Wednesday

It does appear like we're setting records with these glorious days of sunshine and warmth.

The morning wasn't cloud free. But if you have a crab as we do -- beautifully golden in these last colorful days of autumn, it hardly matters.






Breakfast, in the front room, has its own sunshine -- a bouquet of yellow flowers and Ed's rare morning smile.






Then I lost myself in my Great Writing Project and when I next looked up, the sun had taken hold and you wouldn't think of packing even a sweater to go outside.

I went to Snowdrop's home and played with her for a while (noting that the few photos I managed to take all had something in common...).



standing





shaking





...and rolling


And after lunch, which, these days is a joyous (even for today's peas, spinach and pears) and surprisingly neat affair...





... there was no question but that we would be going outside.

She is much better on the slide, but still unsure of anything else at the playground. They are not easy spaces for her to navigate and the free fall activities leave her feeling vulnerable. Still, she is happier today than she was yesterday and so we end our brief playground visit on a better note.

But the highest of high notes comes with leaf play. What child doesn't love to crunch and rustle and swoosh all the fallen flakes of gold?






Snowdrop is no exception here. What a beautiful afternoon! We had a gift of good weather and I had the gift of playing with leaves with my granddaughter. You can't top that.

Tuesday

Maybe it wont break any records, but surely this is one of the warmest, nicest November days ever.

I let the cheepers out just as the sun sets that golden tone onto the farmette.






The beloved farmhouse peaks out of a backdrop of sun dappled fall colors.






Breakfast is, of course, in the sun room.






As it's Tuesday, I rush off rather quickly to Snowdrop's home. I'm there just as she wakes up.





And so begins our day together. I don't need to describe the play routines. You've seen them before and in any case, toddlers the world over replicate these same developmental efforts -- standing, rambling, playing, swaying...


Of course, I have a grandma's perspective: this girl is uniquely grand and ready to take on the world...







But I do understand that first she has to pick up a few skills...






Including moving about on her two strong, but still toddler-ish legs.






In the afternoon, we go out for a walk. Of course we do -- it's 70F! But instead of merely walking her around the neighborhood, I take her to a playground that was just put into a nearby lakeside park. The equipment is for the younger set and I think this may be a good time to get Snowdrop interested in slides and swings.

 In fact, she is more interested in the other children there.





She loathed the idea of sliding down, at least on the first couple of tries (we came back again later and she fares better). And the swings? Well, in grandma's lap in the most gentle fashion (this wont do in the long run, Snowdrop, this grandma hates swings!).

For the rest of the walk, she kept glancing at me to see what else I had up my sleeve and she was delighted when the whole adventure was behind us and she could ramble around in her own home.





It's interesting how quickly kids develop a suspicious attitude toward new things. Snowdrop has never minded new people and she has become a terrific eater of new foods. I imagine once she understands the whole set up, she'll be clamoring up the slide with glee, like the bigger kids. If only the good weather holds long enough to get us there!

earlier than early

If I have an appointment to make, I try to do it in the predawn hours, so that it doesn't impact my schedule with Snowdrop. As a result, we were up so incredibly early today that I almost felt as if I were about to take a trip on one of those obnoxiously early flights.

We didn't eat breakfast until after my appointments and that felt a bit strange, too.






In all, an odd beginning to a gorgeously warm and sunny day.

And you know if it's Monday, this puts Snowdrop right at the farmhouse and that's truly wonderful as I've missed playing with her here.

Yes, she seems older! Every week propels her closer to a new stage of development and today, I let her show me what she has been up to when I was away.






There was a mutual adoration moment to observe as well...






And since the day just couldn't get any nicer, we went out for a bit so that Ed could eat his lunch, Scotch could eat her bread and Snowdrop could again display her utter love for all the living things here at the farmette.






Willow play, too, remains a favorite..






And though she isn't about to take steps just today, Snowdrop truly does look impressive  up on her two solid little feet (even as her face says -- I am not that confident yet!)






Very impressive. And happy.





As am I -- it's so good to be back!

I return Snowdrop to her home. I linger for a bit. It's lovely to see her side by side with her mom.






I come back to the farmhouse after the sun has set, but then, we fell back this weekend and the sun sets at a very early hour.

Sunday

However was I so lucky to come back to such beautiful weather?

I'm up to let the cheepers out. Oh, the colors of Fall!







But look -- it's my Giverny corner! My gaura is blooming as hard as theirs!






And so are the potted annuals that line the walkway to the farmhouse.






Breakfast in the sunroom.






The girls run up to the farmhouse to see if I'm ready to share bread with them.  The pinwheels whirl and dance to my delight and their indifference.






