speak ... lots of run-on sentences, misapplied ellipses and unexpectedly plentiful parenthetical pauses. This is unlikely to change.
jump on the bandwagon here.
My boutique in Brantôme, France
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My daughter's décor boutique in Berkeley, California
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when the dog bites. when the bee stings.
- a pretty how town
- chez rigsby
- citizen of the month
- david lebovitz
- diary of amy rigby
- foreign parts
- funkalicious blogsite of my cynical cousin Nate
- l'ennui mélodieux
- margaux motin (nouvelle! mon premier link pour un blog de francais!)
- non-working monkey
- our juicy life (notre vie juteuse)
- pease pudding
- the bloggess
- utah savage
time for some international dreaming.
- absolutely the BEST European lodging guide ever - Alastair Sawday
- americans in france
- best collection of tales about France
- browse properties for sale in France: primelocation.com
- buy or sell homes abroad
- Cadogan, my favorite guide about my new region, the Dordogne and the Périgord Vert
- everything you need to know about everywhere
- french entree ~ resource link for the languedoc region
- I found my real estate agent here
- le Moulin Neuf, Robert & Stuart's calming B&B retreat in the heart of the Dordogne
- newsletters from gay Pa-ree!
- slang of the week: MOODS! (talk french like the cool kids do.)
- Summary of my tips for choosing a mover, moving your pets and getting your visa/carte de sejour (ca. 2007)
- what the hell is *je ne regrette rien*, you ask?
best of Brantôme & surrounds
- about the village of Brantôme
- Au Fil de l'Eau restaurant
- Au Fil du Temps restaurant
- la récré gourmande
- le Bistrot St. Pierre
- les freres Charbonnel
- Moulin de l'Abbaye (Michelin star restaurant)
- Roda restaurant (Champagnac-de-Belair, 5 min from Brantome)
- the affordable Hotel Alienor
- Hotel Restaurant le Jardin des Chouchoux
- Rosé et Ciboulette restaurant (a favorite; fresh dishes fait maison)
check out all this other stuff I want you to know.
where was that...
une poésie écrite pour moi.
Air Born.
Is on a bridge above the clouds, is air born
Is Marie Marvingt in a biplane, humming Gnome spitting oil
Shuddering wires, the church spires
Bleriot looking up, his felt hat black
An ant, a speck of coal
They take your bags and scan them
You hire a car, this was the dream and now
You've simply gone too far to be lost in self doubt
There is only the impending, compelling, spinning propelling how
The distance leaves a wispy trail, the turning of the wheel
the Fata Morgana highway, cloudward on the Millau
And therefore you must go on, therefore you must
Embrace every moment, not like hired help checking coats
Not like the mud-locked fisherman staring though unknowing,
Envy-filled at a parade of powered boats,
But eyes full of sky.
-Jonathon Grimes
Is on a bridge above the clouds, is air born
Is Marie Marvingt in a biplane, humming Gnome spitting oil
Shuddering wires, the church spires
Bleriot looking up, his felt hat black
An ant, a speck of coal
They take your bags and scan them
You hire a car, this was the dream and now
You've simply gone too far to be lost in self doubt
There is only the impending, compelling, spinning propelling how
The distance leaves a wispy trail, the turning of the wheel
the Fata Morgana highway, cloudward on the Millau
And therefore you must go on, therefore you must
Embrace every moment, not like hired help checking coats
Not like the mud-locked fisherman staring though unknowing,
Envy-filled at a parade of powered boats,
But eyes full of sky.
-Jonathon Grimes
rencontrez mes héroïnes et héros
- Miller and Linda Fuller, founders of Habitat for Humanity and The Fuller Center for Housing
- Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., a dream of equality for all
- Dr. Muhammad Yunus, Visionary for a Poverty-Free World
- Kiva, Loans that Change Lives
- Wangari Maathai, Kenyan Nobel Laureate.
- Motaz Azaiza, Palestinian Photojournalist
4 comments:
Kim,
I do so love this story of disparate universes of experience being bridged by a few kind words and, of all my favorite things, a photograph!!! I am sure that you have preserved, in a very special way, the memory and validity of your visitor's past. I do hope that you will make a pilgrimage to visit her in La Rochelle. As we know, French people don't just go around handing out their address to every Tom, Dick, and Harriet!
One of my favorite books about France is called "Celestine." It was inspired by the finding of a small cache of letters by a British historian who was house-shopping in Le Berry near George Sand's home in Nohant. She found a home in La Châtre and produced a book that put a tiny slice of French life into high relief. Your story reminded me of hers!
Oh, I've been meaning to look for the book La Framericaine mentions and had forgotten the name - sounds like a lovely story. How pleased the lady must be, thinking of her old place getting a new life.
We missed you in Chalus - I thought of you and your last post as we started a song with the line "She smokes, so what? "
That's what you get for trying to have a life.
read through your blogs tonight... i got busy all of a sudden (that's a good thing) and haven't been in touch too much. but, you naughty girl you.. taunting that much too staunch Englishman... actually it reminded me of something a cheeky American would say, we all seem to spring from the same kind of puritanical baloney...
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