Holiday Highlights for a Happy Weekend

Something magical happened to the Paradis Family two weeks ago.

(Annecy, France)

It started two days before departure, when we learned, that accommodations we had booked and paid for in March for the Berner Oberland (Switzerland) were not actually going to be available!!!!!  

There was a little bit of drama, I have to admit. 

(Countryside just south of Annecy)

But sometimes, other things are just meant to be.

(a village "fleurit" called Chapeiry)

Like a lovely gite, and the French countryside just 40 minutes south of Geneva.  It was HEAVEN.  (Since this post is about highlights,  I will tell you more about it later.)

Our blissful week in the Haute Savoie was way way too short.and we were obliged to move swiftly on to London via Wagamama at Heathrow, Terminal 5.  (A too quick change of gears........no kidding!)

(Who needs Duty-Free shopping or airplane food and inflight dehydration?  I get my healthy comfort food pre-boarding and by the time they're handing out scones and clotted cream an hour before landing I'm not feeling stuffy and gross, but rather 100% ready to indulge!)

(Comptoir Libanais - conquering London these days)

It was all about a Jolly Olde visit with Mr. Paradis' family - an obligation I am rarely unhappy about.  (Well mostly never!)  

(The Cloth House, London)

London is an ever-changing delight.  Inside......

(Osterley Park, West London)

and always, (changing not-so-much in the best ways):  OUT.

More soon. 

Have a Wonderful Weekend!

Peak Life Experience - Paysage Paradis

I had to get away.

I did.

And it was WONDERFUL!  (L'Aiguille du Midi and Mont Blanc, France)

more soon......................

Space Exploration

These pics are from my summertime

Tumblr trawling.

Sorry to all, no attributions here again.

It goes without saying I wouldn't post them if they weren't

wonderful pictures.  I'm happy to credit any photographer

who wants to come claim their photos.

These are spaces I'd love to invade.  You?

There's a Pattern Here.......

at Passage Paradis.......

of not posting pics like this

for quite some time!

Have you missed them?

I

certainly have.

Delicious repetitions!

(Most of these pics come from "The Poetry of Material Things" and "Rhubarb in the Garden")

Latest Blog Discovery - My Attic

You know how I love color.

"Color" should be my middle name I think, sometimes.

Have I mentioned my love of pattern also?  (I think I might have.)

and the natural world?

Miniatures and paper-and-cardboard?

Cooking?

Gardening?

Art?

Yve Klein blue?

So how could I not adore "My Attic"?  (All pics via My Attic.)  You might too.

Tumblr Goodies

For the end of the first week of September 2014......some all- around-the web takings
(Sorry I did not keep track of the sources for many of these.  Come claim them?)

a flowery

farewell to summer.

Anybody have a summer that looked anything like any of these pictures?

If yes, lucky lucky you.

(le bord dore des nuages coucou Beatrice!)

For the rest of us

we can dream.

(Newfoundland, Anthony Lanzilote for the New York Times)

 Escaping into someone else's world can be pretty low-impact.

  It sometimes suits me down to the ground.

Have a lovely weekend!

Gleaning In: The Remains of a Season, it's little Triumphs and Rewards

Since I was so busy with major projects this summer, it was in between the jobs and the errands that little miracles and serendipities presented themselves.  

As some of you already know, the trick is to be open to the moment.  At our only visit to the Hollywood farmer's market this summer, a glimpse gleaned  of what we'd been previously missing.

From an arid and unlovely part of the San Fernando Valley (up the road from a landfill and across the street from an industrial metal supplies warehouse): a large stainless steel fish poacher gleaned (for 6 dollars!) from a junk shop full of giant plaster Marilyn Monroes and crippled limbless chandeliers.

(Now I just need to glean a big pike or a salmon?)

Back at the greenmarket: undreamed-of geometries.

This guy wasn't sure if he wanted me to take a picture of him.  But he lingered.  I might have gleaned a piece of his soul but I will handle it respectfully.

Behind the market some rumpled English people were clearing out a building and offering chairs-desks-cabinets for sale.  This picnic basket sitting among the office furnishings: also only six dollars!  Well I had to  glean it.  No?

Going to the market late when people are ready to pack up again, yields bargains.  (A favorite strategy of mine, though I am a natural straggler anyway.)

These zinnias: three dollars!  The last lot on the table!  (Grown at Silver Lake Farms in my own neighborhood.)  Little things can mean glean a lot.

I think I always have been and always will be an enthusiastic gleaner, inspired by my frugal Chinese mother and the marvelous Agnes Varda's film, "The Gleaner's and I" (and the Napoleonic code).  The eureka moments of gleaning are always sweet.  But especially so in golden summer light.

It feels like the the universe's way of rewarding us for our patience and our toil all the other days of the year.

Any other gleaners out there?