In the afternoon, Ed and I go for a walk to our local arboretum. I would say that it is Madison's best park. And in the same way that Warsaw's Lazienki and Paris's Luxembourg Gardens delivered the colors, so does the Arobretum!






Here's a little girl studying the colors. Not Snowdrop, but a beautiful moment nonetheless.
















We need a selfie!












In the late afternoon I have the great fortune to meet up with my friend, who does not live these days in Madison, but comes here nonetheless because of family connections. By the time I'm done reviewing my past worries and dilemmas with her and she has put forth hers with me, the light has faded and the skies are very dark.






I come home to an ever patient Ed ("Dinner's going to be late tonight, honey") and a World Series baseball game. However much I love my bits and pieces of Poland, I do also appreciate a good World Series game.

the day after the return

It is thought that when you return from a trip, impressions from your travel days quickly dissipate and you find yourself thinking hardly at all about your recent adventures. Life takes over and pushes you forward.

But then, how do you explain these:

I wake up at 4 and because I am still in another time zone, I refuse to go back to sleep. For the rest of the day my tiredness will remind me that I have been traveling.

The very first thing on my to-do list is to give Ed a haircut. Talk about overgrown and shaggy! (What a difference a week makes!) Then, we have breakfast of course, even though the fruit supply is low. In fact, the food supply is low. But, there's never a shortage of oatmeal! And on the table, I place the pot of Giverny flowers...





(I do take note of the fact that my sister's oatmeal is better than mine. More lumpy. I plan on changing my oatmeal making routines so that I can more closely approximate hers.)

I set out to shop for food and because Ed is feeling a bit deprived of my company, he tags along. That hasn't happened in years. It's quite lovely actually, even if I then have to put up with him packing the grocery bags. He claims the grocery clerks squeeze in too few items in each bag. Can you tell whose side I'm on in this one?

At the store I buy buckwheat in bulk. Having it in Poland again reminds me how much I like it. It was such a Polish staple during the post war years...

I unpack the groceries. I place the bunch of parsley in a glass with water. I saw my sister do that. I just throw my parsley into the refrigerator where it promptly wilts within several days. Hers was nice and perky. Besides, a bunch of parsley in a glass is really attractive.

And then I really scrub the crevices of the burners on the stove. This, too, is the aftermath of staying at my sister's home. Her stove hasn't a spot on it. Though Ed claims I am a neat freak, I worry that surely my standards must have slackened because honestly there is no question about it -- her stove was even more fresh and shiny. As of today, mine is that way as well.

Yes, my trip is still with me.


Fall has truly set in. (What a difference a week makes!) It's a rainy day and so I don't spend much time outside, but I do step out just to smell that damp autumnal air.






The cheepers greet me of course and I am happy to see them, especially since our night prowler has not gone away. So far, we're winning the fight with whoever it is that wants access to them. May it stay that way.

And in the evening, the young family and the other grandmother are here for supper and that means I get to see Snowdrop! I stick pinwheels in the pathway to the farmhouse, because I know she likes to look at this spinning toy when we pass it each time we go for a walk. (Ed says -- They look a bit cheap and trashy! I like them!)






And now the family is here for our Sunday dinner (except it's Saturday and I am not yet ready to cook, so we do Japanese take out). And Snowdrop is lively and so very grown up! (What a difference a week makes!)






So tall, strong and able!

refelcting on Paris

What is it with me and France -- Paris in particular? Why do I come here so often? Am I a committed Francophile? No, not really. There are things that admire about each  -- Americans, the French, Poles -- national traits that I suppose give some kind of perspective on the person who lives according to that particular local custom. But I can't be persuaded that one is preferable to the other. (And, at the other end, there are things that I don't admire at all, but even if national traits, the less noble ones, are associated with a country, they don't define individuals. Plenty of people have managed to live great lives without succumbing to ignoble national identities.)

But I do go to France very often -- more often than any other place on the planet and there are reasons why adopted this place to travel to, to gather my wits and think things through. It felt comfortable in a way that Poland didn't, for a long long time. And over the years, I got to know France so very well that it became a second home. And because I live year round in the country and in any case away from any great metropolis, Paris provided a delightful balance.

Here's a glance at the Sorbonne (across from my hotel this time), with very Sorbonne like persons in front.






Here's my Thursday breakfast, with a conspicuous absence of pain au chocolat. If Paris is like home, then I have calm my travel breakfast habits. As it is, after a few days of eating just bread product, I start missing my oatmeal and fruit.






Playing with my camera. In Paris, I feel the freedom that comes with travel to a big place where no one really notices or cares what you're doing.






Though I love traveling alone and I have been doing it since I was 18 and first started hopping back and forth between America and Europe as if it was only a river and not the ocean, still I miss my loved ones.

