Paris

We can never understands the minds of those who can so mercilessly and so easily take the lives of others.

We can only respond with love and empathy and hope for better days ahead.

Paris is the city of my heart. I love it unabashedly and I love the people who live there. Parisians are often accused of being rude or cold or unsentimental. They are none of those things.

The images of last night - the terror, the anguish, the unstinting heroics, the sports fans leaving the stadium spontaneously singing Le Marseillaise - are etched in my soul today.

Many of the locations were mere blocks from where Barry and I stayed in September. We walked those neighbourhoods and adored them. We will do so again. And like my friends and other favourite city, New York City, Parisians will not be bested.

But today they can use our prayers. As can those who commit these acts of atrocities. Peace on Earth.

Je suis Parisienne.

The joys of travel, the perils of over-packing, and the happiness of returning home

Is there anything quite as nice as going on a trip?

The answer is yes: returning home! 

I have been back for a week and apologize profusely for not checking in earlier.

I've been busy catching up on housework, writing, exercising and generally enjoying being home again.

I also had to immediately swap my summer clothing for its fall cousins; when I left on the 20th it was 24C, when I returned it was freezing!  Now it seems to have settled into something in between.

I think it is hard to encapsulate a trip, and those of you who follow me on Instagram know I was a frequent picture taker (and an unabashed fan of the quality of the photos my Samsung smart phone took!).

you don't need an Instagram account to see these, just go to : https://instagram.com/wendymacknight/

Highlights for me?


Stopping for that first glass of rose at the St. Regis, our tradition.

Living in a Parisian neighbourhood for almost a week.

It is a completely different experience when you live in an apartment, go to the same Boulangerie each morning, the same marche, the same cafes. We stayed in the Marais arrondisement and found it absolutely delightful.

Our apartment was also topknotch. We originally found it through Air B&B, but what I liked was that the property was owned by a management company that had several lovely properties. It was clean, comfortable and quiet. And oh-so-charming!



The view out our window into our charming Passage...
 



On more than one occasion on this trip I thought of chucking everything
 to move to Paris to run a flower shop!



A garden in our neighbourhood

A stumble-upon for us was a new restaurant right around the corner: Le Mazenay. Only open for four weeks, the food was amazing and the server, delightful. We had planned to go another night, but tourist things detained us. Very inexpensive and very good!

I also loved having lunch at Ralph Lauren's flagship store off St. Germain. It was as exquisite as it could be - food, service, atmosphere conspired to make you feel like Ralph's guest. I am sure he looked in the guest book for my name after I left...

Before we went to Ralph's we visited Ines de le Fressange's store.  Charming, but way over-priced in my opinion...

We did little in the way of museums this time, but we did manage to hit the Pompidou finally. What a great space!  So much to marvel at!!!

Mostly though, we walked. And walked. And walked. And then walked some more. I can happily report that those Naturalizer boots were the bomb. They saved me.

Funkiest place we visited? Deyrolles, home of all things taxidermy:

As for the rest of my packing. Sadly, I overpacked. Two of the three dresses and one skirt were never worn. It was simply freezing most evening and I had no desire to freeze my knickers!  Live and learn I say....

Our shopping was somewhat limited by time, interest and money, but I did manage to find some fun shoes and boots for a cheap price that I loved, as well as a Stella Foret white silk-mohair pullover.


Next we headed to Bruges. I had driven through Belgium en route to Holland several years ago, but  staying in Belgium was a treat. People were so friendly and the countryside was gorgeous! Bruges was like stepping out of the 21st century into the 15th. In fact, the hotel we stayed in, Martin's Relais, was originally five merchants' houses combined and it was exquisite.

They upgraded us to a suite at no extra charge (we did not ask for that) and our room overlooking the canal (and the swans, how I love swans) was movie-set worthy.


We walked the cobblestone streets, rode them in a horse and carriage and took a boat ride along the canals.

The food was good (though no France) and I would go there again in a heartbeat. My favourite tourist spot there was The Historium, which recreates the day in the life of a young man in 1435.



Our view
 

Four hundred year old homes around every corner
 



And the canals...



In the Carriage.
We couldn't stop saying "horses, horses, horses" as we clip-clopped our way through Bruges



Merlin



I expect heaven will look like Bruges, and be decorated by Ralph Lauren

Back to Paris for one more night and one more hotel. Hotel Notre Dame is central, overlooking Notre Dame Cathedral, and whimsically decorated, but noisy, and the night we were there, the Brasserie below had a band, which made it difficult to sleep. So while I thought it lovely, I'd recommend this hotel only to deep and easy sleepers!

