We all need friends to keep on an even keel..
The following street art is in Paris.
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Tag Archives: Paris
Friends, Street Art and Sydney Opera House
Tour Eiffel, Yarn Bombing and Le Shopping
The sun came out for our last day in Paris and we returned to the Eiffel Tower with warmth on our backs and a beautiful blue sky, wandered through the park under the tower and through the nearby streets, found some yarn bombed bollards and ended the day shopping! Sadly, the gloves you see below were 220 euros so they stayed in Galleries Lafayette but I have their photo! I did buy some little wooden owls for our Christmas tree. I was looking for Angels, of course, but there were none but owls do have wings, are little feathered Angels of the natural world and are the Wiseman family emblem so I am very happy with my small purchase.
Ancient Angels, Tapestries and A Gargoyle
Within walking distance of our hotel are some Angels dating from 1407 on the auberge of Nicolas Flamel, a philanthropist who provided lodging for the peasants who came from the countryside to plough the fields nearby. 
Thence to La Musee de Moyen Ages where the six most beautiful tapestries in the world are to be found telling the story of The Lady and the Unicorn. I can spend hours here! I am so moved by the work, the colours, the detail – if you ever get the chance to see them, please grab it! These date from about 1450 and although said to be faded are still glorious. The lighting does not lend itself to good photos. I love the expression on the face of this lion!
We made a delicious new discovery while in the Cluny, a tiny Chapel which wasn’t open when we first visited about 15 years ago. The stone work was incredible, the paintings delightful, the doorway to a spiral staircase quite enchanting and the Angels full of mischief!
After this most pleasing visit we went hunting Angels again. We found the Macaron Angels on a patisserie, mosaic Angels on a Church and a ceramic and stoneware Angel left over from the Exposition Universelle of 1889.
And perhaps the best saved until last – a wonderful gargoyle on the top of the Cluny Museum. Don’t you just love this monster? I do!
Angels, Macarons and Shops
Today we have continued our architectural tour of Paris in the 3rd and 4th arondissements. We have found Angels in stone and in wrought iron, Angels with lions and Angels with lyres, on walls and porticoes and on Notre Dame, feeding squirrels and holding shields. We have walked streets and lanes and discovered byways and parks we would never have found but for our angel hunt. Join us on our adventure. We have walked miles!
Notre Dame Cathedral from the rose bed.
These and another pair can be found on the pediment of the Hotel Soubrise. The little pile of wood that one Angel sits on, a fascine, is for making parapets. They date from 1708.
These two from 1914 are raising the coat of arms of Saintonge. The pair across the arch represent Bretagne. They are each a boy and girl pair which seems quite unusual.
These two lovely little boy Angels date from 1660 and were sculpted by Thomas Regnaudin, whose work can also be found in the fountains of Versailles.
Here is a sweet little figure feeding a squirrel and next a chubby little chap with curly hair representing Love.
On the way around we passed a spectacular macaron shop and, truly, we did pass and didn’t go in!
Going through such little streets we came across lots of artisan shops – among them a music shop, a repairs shop and a prestidigitation store.
Lastly, near our hotel we found a basement allotment!
The following, while not conventionally beautiful, touched us both with the terrible story it tells and the appositeness in the political wind blowing through some parts of Western democracy.
Family Heirloom, Weddings and Something Borrowed
1 The Weekly Writing Challenge this week is too good for me to pass up! It requires us to write about our favourite things and since every day, I write about beautiful things, today I’m also writing about one of my very special and favourite things The Family Locket. This has been in the family, on my Mother’s side for at least 152 years and is now entrusted to my care.
My Great Granny’s Locket
We know very little about my Great Grandmother apart from the fact that she was Spanish and we think the locket probably is too. The front of the locket is particularly beautiful, the silver being inlaid with a black stone, maybe jet.The back is covered in very delicate engraving. My Mum attributed the fact that her hair never went grey to her Spanish genes!
The front of the locket
Inside the locket are two tiny photographs, one of my Great Grandmother and the other of my Great Grandfather, the only photo we have of him.
Inside the locket
My Spanish Great Grandmother and her Husband
In the photograph, taken we assume sometime around 1860, she is wearing the locket and just look at his wonderful moustache! We treasure her studio portrait in its original card frame.
Studio portrait c 1860
2 I am told that my Granny, whom I knew well – she taught me to knit, to crochet and to play cards, but never on a Sunday! – wore the locket at her wedding on 27th April 1882 but I don’t have a photograph of that wedding. I do have a photograph of Granny and sometimes, when I pass a mirror, I fleetingly catch her image. I remember her as always smiling and I’m told I do that too!
My Granny
My Mum, married on 2nd September 1939, by her Father, The Very Reverend William Richards, the day before the Second World War was declared, wore the locket at her wedding but their honeymoon, planned to be in Paris, was a few snatched days in Blackpool instead. The photo isn’t very clear but the chain and shape can just be made out in this photo.
My Mum at her Wedding in front of Cockerham Vicarage, Lancashire
I, too, wore the locket at my wedding in Truro, Cornwall almost 30 years later in 1967.
I wore it at our Wedding August 1967
KJ, our second daughter, wore the locket at her wedding in London July 2006.
Our daughter, KJ wore it for her Wedding 2006
KJ also has Granny’s grin!
3 When my Brother and Sister-in-law were married in June 1993 in the Chapel at Truro School, the locket was V’s borrowed and old item. I know from the wedding in Senegal that not everyone knows the saying – ‘Something old, something new, Something borrowed, something blue’ to bring good luck to the newly wedded couple.
There is something very special about being able to lend such a precious item to someone you love. My Mum had died only three weeks before the wedding so this is a particularly poignant memory. She would have been so pleased that the locket was there again, at another family wedding and welcoming another daughter into the family.
My Brother, my Sister-in-law and my Dad
So, my three beautiful things today are all linked and all depend on the very precious and very beautiful Family Locket.
The Cradle, Hydranger Seemanii and Flapjack
1 I love this painting by Berthe Morrisot which I first saw in the Musee d’Orsay, in Paris many years ago. A print now hangs on our landing so that I see it every day. I had to photograph it at an angle to stop the reflection. I hope you can see how lovely it is.
Le Berceau by Berthe Morrisot
2 The hydranger is just starting to open. It is already beautiful.
Hydranger Seemanii beginning to open
3 Made the most delicious sticky flapjack using Dorset Muesli with lots of fruit, bit of an experiment and a bit of a success!
Flapjack in the oven
