Oh Silly Animated Gifs… Loving you again
Made this birthday card for my friend Fanou… and then a bit of photoshop magic!
Please click on the image below to see the animation. BAM! Smiling yet?
Happy Friday!! x
Le gout des choses d’Automne
Even though the Autumn sky in Sydney is incredibly blue, temperatures have dropped and the need for cosiness is now pressing.
I feel like curling myself into a ball under the doona or go for long walks picking mushrooms with dad, baking apple tart and drinking lots of cups of tea with mom.
Here are some photos of my trip back in October 2010 in France, at the start of Autumn… I hope these will make you all warm and fuzzy inside 🙂
Indian spices!
Took me months to actually go through the thousands photos I had taken in India… and here are my favorites from Rajasthan and Varanasi mainly.
Hopefully they show the complex layers I have seen India… beautiful, colourful, sad, inspiring, funny all at once. It was an intense journey but it filled us up with things & sights we will think about for a long time.
Thank you Alankar & Yanina for luring us there!!
Below is a slideshow but if you wish to see an image more closely, click on the image in the gallery underneath.
Enjoy! रस~लेना
Missing Her.
Three years ago my grandma passed away… She probably escaped to Heaven to join her beloved husband. She was often telling me how much she missed him and how she was talking to him every day…
I still can’t figure that she is not here anymore and I miss her very much. So I am writing this post just to keep her alive or just to say how much I loved her.
Her name was Myriem but we, her grand children, were calling her ‘Grand-mere’ (grand mother) and saying ‘vous’ (not ‘tu’) to her. Sorry english speaking people, this is one of the many french language subtleties: we say ‘vous’ when we address many people, or when we address a person who deserves a higher note of respect. Nowadays you would say ‘vous’ to someone you don’t know or older than you, or higher in hierarchy. I say ‘tu’ to my mom or dad, not ‘vous’ as my parents didn’t care for the ‘vous’ and they thought ‘tu’ was more natural and warm. Saying ‘vous’ in a family in France is unusual now but many years back in traditional families that was normal. So my dad used to say ‘vous’ to his mom and it didn’t mean he loved her less than if he had used ‘tu’, but that was the way at the time.
For us kids, grandma was an impressive person. A character really. When she was coming to our house in Isere for the summer holidays, she would drive from Paris (700km from us) and would arrive in her little car packed to the full with her luggage and cases of wine! Yes she had stopped by a vineyard on the way and bought a few cases to bring back to her home after the trip. She knew what was good 🙂 As soon as she stepped out of the car, like a General, after hugs and ‘hellos’ it was clear that we kids were on duty for any chore available in the house from now on. She even had ways to tell my Mom how she would do things so my Mom would do them. She was very strong minded and often my Mom would prefer peace over arguing and would end up pleasing her. So, when she was there, everyone had to watch their behavior, especially boys… I understand why my poor brothers had some painful times with her as she was very hard, demanding and stubborn.
The car emptied, I would always run to her bedroom to watch her unpack all her treasures… To me everything she was bringing was pretty or had something interesting to it. All those colourful clip earrings and shoes and blouses… and her notebooks and journals… and the smell that would fill the room (she was smoking Gauloise).
During her stay, she would always shower us with all her knowledge of history and art. She had studied in Les Beaux Arts/Art School and her artworks were amazing. From this, she developed a very sharp eye and beautiful sense of colour and style. I barely never saw her under dressed. She knew how to assemble things even very simply and she created her very own style in Fashion and in her home. I don’t have many digital photos of her through out the years unfortunately but my memories are still vivid.
I was lucky enough to have a special bond with her and so we cherished each other. She wasn’t treating me differently from her other grand children I think, but I guess she felt how much I enjoyed being with her. I grew with her strong influence beside me and I am very thankful for that.
