Email received from France this morning

Well, to be honest this is part of the email I received this morning from Mr SE - it made me smile so much to think of him riding around Paris, short of time and getting my birthday present in this way and what a lovely birthday present too... My first pair of these beauties. Cannot wait for him to return - and not just because of the gift!
(He is as they say, most definitely 'A Keeper'!)

"Anyway, this is funny I got back to the hotel and didn't have much time for shopping so I got changed and guess what I got a Velib all on my own and went to Chanel on a Velib!! Me on a Velib ha! ha!. I then rode back on another velib cutting up the traffic 'a la frog driver' with a nice shiny patent toe black ballerinas for my very special wife sitting in the front shopping basket. I was laughing and thinking that Chanel had probably never sold a pair of shoes to disappear into the sunset on a bike rather than say a Ferrari!"

And for those of you unfamiliar with this mode of transport it is a self-service "bike hire" system available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week in Paris. There are multi pick up and drop off locations which allow you to pick up a bike from one service point and then drop it off to another.

Nifty, alors?!

Paris Photographs for you

Since most of us are not in Paris this weekend (apart from lucky Jeanne from Collage of Life!) I thought I would share these sent to us by Mr SE.....

This one is even better than the last Eiffel Tower one he sent before - beautiful...

Aaaah... now this one... Have to admit that I am missing my dear Mr SE - looks quite Gallic in this photo... Actually maybe he does too to the locals as someone came up to him last weekend and started asking him directions in French.. well, he thought they were directions - he doesn't really speak a word of French himself apart from Bonjour!!

A Bon Weekend to all.....

Rainy Day Visit to Bath

Yesterday it poured with rain .... very miserable weather but the DDD and I went to Bath - a beautiful Georgian City not far from us with magnificant, honey coloured stone architecture and of course, the wonderful Royal Crescent which is shown in the photograph above....
Actually, to be honest this photograph of course was NOT taken yesterday but 18 months ago when it WASN'T raining and the only one I had shows moi also slap bang in the middle so apologies.... (but look, Tish I AM wearing a white shirt at least - Cherie will be most heartened!!). Mr SE and I spent a night at the Royal Cresent Hotel there for our 10th Wedding Anniversary - www.royalcrescentbath.co.uk - a really luxurious and special place with a fabulous Spa too.

Anyway, back to the gorgeous 'crescent' itself.....The Royal Crescent was built between 1767 and 1775 to the design of John Wood the Younger, and forms a semi-circle of thirty Grade I listed houses arranged around a great Lawn. The famous travel writer Jan Morris once wrote about it, "It lies there in a shallow arc, its wide Lawns running away beyond the hill below, and all is suddenly space, and green, and leisure. The Crescent is architecture on a truly palatial scale and reminds many people of Versailles". (Introduction to Bath: An Architectural Guide, by Charles Robertson, 1975). Well-known architectural writer Nikolaus Pevsner wrote, “the conception of an open composition was something new in town-planning, and something very English, although the idea came perhaps from Prior Park, that is the villas of Palladio. It was here applied for the first time to a terrace of houses, and moreover the shape of the Crescent was here employed for the first time.” (North Somerset and Bristol, Buildings of England series, 1958).

We also looked at the University there (jury is still out on this one, visit to Durham University next Monday with her Dad) and partook of a little 'retail therapy' too. DDD is collecting up items that will be "Good for my ski season, Mum" -she is off in around 4 weeks to Les Gets in France until next April to be a Chalet Assistant (apparently you don't say, 'Chalet Girl' now though as you did "in my day"!)

The time is going by all too quickly now and it was so good to spend a day with her
even though the weather was far from kind to us....