A Week in Provence

My husband Marcel and I just returned from a lovely week in Aix en Provence. We were there with a group put together through McGill Alumni Travel and some other Alumni groups. The tour was run by AHI (Alumni Holidays International) and was very much fun. We had talks about the history of the area, about art (especially Van Gogh and Cezanne and their contemporaries), and about modern day France and went out on daily excursions to various places in the area. We ate great food and discovered local specialties. Here are a few pictures. They are (top to bottom) a fountain and street in Aix, Cezanne's family home, Mont St Victoire (painted often by Cezanne), Pont de Gard (Roman aquaduct) near Avignon, palace of the popes in Avignon, hilltop village Les Baux, a 17th century street in Aix, Camargue horse and cowboy getting ready to perform for a traditional wedding procession in Arles, Roman amphitheatre in Arles, me in Gordes, spices in the market in Aix, colourful houses in Roussillon, lion on the castle of Ansouis, some of our group having coffee in the castle which is still lived in by the same family since the 1300s, the seaside village of Cassis, where we were supposed to go for a boat ride, but it was too windy. These are only a few pictures from the trip of course.

Five weird things about me

Colleen tagged me to do this so here goes:

1. I can't eat eggs. I'm not allergic to them, I just can't bring myself to eat them. On their own, that is, like fried eggs or scrambled eggs. I've never liked them as far back as I can remember. When I was on the South Beach Diet for a bit, they kept telling me to eat eggs for breakfast. No way! I ate chicken. Figured it was the same thing only more mature.

2. When I'm working on something I like to have it all out and visible to me. If it gets put away I tend to forget to do it! That's my excuse for a messy scrapbook room.

3. I have a horrible memory for people's names. So does my husband. We rarely introduce people to each other because, while we know who they are, we can't remember their names.

4. Unlike many women, I don't enjoy shopping for the sake of shopping. The exceptions would be shopping for scrapbooking, art or stationary supplies. I don't like shopping for clothes or shoes and especially not for gifts for other people as I have a hard time figuring out what they would like. I like to GIVE the gifts, just not figure out what to buy.

5. I love to have bare feet. If I only lived in the right place and in the right climate I would never wear shoes. Sandles are a pretty good alternative and closed shoes and boots come in a distant third. Unfortunately, living where I do, a good part of the year requires my feet to be enclosed a good part of the day anyway. Poor feet!

Okay, now, Gail, Anne and Clare...let's see what you say! If you don't have a blog, feel free to post your reply here and I'll reference it so others will know to look for it, or post it anywhere else you feel like.

Our new garage and deck

We have an 86 year old house and the garage was probably about that old too! It had a wooden floor and the roof was starting to leak. This summer we had a new (normal) garage built and in the course of re-organizing the back yard area (which is really a small courtyard) we had a new and larger deck put on, the dog run moved in behind the garage and a new fence built. Here are a few pictures. It is quite a change! In the picture of the deck, the structure at the back will be to shelter the BBQ when we get one and the pumpkins are resting on the covers of what will be planters in the spring. We are very excited because we can actually put a car in this garage and raise and lower the door electronically. Okay so it doesn't take much to make us happy!

Especially for my friends in the south

A few fall pictures from New Brunswick.