Anne of Green Gables

This summer I watched “Anne With An E” on Netflix.  I loved it.  The setting was beautiful. I totally got Anne and I loved her ability to see the best in every situation.  I don’t understand why I’ve never read the book before.  I found the eBook on Amazon and downloaded it to my phone.  I haven’t had much time for reading this last year, but I’m almost at the end and am thoroughly enjoying it.  I will be looking out for all of the “Anne” books, as well as the rest of Lucy Maud Montgomery’s work.

Cat men

This post also appeared on Facebook

We’ve recently seen the film Bohemian Rhapsody and since then Freddie Mercury and Brian May seem to be cropping up all over the place online. I’ve been especially interested in Freddie’s love for cats. We had four cats as I was growing up and I loved sharing the house with them (except for winter mornings when one or another cold damp cat would try to get into bed with me).

This morning as I woke up a grain of an idea manifested itself; I had seen someone like Freddie holding a cat somewhere before. I managed to find a surviving scan of a rare photograph/postcard we sold of French writer, Pierre Loti, holding one of his cats. Like Freddie he was famous for his love of cats, he loved flamboyant clothes and was possibly bisexual. And the moustache is very similar too! Here are a couple of blog posts.

The moving statue of Franz Kafka

In May we visited Olivier and his partener Anna.  As I thought, Olivier had plenty of new things to show us.  This was one of them:

A statue of Franz Kafka that moves.  If you're interested look on Google for longer versions.

The Jardin Public in Bordeaux

At the end of November we spent a weekend in Bordeaux.  We had Sunday lunch at the Jardin Public, a beautiful park on a beautiful day.  We even ate outside in the sunshine!

walking by the river

We were walking along the banks of the River Charente in Jarnac. It was a beautiful day. Here are some reflections:

It really is a beautiful place to go for a walk:

A Walk in the Black Forest

 This tune pops into my head from Time to time. The first time I heard it I was at the cinema waiting to see Mary Poppins back in 1965. I was almost 10 years old. The sun is always shining when I hear this tune!

The story that was never written

This morning I was in the shower when a great opening line came to me. I was really proud of myself as I knew that from this one sentence a story could develop.  I made a mental note to write it down as soon as I could.

 Here I am, 6 hours later. I have just remembered that I’ve completely forgotten the words that came to me. The greatest short story ever written has disappeared forever.