I never get tired of Paris...

Truly, it was a magical experience and a wonderful place to share our 30th wedding anniversary!  We are already planning #35, which I think may be a Rhine River Cruise if we can ever get dear son through uni. Will keep you posted!!!!

How about you? Up to anything exciting?

xoxo wendy

Adventures in Paris - Shakespeare and Co.

Oh I admit it - this was a pilgrimage site for me!  I have been besotted with the idea of this place for many years, a fact that was only cemented again when I watched one of my favourite films, Before Sunset, recently.

This is "THE" english bookstore in Paris.  Its original incarnation was visited by Hemingway and Fitzgerald.  This reincarnation, created in 1951 by George Whitman, has hosted Miller, Nin, and William S. Burroughs to name but a few.

It is my idea of the perfect bookstore, despite being so well-visited.  It gives me the same feeling that I get when I visit the Strand in NYC - this is a bookstore for people who LOVE books.  We spent quite a lot of time here on a couple of occasions, as my family is comprised of people who not only like books, but we love pretty versions of books...

The store was 3 blocks from our hotel.  The first night we arrived in Paris we walked down here, en route to finding our first dinner spot.  It was quite magical for me. 

It was also quintessentially Paris for me.  On the 2nd floor there is a piano in one of the rooms, and there was a young man playing Bach.  Oh my!

As I walked up the narrow stairs, there was wallpaper depicting THE authors of the lost generation:

And the little interior courtyard was decorated with kitchsy toys:

Don't ask why these photos are sideways - despite my best efforts, they WANT to be sideways!  I believe this is the ghost of Burroughs at work... 

Out front, an artist was painting the shop:

He was an American from somewhere in NewYork and was very friendly.

What did I buy?

Well we all bought quite a bit, but my favourite was not French at all, but a Bloomsbury treasure:

The Hyde Park Gate News, the published version of the in-house newspaper created by Virginia Woolf, Vanessa Bell and their brother Thoby Stephens.  I have read excerpts of this before, but what a treat that it has been published in its entirety!

You can buy yours here.  I am just pouring through this now and it is great fun!  I am a huge Bloomsbury fanatic, so that was a real treat!

I know - Shakespeare and Co. is now a tourist destination.  I don't care.  It is a bookstore, and a good one at that, and I am totally besotted with good bookstores!!!

Have a wonderful day!

Adventures in Paris: Copper Pot Paradise

Prior to leaving for Paris, my well-travelled buddy WFF recommended that I stop by E. Dehellerin as I had mentioned that I would love something very specifically french for my culinary exploits. 

 

This store is where I want to go when I die, at least for a decade or two.  I want to be a little ghost cleaning the pots, poking around, wrapping parcels for people and just itemizing all of the stock! 
We arrived late in the day and walking into the shop was like stepping back into another time!

 

You are met at the front door by a large panel with copper pots a-plenty.  What to buy?  What will fit in my suitcase most easily? I did not have a large suitcase. Where to begin?

I wandered and wondered the aisles, drinking in the variety of culinary tools, some of which I had no clue what they could be used for! 

And this was no Williams Sonoma - it is not all neatly assembled and artfully displayed for the customer; this is a store for serious chefs and foodies and is not for the faint of heart. 

My favourite part was going down into the old, dark, basement.  More shelves  with pots of all sizes..

Note the massive cooking pot on the bottom shelf.

My husband joked that this is where witches must shop for their culinary accoutrements. Watch out, Hansel and Gretel!

My children  were amazed that such a place could still be in business.  These kinds of small businesses are sadly being replaced where I live by big-box chains.  Makes me miss the old hardware stores with their wooden floors, selling everything from bolts to christmas ornaments.

At the far end of the basement was a wee spiral staircase that only went as far as another bunch of hidden shelves.  I was desperate to go up the stairs, but did not dare as that could be where the witch decamps while her packages are being wrapped!

The best part for me was the actual transaction when I made my purchase.  First, I chose my item.  This is me, staring again at all the choices...

Then I waited 10 minutes to find a staff person who would wait on me.  There was quite a commotion while I was in the store as a couple with very deep pockets were purchasing THREE crates full of copper pots (likely for the country house).  Given the prices of these pots, it was quite astonishing to see!  I am sure they spent a minimum of $5000 euros. Once I received my item, I waited again for the lady behind the counter to look up and come and take my visa.  Once she took my visa and gave me a receipt, I waited again for one of the fellows to say "do you want that wrapped?" and then I waited while he wrapped it.  After 25 minutes, I walked triumphantly out of the shop with my copper oval pan, which I believe will be the beginning of a collection..

