Category: Family & Friends
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This Belongs in Your House
Dear Claire: The days are shortening, the nights are cool and I am, slowly, packing away my summer things for another year. When I see this dress hanging in my closet – the one you admired – I can’t bear to banish it to the basement. It reminds me too much of you, Ellen and… Read more
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The Best Place on Earth
The more I travel across this country – and abroad for that matter – the more I am dumbfounded by the human ability to choose just one place to call home. There are a hundred magical villages, towns, cities and regions that strike a frisson of excitement in my gut, triggering the feeling that “I… Read more
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The Paddler
Yesterday afternoon I went for a walk in a torrential downpour and returned home with a kayaker from Florida. Karen has been travelling, paddling and visiting up here since late June. She completed sections of the Trent-Severn Waterway then discovered the Rideau Canal. She parked her car in Ottawa and caught a train back to Kingston,… Read more
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Dear Mr. Gopnik
16 September 2012 Mr. Adam Gopnik, Author, “The Table Comes First: Family, France and the Meaning of Food” c/o The New Yorker, New York, NY Dear Mr. Gopnik, I discovered Through the Children’s Gate on a trip to New York for Number Two Son’s 6th birthday. So it seemed fitting that I bring along The… Read more
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Goodbye Summer, Hello Autumn
I don’t care that the official last day of summer is the 21st of September or that it is still hot as Hades here in Rome. For me, once the calendar flips from August to September, fall begins. The kids prepare for school, marking the start of my new year. Two more sleeps and we… Read more
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Celebrating Happiness
It seems the entire population came out for the annual summer celebration of village life in Noyers. I took the little ones home around midnight and my eldest wandered in around 1:00am. Apparently there was still a crowd of people in the square until 3:00am, when they shifted to the local after-party. Getting together en… Read more
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The Beginning of All Things
Although Marco told me stories about his village, I tucked them away until I arrived in Noyers. Then I tugged on a thread and the people came tumbling out. * “Are you from New York?” I asked the young girl cycling towards me. I explained who I was and my train of thought. I told… Read more
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Night Wanderings
I’m sweaty, Husband is coughing and hacking, and I can’t sleep. But this is a large house and there are empty beds upstairs. In the blackness of our unfamiliar bedroom I shuffle across the floor, toward the spiral staircase and a sliver of light. The stairs are stone, wedge-shaped, five hundred years old and lack… Read more
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French Architectural Eye Candy
There’s little point in snapping pics of Marco and Rod’s house here in Noyers-Sur-Serein, Burgundy, France when there’s a ShutterFly page crammed with great photos. Not a bad shack, I think. And here’s a sneak peek at the greater village. Read more
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Winging Away
I realized that it isn’t obvious I’m away for the summer. Husband and I have taken all the squids to France/Italy, returning in September. We spent five days in Paris, moved on to Normandy and have just arrived for an extended stay at my brother-in-law’s house in Noyers-sur-Serein. After, we’re off to see the rellies… Read more