Here's a book that I purchased in Bon Marche, that exquisite (and exquisitely expensive) department store on the left bank. It's in French, but I'm hoping through repetition Snowdrop will understand the beautiful text. It's about a little girl who visits her grandma's house where everything is so different, everything is so fun! It's a gorgeous book -- drop dead gorgeous. And of course I love the theme!






A girl reads in the corner of the book and toy section. Oh, how I wish our grandchildren knew bookstores back in my American home, like we knew them, or even their parents knew them and yes, children here know them.






As I said so many times here, I miss my family. I miss Ed.

I suppose it's not a coincidence that I picked for my frequent destination this country where personal connections matter. I had a delightful conversation with a French-Colombian sales clerk in this same store who recently got a job selling children's clothing. His real passion is photography and he liked my little camera (which is always suspended around my neck). We talked a lot about picture taking (it was not very busy at the Bon Marche, possibly because of the prices) and then he asked me about my granddaughter and explained proudly that his girl now knew a thousand words in Spanish and another thousand in French. French people, like Polish people, can seem aloof, but once they see that you are responsive, they engage you at a deeper level, leaving you very satisfied. You always learn something from each other.

Ah, family in France! In this country more than anywhere else, I'm almost always the only diner eating alone in the evenings. The waiters treat me with utmost care, perhaps thinking that I, more than others, will profit from their gentility. Around me, people eat in pairs or groups. The French have this well documented thing about food: it is vital to their identity and there are rules that you can like or dislike, but most people follow them to the letter: eat only at mealtimes, slowly, socially, savoring every bite. This is taught early! I don't know of any parent who deviates from the 8-12-4-7 eating schedule with their child. Breakfast, copious lunch, afternoon light meal, dinner. Here's a mom meeting someone over lunch at this same department store. The baby is learning to eat slowly, socially, savoring every sip I imagine. And on schedule!






Of course, France, like Poland, cannot resist picking up on habits of cousins across the ocean. Lightly and not too garishly, but still, you can catch glimpses of it and it is especially amusing when it merges into something so distinctly not American as having a Halloween cake at a very expensive and very refined pastry shop.






I go to lunch at Cafe Varenne. People eat lunch on schedule of course, so it's crowded as can be, but I get a tiny table by the window and the waiters are, as always, superb! And the food? Magnificent. I order the special of the day (as does nearly everyone else): grilled scampi over delicately warmed tomatoes and rice.
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 




Outside, I see that the bakery has gotten its lunch batch of baguettes. The people from the neighborhood line up to get their loaf.






Cafe Varenne also has the best lemon tart anywhere and though I do not usually buy pastries in Paris anymore, I break the rule here.






Let me include a view of Rue du Bac, where the Varenne is located. (I first discovered it many years ago when we stayed at the hotel to the left.)






Food, camaraderie, an easy laugh, attention to presentation.












And of course, as you know, I love the parks in any city, but nowhere more than in Warsaw and in Paris. Here I am, in my beloved Luxembourg Gardens again. I have never shed a tear here. There's too much calm and beauty for even the most frazzled soul.






(And of course, there are the fall leaves...)






But here's another point I want to take up: if Paris is a second home, how does Warsaw fare now?






Warsaw these days fares very well. You could say that two things have pushed it to the forefront for me: what stressed me terribly even a few years ago during visits haunts me no more. Too, with Ed not traveling anymore, Warsaw offers something special: family and friends. They're there. My sister has (mostly) returned from Sweden, my friends never left. And that's just great!

Here's something that France and Poland share: the love of this little fruit that was with me all my Polish childhood years.






Ditto the mushrooms. Both types.






And so you're likely to see more of Poland in my posts going forward, with a continued loyal return to France, but slightly less of the random places that so often caught my travel fancy in the past. Right now, friends and family trump the exotic.

I have more to say on this topic, but I'll save it for later, because it's too big a subject to continue with now in an already long post.

Let me finish with this thought: there is nothing wrong with being alone.






There is nothing wrong with being with friends or family.






The best of all possible worlds is one where you can have some of both.

For this last night, I am dining alone of course, but it's at Pouic Pouic, where I am such a regular that I feel like I am among friends. (Again, personal connections matter in France. If you want them, you will find them.)






And of course, the food is exquisite! (Here, I am eating an appetizer of burrata in a cepes (wild mushroom) sauce.






One more food image -- of dessert: a mango/mascarpone/fresh almond/pineapple sorbet concoction.






The moon shines brightly over many places tonight, but I can only give you Paris:






Friday morning I see that same moon as I leave my hotel at 6 a.m.. I eat breakfast at the airport, where I have my only pain au chocolat of the trip. One can't be too rigid in life!






The plane takes off to the east, then swings back due west. Paris rises like a magic kingdom from the mists that swirl around this beautiful city on a late October morning.