Journal Pages — Paris Purchases, Sketched near Rome. . .

Back home almost a week now, I’m beginning to sleep a bit better (5 1/2 hours in one stretch last night, the most continuous sleep in weeks), and I’m settling back into a very pleasant routine. Baked bread yesterday, watched the granddaughters’ dance classes on the weekend, did some Christmas shopping yesterday and then had lunch with that fellow who stayed behind while I gallivanted == yes, that would be Pater. I’ve been knitting and reading and arranging visits with friends and family. . . and I’ve been trying to catch up my travel journal, while also getting my daily journal going again.  Leisure can be exhausting! 😉

I’m off to the dentist this morning — a tiny chip on my front tooth seems to need re-plastering (might not be the technical term!) every few years, and the most recent fix (perhaps three or four years ago broke off while I was away. I’ll be crossing my fingers that it’s a simple fix again. . . 

Meanwhile, I’ll leave you these journal pages. I sketched them at the table in my daughter’s house in Italy. I’d bought a perfume that I tested and loved last Paris visit but hadn’t found time to get back to the Boulevard Raspail shop to buy it. I’d also bought a jar of l’Occitane face cream, having deliberately brought only enough cream from home to get me through my first week of travel, wanting to bring back something that would weave my trip into my daily routine — I’d originally thought I’d get another jar of Caudalie, but I tried the l’Occitane and liked it.

And both products were packaged beautifully, but I travel light, as you know, and couldn’t see much sense in carting home the paper boxes or bags. Instead, I decided to incorporate some of them into my journal, and I had a delicious hour or two playing with scissors and my little glue stick and my pen and marker and paints. . .  

Snips of the beautiful L’Artisan Parfumeur packaging combined with my riffs on same — the blackberries, and the two doodled hexagons on the right are mine, in case you didn’t guess. . . 

Here are the transcriptions:

Top page, across the left margin, Frankie told me I smelled Bee-you-ti-ful so I asked her to check if her parents thought I could spray her too — some consideration on her part about rolling sleeve up or down first. . . 



Mid-page, to the right of the penguin, I arranged my two Paris purchases on the table at my daughter’s house, but then I needed something else to round out the composition — and what better than a seasonal snow globe, penguin and all . . . 



And from centre to right margin, I bought the face cream at the crowded little L’Occitane shop at Gare de Lyon before boarding my train to Torino (en route to Roma). The sales assistant was obviously pleased with such an easy sale — he loaded me up with all kinds of yummy samples. . . 



And on the second page, beginning at the bottom of the left margin and then working around the page. . . The pleasure of this scent is amplified by memories of the elegant shop, the conversation with the lovely Sales Assistant, the same one who had suggested last June , that I should try Mûre et Musc, and sent me away from the shop on Boulevard Raspail with samples. And today, Monday November 26, 2018, I got a follow-up email from “Ninon” thanking me again for my visit . . . and repeating a description of the scent, “An accord that explores the freshness of luscious blackberries, with an addictive facet of white musk.”

30 Comments

  1. Anonymous
    5 December 2018 / 4:09 pm

    Lovely purchases! Mr. Penguin seems to approve,too
    Good luck with the dentist
    Dottoressa

    • materfamilias
      7 December 2018 / 1:12 pm

      Thanks! The luck came through at the dentist — easy fix!

  2. Madame Là-bas
    5 December 2018 / 4:35 pm

    Blackberries and musk! How could anyone resist? I really like the gold touches in your journal. Did you know that part of the Boulevard Raspail (near Denfert-Rochereau) used to be called Boulevard d'Enfer? I love reading the Paris street signs. It slows me down but I learn a lot. Good luck with the dentist.

    • materfamilias
      7 December 2018 / 1:13 pm

      I do remember knowing something about the Denfert/d'Enfer connection, but I don't know that I realized that was part of Raspail. And I agree — best to go slow while walking the written history of Paris streets.

  3. LPC
    5 December 2018 / 9:54 pm

    A feast for all the senses!

    • materfamilias
      7 December 2018 / 1:14 pm

      😊

  4. anonymous
    5 December 2018 / 10:47 pm

    Lovely reminders of your trip! Hope all goes well at the dentist.

    alf

    • anonymous
      5 December 2018 / 10:47 pm

      slf not alf

    • materfamilias
      7 December 2018 / 1:14 pm

      Thank you — it did!

  5. High Heels in the Wilderness
    6 December 2018 / 4:44 am

    Settling back in at home can be so… well… settling, can't it? Comforting, re-affirmative (is that a word?) that life is good. Once things here have settled down and I'm back driving again (pesky cataracts!) I'm going to get back into some knitting action. You've inspired me and I need a project. Love your journal collages!

    • materfamilias
      7 December 2018 / 1:15 pm

      You've had a bit of work to settle in, though, haven't you?! Hope that surgery went well and you're on the way to improved vision.

  6. Unknown
    6 December 2018 / 6:48 am

    I’m impressed with your sketching. You must be pleased with your progress.
    We have been home eight days and still not sleeping the full night. It does make for a long day.
    Ali

    • materfamilias
      7 December 2018 / 1:16 pm

      Oh, I hear you! I did manage a 9 p.m. to 3 a.m. last night — six consecutive hours! But of course couldn't get back to sleep, so I gave in and got up at 4. . . another day for a nap, I guess. . . at least I can fit it in my retirement schedule easily 😉

  7. Linda
    6 December 2018 / 8:23 am

    What a lovely post of travel joys, Frances. And just to say that I've been enjoying your recent posts despite lack of comments. These brought-home purchases bring so much with them in terms of connection with the country in which they were bought. Do you know the tiny parfumerie in the Allées de Tourny in Bordeaux? I was taken in there by a French tourist guide colleague in Bordeaux, where she was warmly received as a regular client. I very rarely wear perfume, but found myself agreeing to being sprayed – liberally and all over!! – with an Annick Goutal fragrance "Je vous parfume, Madame?". I would love to know what your Mûre et Musc fragrance is like.
    Being blessed with car transport this summer I stocked up on Mixa body lotion and Le Petit Marseillais soap and shower gel in supermarkets. I imagine French tourists are stocking up on basic to us but exotic to them items from Canada and Scotland. Your sketching and journalling are so creative – I love it!

