Home Again, Home Again, Jiggety-Jog

Oui, I agree, it has been too quiet here on the blogside while I have been in transition…

First I had to finish up my projets de la maison rue Ferlus so that it is ready for R&C to have a sunny honeymoon here at the end of July – my first renters!  I am convinced they will like it here as much as I do – the village, the food at the Revel market, our Sorezian bakeries, lac St Ferreol just up the hill for swimming and boating, walks and bike rides into the countryside, the fascinating history of the region, the Mediterranean sea or the Pyrennes mountains just a little over an hour a way…  I could go on, but then I might start a landslide of visitors. (I’ll add a photo mosaic of the house soon.)

I had M, D and G over for one more dinner (roast pork loin with shitake mushroom sauce, parsleyed noodles, salad with goat cheese and roasted beets…), took two more walks around town with my camera, slept fewer hours than needed and then scooted with G to the Toulouse airport to leave for Paris Orly.

I met my dear friend S in Paris for Cecilia Woloch’s Paris Poetry Workshop.  We stayed in the 03eme (3^rd arrondisement) of le Marais in one of Parler Paris’ furnished apartments – tastefully renovated and on a quiet back street.  We had a talented, supportive group of poets with us in the workshop. Cecilia and her crew of Expat Lady Poets, Heather Hartley, Jenny Huxta and Jennifer K Dick, had us exploring and writing morning, noon and night.
We even made a daytrip to Burgundy on the train where we were lulled by a walk through the quiet village, regaled with the writing of Jeffrey Greene and the cooking of his mother, Gretchen at their 18^th century presbytery in Rogny-des-Sept-Écluses (a village with an ancient system of seven locks built in the 17^th century).

The last writing event was a reading by all of the workshop poets along with Jenny Huxta of new and existing work at Shakespeare & Company bookstore on the left bank.  We walked across the Isle St Louis in sublime sunset light to have a celebratory dinner at a long table in the upstairs room of restaurant Au Chien Qui Fume (metro Chatelet) – really good food in really good company.

After an arduous day of travel (20 hours door to door, Paris=>Chicago=>San Francisco =0@...), I spent some time in the city with the Son and his smart and lovely Wife and then made my way to the little town in Sonoma county we call “the Burg”.  A bounty of flowers and friendship awaited me – D, C and R had made my little blue house very welcoming and a Scramble of Eggs arrived for our writers group meeting around dinner time with food in hand.

Home again on this side.  Gotta’ go, I hear the garden calling me to come out and jiggety-jog among the flowers.

Bisous,

N2