Paris February 2019 Friday

How lucky are we? All it takes to do a weekend in Paris is to book the tickets on the Eurostar, meet up with Tarryn at London St Pancras (making for a very early start) and get on to the train. There are queues, but the sun is shining, the forecast is good, Paris!, no problem.

This is the speed of the train. I found myself motion sick! That was a first for me, not pleasant.

Two hours and fifteen minutes later .... voila!

I have been to Paris before, but it was only a fleeting visit and on a tour bus. This time we booked a very central hotel and the plan was to walk and see the city.

Arriving in time for lunch we found ourselves at a bistro around the corner from the hotel. It would become our local for the weekend. Great staff and good food.  I practised my 10 words of french, Tarryn did better, but everybody we came across this weekend was very tolerant of our struggling attempts to communicate. There wasn't any overt sneering. We did laugh a lot though. Perhaps that was the wine. When in France .....

What to do?  What to do?  We didn't really have a plan.  Our hotel - Hôtel de L'Océan in the 9th arrondissement. Walking distance for pretty much everything so perfectly situated for a base in Paris. That first afternoon we headed up the (steep) hill to Montmartre just taking in the sights. 

The sun is shining and it is warm, but you can see from the lack of leaves on all the trees, it's still February and we are not yet into spring. 

Church of Saint-Jean-de-Montmartre, Rue des Abbesses

The Wall of Love - in the Jehan Rictus garden. Created in 2000 by a calligraphist Federic Baron and mural artist Claire Kito. It's 40 square metres of tiles with messages of love in 300 different languages. The little red bits all come together to form a broken heart. Isn't that lovely?

Montmartre is full of examples of art deco.

Up and up to the Basilique du Sacre-Coeur. There is a funicular, but really, why take the easy way?

Built as an act of penance after the bloody 1870 Franco-Prussian war, every hour, day and night since 1st August 1885 (even during WWII), there has been a relay of continuous prayer offering called continuous adoration of the Eucharist. Every evening, after the doors close at 10.30pm, the prayer relay continues, ensured by persons registered for the night, who stay at the Basilica Guest House.

Pictures of stained glass windows seldom do them justice. They are just beautiful.

The view is really worth the effort of getting there.

Heading down the hill we came across this amazing fresh food market. This is the way to shop in Paris!

Time for more wine and feet up - it'd been a very long day.

Standen House 6 Jan 2019

Time is just galloping on. Here we are midway through May and I'm still posting winter stuff. I hope you enjoy the Christmas trees nostalgic look back.

Everywhere you looked, Christmas trees! On a grey and freezing day in East Sussex, finally some colour.

Standen House in East Grinstead is good to visit at any time of the year, but particularly at Christmas time. Last time I was here was for the Kaffe Fasset Exhibition in December 2016.

This year was the turn for The Xmas Tree of Mr X stitch (aka Jamie Chalmers). He worked with local communities and sewing groups to produce 600 x-stitch baubles. This were spread all around the grounds and on the 20 foot Christmas tree in the front courtyard.  

The man hours in this project! Mind boggling, and lovely ...

 Then, inside the house and everywhere you turn, more Christmas trees. Somebody had fun, I hope there was gluwhein involved. 

Ok, that's enough!

Out in to the cold.

Possibly there was low blood sugar involved, but how dare you close a path when we're visiting!

 
This is a Shepherd's Bothy - not an old one obviously but built as part of the National Trust New Art Contemporary Arts Programme taking place across the country. The Artist, Will Shannon, designed and sourced the materials from a 25 mile radius around Standen. The wood is all from the Standen estate. The handmade glass was sourced from the last remaining manufacturer of handmade glass in the UK - English Antique Glass in Birmingham. Isn't it amazing!

Cream tea happened at some stage, with the perpetual disagreement (cream first, then jam, just saying). 

Some wandering around the estate and more Christmas trees!

To the aspirant gardeners out there (Tony), this is how an espalier should end up, may take a couple of hundred years though!

Home time!