Early morning in the Marais

Early birds having morning coffee while the quarter sleeps late 

Café crème hits the spot

after a Friday night that fizzed and popped into the wee hours

The bakers must have got to work as the last revellers were heading home 

Tables and chairs set out for the day

inviting one in

Encore fermé

here too

But shutters are beginning to open

Orthodox Jewish men are walking to shul ...

along medieval streets

and where the quarter meets the river a girl is dancing au bord de la Seine

(A collection of images mostly taken early on a summer Saturday morning that got me wanting to play with some retro editing effects)

♥ Paris in the summertime

How much do I love Eurostar ...? From London St Pancras to Paris Gare du Nord in an easy peasy, comfortable and pleasant 2 hours 15 minutes.

Abbaye de St Germain des Près in green leaf

You can go for the day, but when the sun's shining in Paris and you have a willing accomplice to sneak off with, why not make it a weekend?

Having had the same dodgy spring as London, Parisians were making the most of beautiful summery weather that had arrived at last ...

chilling, ever stylishly, on the grass and at café tables 

And what more romantic spot than the Jardin du Luxembourg for a summer wedding ...?

Bride, Jardin du Luxembourg. J'adore her outfit, but most especially her red shoes.

Splashes of red seemed to be la couleur de l'été over at the Jardin du Palais Royal too ...

  where things were even more relaxed ...

amongst the roses, statues and fountains and even the pigeons were taking a bit of a break from life ...

A glass of wine here took the edge off our own busy day of walking and shopping our feet off ...

though we passed on the oysters à emporter in the street and went on to dinner instead.

Best of all was sharing all this beauty with lovely friends ...

Twilight around 9.30 pm at the église St Gervais et St Protais, Marais

Battersea Park

... on the last Sunday of April was the sort of day when at long last you could sit on the grass and read the paper 

watching the more energetic jog by

Blossoms were making an appearance and it was the sort of hopeful day you might swing your child in the air

or free your tot from the confines of his pram and set him down to poke his fingers in the soil ...

Why walk when you could choose from any variety of wheels? ...

Even the dogs were getting the chance to socialise. There was a pups' play-date going on here ...

In the Old English Garden behind brick walls, it was all muted colours and unstructured, rambling, green abundance ...

These bold, orange tulips in ordered rows would definitely not have been allowed in the Old English garden ...

Was it winter still or spring? Many of the trees looked confused on this point ...

Bicycles everywhere ...

... and these houses bordering the river reminded me of Holland, but not the Tai Chi so much ...

Reassuringly, there was a very English game of cricket going on ...

For Toby

There have been tears on two continents these last few days, for the ending of this beautiful boy's life.

Traveller, survivor.
Fearless, vocal, demanding of attention from his adoring human lesser-beings ...

champion moler and hunter-gatherer, ruler of the roost, most affectionate and loving of creatures ...

sweetest boy
in our hearts always.

A country weekend

My little blog has been sadly neglected for a long while, like an orphan child. Actual life intervened and took over for a bit, and then coming back turned out to be hard when I felt I had absolutely nothing of interest to say ...

But looking back through my photos it seems there have been days I felt worth capturing, so here with few words are pictures instead ...

Easter Sunday, back at the start of April, was spent on our friends' farm, perched on a hilltop precisely on the border of two counties, with views of rolling Dorset countryside all the way down to the south coast of England.

Trees were brown and bare, despite the fact that it was technically spring, and it was very, very cold still.

After lunch there was a walk in the woods ...

... featuring walkers well-wrapped against the cold and welly-shod, English-style, for the mud ...

... two happy dogs - one a scruffy little biscuit-coloured terrier and the other a noble russet hound ...

and woods filled with acres of wild garlic, growing rampantly ...

their white flowers (reeking and also edible) just days from bursting open and turning the woods white