Life at the Hotel and Lessons Learned

Life is a succession of lessons, which must be lived to be understood.     -- Ralph Waldo Emerson After a week of chilly, dreary days, heavy granite skies, the wind whipping in circles around the courtyard, flicking leaves across the stones and spattering rain against the windows, battering down onto the cement of the terrace, the sun has arrived ...

Chocolate Palets Bretons – Chocolate Butter Cookies from Brittany

In the spring, at the end of the day, you should smell like dirt. - Margaret Atwood, Bluebeard's Egg Spring has finally arrived in Chinon. Wild winds, grey skies, spattering rain are interspersed with flashes of bright sunlight filtering through hazy skies and lighting up the courtyard, brushing against the windows and warming the breakfast room. ...

Small Town Life

Sunday, May 31, 2015 10 , , Permalink 0

A small town is a place where there's no place to go where you shouldn't. - Burt Bacharach I like the small-townness of Chinon. Everyone seems to know one another but not in an American small-town way; the knowing is very discreet, a restrained nod of the head in passing, a simple acknowledgement of recognition, of ...

Leaving

Wednesday, January 21, 2015 16 , , Permalink 1

AND GOING  Anything one man can imagine, other men can make real. - Jules Verne, Around the World in Eighty Days  I am surrounded by suitcases many open and half filled, the sun streaming in the windows of this apartment that we will leave in just two days. Cartons are stacked high to the ceiling, rolls of ...