Realizing how completely unlikely it is that I will post while my visitors are here from Rome, I’d love to show you a photo or two(or, you know, 17? Some days, I just can’t stop with the camera!).
It’s been pouring all night, and flashing occasional bits of lightning, so we’re hoping Daughter, Son-in-Love, and Very Cute Granddaughter will embrace the rain and cooler temps after the constant heat they’ve enjoyed (well, experienced anyway) in the Eternal City since they settled there in May. Of course, Nana and Granddad will be happy enough as long as we’re in the company of VCG but we’d also love her Mom and Dad to be able to appreciate Bordeaux’s charms….I’m not sure how well that iconic reflecting pool works in the rain….
Top photo, a What I Wore shot I prevailed on Pater to take at the nearby Jardin Public we walk through most days. Somehow, when my morning includes a walk over a (however artificial) stream on a classically-green-painted wrought iron bridge, I’m already having a good day. Poor Pater, he generally resists using my iPhone camera and it takes him forever to find the shutter button, but he did a good job here, didn’t he? Navy cotton top, J Crew; floral khakis handed down from daughter when she moved to Rome. I’ve been loving them for travel, but might surrender them if she’d like them back. Maybe not until our visit to Rome in a few weeks though. As for those nude Vince flats, I knew they were a stretch for the afternoon’s projected 8 kilometres, but damnit, they were perfect with the pants! (And yes, there may have been a resulting blister. Or two.)
Next photo is of the Repetto window in Downtown Bordeaux, a scene from the ballet, Sleeping Beauty. This Red Riding Hood scene is from the entertainment offered at Beauty’s christening, before the forgotten and offended crone cursed her to decades of sleep. Not sure it would be a good window for VCG to view, but it would be fun to show her older cousins.
The bike photo is a just-because shot that struck my fancy as we sat eating this funny little first course on a narrow little street in the city centre
Yes, the entrée, sardines à l’huile arrived as an opened tin of the most scrumptious sardines in wonderfully fragrant, flavourful oil which we couldn’t resist mopping up with the very good accompanying bread. The butter is unusual, ordinarily only seen when we have oysters, and we certainly didn’t need it. (You might be relieved to know that my plat arrived, the boudin noir was appropriately seated on a plate….)
And throughout that lunch, besides the conversation with my husband and all the fun of people-watching, my eye and imagination kept being drawn to this open window just across the intersection. I love what I see of the room from the outside, love the way it’s framed by the stone and the pale blue paint, the large painting (or print) framed so effectively just inside, those curtains drawn back, the window opened…
Tantalizing glimpses of other lives we don’t need to know. I think that’s part of what I love about cities, especially ones that aren’t my own. It’s probably what I wouldn’t like, as well, in other circumstances.
But now, it’s time to move. We have to get up to the market this morning to provision this house with as many good things as we can think of to show these visitors how much we love and have missed them. I’ll pop in to read your comments if I get a chance, but I’m going to be happily preoccupied from now until they leave next week. Happy Weekend, all of you, and thank you for reading!
Lovely photos. And that one of you in the little blue blouse with those gloral pants. Tres, tres chic. Your new short crop with the stand up collar and sunglasses puts me in mind of those chic actresses in the fifties, with their turned up collars and tousled hair. Eliz Taylor in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, maybe? Or Cyd Charisse ( sp?)
Oh stop! No, do go on….😉
I mean, thank you, thank you!
The tin of sardines brought a raised eyebrow from my husband, but you embraced it and I'm sure they were delicious. Have a wonderful time with the little family! By the way, you look great in the WIW shot!
If they hadn't tasted wonderful and if the rest of the meal hadn't been very good, I would have felt as if we were being had, but they were and it was, and the price was not bad either.
Thank you!
You look great,happy and relaxed!
The tin of sardines come in a restaurant? Very original way of serving,no fuss! But ok if they were tasteful 🙂
When I look your beautiful pictures,all are a bit of theatre,no? Except you,but it was Pater's work
Have a beautiful week with your family
Dottoressa
Yes, as I respond to Patricia above. It could only work IF
It's true, and I never thought of that, but there's a bit of the stage in all those shots, and yes, I'd say that my posing on the bridge qualifies as well. Thanks!
Your photos transport me! I am sardine lover so the open can calls to me. The blues of doors and shutters in France…It is indeed the glimpses of lives that I do not live( but might like to) that interest me when I am away from home. The simple act of buying food can be so much fun. Have a lovely time with the visitors!
Thanks, Mme. In the end we must go back to our own lives but we do so changed by all those glimpses, the lives imagined….
Have a wonderful time with your daughter and her family! And I am loving that hair of yours more and more.
Thanks Lisa!
You look very French on that first photo 🙂
Thank you, Marie-Odile! In my view, that counts as a great compliment.
Your short hair really suits you. It looks great.
Thanks! It's relaxing into a style I quite like.
It all looks lovely, so glad to visit Bordeaux again through your lens.