    • materfamilias
      7 December 2018 / 1:19 pm

      Thanks, Linda! And I do know exactly the shop you mean — I wonder if I still have the small bottle a bought there. . .
      Oh, if I could drive from Europe to my home, what a trunkful of everyday basics I'd load up with. As you say, basic there, exotic to me, and such a powerful way of folding the travel into the daily domestic. . .

  8. Mary
    6 December 2018 / 11:27 am

    Your various descriptions of interactions with people on your trip–from the separate purchases of your perfume and cream to the knitting needle expedition mentioned the other day– really bring the travel experience to life. The small pleasures of travel enrich us in ways we don't always understand at the time. Easy to visualize the encounters and see how each of them made a small, happy memory.

    • materfamilias
      7 December 2018 / 1:20 pm

      Yes, for me this is such a large part of the experience, at least as important as seeing La Tour Eiffel or the Vatican or any iconic monument.

  9. Georgia
    6 December 2018 / 3:57 pm

    You caught me again! Twisting and tilting my head like an owl to read your script. I do know the transcription will be below but somehow can't bear to scroll past the written words.

    Do you check a bag on the way home? I may have asked you that before.

    • materfamilias
      7 December 2018 / 1:26 pm

      Yikes! That one's pretty twisty — hope you didn't get a kink in your neck! 😉
      I have checked on the way home — did it last January (had checked on the way out and all went so smoothly, bag was ready to pick up by the time I cleared Border Police at CDG). And it was well over an hour after the flight landed before my bag finally rolled onto the carousel.
      This time, the BA counter agent at Rome/Fiumicino tried to convince me to check, offering that service for free because the flight was going to be very busy. She was quite forceful, but because I find the London Heathrow connection can be stressful, I kept pleasantly repeating that I'd like to keep my bag. She was not pleased and I couldn't help but wonder afterward if that had something to do with my not-very-nice seat assignment on the LHR to YVR portion. . . Still, at least when I got off that flight I was out of the airport quickly. . . 😉

  10. hostess of the humble bungalow
    6 December 2018 / 6:41 pm

    Your illustrated journal just gets better and better! Love the addition of the box labels…
    hopefully your dentist can fix the tooth…I have the same issue with a couple of my front teeth…and you reminded me they need to be tended to again.
    L'Occitane make great skincare products…I use them too.

    • materfamilias
      7 December 2018 / 1:27 pm

      He did fix it, without any freezing, no discomfort, very easy except for the whopper of a bill as I used up all our benefits with my new crowns this year.
      I saw that you were using that same face cream — I love the gentle scent.

  11. Eleonore
    7 December 2018 / 9:33 am

    Your journal is so beautiful, with its golden illuminations! On most of my trips I try to keep a journal, sticking tickets, postcards, labels, tourist brochures etc. on the pages of a notebook, with some comments. But if I do not finish it on the way, it will stay fragmentary in most cases, because after coming home "normal" everyday life swallows me up.

    • materfamilias
      7 December 2018 / 1:29 pm

      Thanks, E. It just seemed a shame to waste that lovely card paper.
      And I'm exactly the same with the fragmentary ephemera of a trip — once I'm home, they're forgotten as normal life resumes its pace. I'm trying to resist that this time, and get them all squashed between journal covers with a wee bit of text explanation, but I don't know how I'll do. . .

  12. Maggie
    7 December 2018 / 11:47 am

    I love your journal pages! Good luck with the tooth.

    • materfamilias
      7 December 2018 / 1:29 pm

      Thank you!

  13. Mardel
    7 December 2018 / 12:06 pm

    I do love watching the evolution of your journal pages, and the way you integrate the here, and there, continuing them a bit as you return to "normal". What is normal anyway? Even in the subtlety of your blog you remind me to question that, that there need be no fixed point for what it should be, just the living. Thank you for sharing, always.

    • materfamilias
      7 December 2018 / 1:30 pm

      Oh, thanks so much for saying this, Mardel. You get right to the heart of what I'm trying to work through right now. I'd love not to feel the compartmentalization so much of the here and there, then and now. . . .

  14. Marianne
    7 December 2018 / 12:21 pm

    Thank you for sharing your travels. Your illustrated journal is a real joy! You've inspired me to change up the way I memorialize my days. What is the brand of the journal that you use?

    • materfamilias
      7 December 2018 / 1:34 pm

      You're very welcome, Marianne, and thank you for your kind words! The pages you see here are from my Moleskine watercolour sketchbook, but I also keep a separate journal that's for writing more text, accompanied by illustrations that are mostly in ink, perhaps with the addition of markers or pencil crayon. I'm currently trying to figure ways to streamline or to get the best value for the paper I'm using — i.e. it doesn't make sense to use premium watercolour paper if I'm not needing the absorbency/texture, etc. The page with the black-and-white/Mure et Musc, for example, is actually a bit of a waste of that paper. . . Perhaps I should write a short post about this. . .

  15. Christine
    11 December 2018 / 12:58 pm

    Mur et musc was my first perfume from L'Artisan bought in London many many years ago. Now I am hugely fond of Mimosa pour Moi. Wonderful shops

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