And here is my precious:

This oval plan was a) needed and B) was the perfect size for the suitcase and I hauled it with me all over France.  It was/is heavy!


This was a quintessentually french experience in shopping and i adored every moment of it.  Thanks WFF - I have already told my husband what I want for Christmas....



Love Locks - 27 Years and Counting

I had seen love padlocks before, but never with the same intensity as in Paris...

Wickipedia, the source of all knowledge, says:

There are varied explanations for the origin of love padlocks. In Europe, love padlocks started appearing in the early 2000s.^[2] The reasons love padlocks started to appear vary between locations, and in many instances are unsourced. However, in Rome, the ritual of affixing love padlocks to the bridge Ponte Milvio can be attributed to the book I Want You by Italian author Federico Moccia, who later made it into the film-adaptation Ho voglia di te.^[3][4]
Similarly, an attribution for the bridge Most Ljubavi (lit. the Bridge of Love—now named after the love padlocks) in Serbia exists, where they can be traced to even before World War II. A local schoolmistress named Nada, who was from Vrnjačka Banja, fell in love with a Serbian officer named Relja. After they committed to each other Relja went to war in Greece where he fell in love with a local woman from Corfu. As a consequence, Relja and Nada broke off their engagement. Nada never recovered from that devastating blow, and after some time she died as a result of her unfortunate love. As young girls from Vrnjačka Banja wanted to protect their own loves, they started writing down their names, together with the names of their loved ones, on padlocks and affixing them to the railings of the bridge where Nada and Relja used to meet.

27 years ago, in my fourth year of university, I met my husband.  We were besotted from the start and got engaged 2 months after we met and married 5 months later, on September 7th, 1985.

That seems like a long time ago....

Years pass and there are good times and there are bad times and there are boring times and there are funny times, but through it all, the times have been with him.

We are not, despite the speed with which we married (and for those of you "Anne" fans out there you will recall the infamous quote by L. M. Mongomery "Marriage in hast, repent at leisure"), a particularly romantic couple.  And we can be very hard-headed and disagree about many things (like one of us talks to much and one of us talks to little.  Guess which is which?) 

But we made two great adults and are still best friends.  And we share the same values.

So imagine my shock on our last morning in Paris when we went for a walk and he directed me covertly out to the Pont and handed me the lock with the two keys:

He wrote on the lock, we locked it to the bridge and through the keys into the Seine and kissed.  Pretty good after 27 years.  I left my heart in Paris and took it with me.  Quite an accomplishment.

We'll go back in another 27 and see how it's looking...  Happy Anniversary Barry!  Je t'adore!

A tale of Two Scarves - Review of the Madewell Storyteller Scarf

It has been the best of days and the worst of days.  Actually, it has been a LOOOONG day!  I finished my wardrobe review a la FFM and Dani BP - I had ALL of my fall and winter clothes out (well not the shoes, boots or coats, but all else!) but that is another post!

THIS post is my homage to two lovely scarves! 

We stopped in to Madewell while in Boston last weekend - I had never been before and we dropped in to buy my daughter some new tshirts for the fall.

While in the store, I saw the Madewell storyteller scarf.  Lots of people are really enjoying this scarf and no wonder!

It is the loveliest shade of blue.  and it is a good size:

The details are quite lovely:

they remind me of the artwork by Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant....

Here I am sporting the scarf today:

Me in the scarf, with the raj paisley skirt and a Joe Fresh tank - I look exhausted!  It is only day 2 of the vacation!

What I liked about this scarf immediately, besides the fact that the subject was Paris and I am heading there in 2 weeks, was that I already have a vintage Paris scarf.  But they are very different: The Storyteller simply lists the names of famous Parisian landmarks.  My other scarf illustrates them!

Its provenance is unknown, although my Aunt Betty bought it in either England or France in the mid 1950s.  It is silk and very lovely and I took it with me when I went to France for the first time in 2008:

The illustrations are lovely:

It is a real heirloom piece for me, as I think of my beloved Aunt Betty whenever I wear it!

If you need your own Paris scarf (besides a Hermes!), visit the Madewell site here!

Enjoy your evening and stay tuned for the saga that is my fall wardrobe tomorrow!