When I went back home in September, I found an old suitcase full of old photographs which belonged to her and I couldn’t help but dive in. I found in there testimonials of my grandma’s beauty and also pieces of her life with and without my grand father. It’s quite amazing to see her living her own life from her childhood to young lady during the WWII to woman in love to wife with young kids… I wished I had asked her more about her life!
Her story with my grand father wasn’t a conventional one for the time. She fell in love with my grand father who was 20 years older and divorced already… probably not a very suitable marriage for my grandma’s family. They surely had bigger/better plans for her, but in the end Love prevailed ;)She did marry my grandpa even though he wasn’t necessarily the best match and they had 4 children. My dad was the 1st boy of the family. You can see his smiley face on the family photo.
I think this marriage made her stronger but probably also harder as her married life wasn’t the easiest. She did face all the day to day difficulties and managed to raise her children who then became adults and made a good life of their own. My grand father died when she was close to 60, when I was a baby. They shared so much together that she couldn’t resolve being without him and I have always known my grandma carrying my grandpa’s photo everywhere with her. She also found comfort in Religion and during her years as a widow and getting older, her Catholic faith became increasingly important and extreme unfortunately. At all occasions, she would try to put my brothers and me in the ‘right path’ and this was always resulting in arguments since my parents did not raise us with the same radical Catholic views. From my part, when she was onto one of her religious preaching vent, I would always smile and play deaf and try to avoid any unnecessary conflict. She was my lovely grandma despite this.
This is the last photo of us two together… not long before she had to leave her parisian flat to go to a nursing home. She still has those beautiful eyes but now a bit confused. Alzheimer was torture for her as she was realizing she was loosing her memories. She died in the nursing home of a lung infection… I was far away but I was there…
My grandma was a fascinating, beautiful person despite her hard ways, and she still is now. I hope she is watching over me wherever she may be.
To you ma petite grand-mere… LOVE you.
From Petra with Love
Of course Petra is majestic, sumptuous, breathtaking all that for sure… but what we loved is that it is very earthy, simple and friendly. So I didn’t want to overload this post with all the beautiful temples/tombs/palaces photos you can see there.
The highlight of the trip was when we met Sammy (the Bedouin smiling in the photo below). This charming Bedouin had tried to sell us a ride on his mule to go to a temple and we had said ‘no thank you’. Not flustered, he started to chat with us (where are you from/ what’s your name …) and offered to make us tea. We decided to follow him despite our suspicions that it might be a scam (what is he going to sell us… is he going to steal our belongings?)… Funny how you become anxious as soon as you get slightly off the beaten tracks… How silly! Anyway after a few minutes of steep walk in the mountain he offered us his blanket to sit and started making fire to prepare Bedouin tea. In his bag, one tiny tea pot (see the photo), a small water bottle, an old bottle with sugar, loose black tea leaves and spices, and one glass (a Duralex glass from France hehe) and that’s it. The mules were chewing on grains quietly on the side and the views surrounding us were amazing. We chatted about this and that, drank tea one after the other and had a really lovely time. Nothing to be scared of. He told us that we shouldn’t always go by the map to enjoy life’s surprises. I guess he was right. Sometimes you have to learn to trust. This young man had the most down to earth happy philosophy of life! Yes he was walking all day next to tourists riding his mule, yes he may have only 2 meals a day but he didn’t complain. He had Petra’s surroundings for him, freedom and the certainty to be a lucky man.
Next evening we joined Sammy and his friends in Petra’s mountains where we shared the simple joys of a bedouin dinner and music under the shining stars… niiiiiice
Bright & Dark Dahab – Egypt
I came to Dahab unsure of what I would find for myself in this dry Bedouin town sitting next to the deep waters of the Red Sea… I am no Fish if you see what I mean 😉 But BUT I really loved the contrast in everything… the colours, the textures, the lights… Really beautiful actually. Here are some images for you to love I hope!
Petits Trésors / Little Treasures
Nothing more than this title and these photos with lots of LOVE.
Little Treasures featured: Amaury (6yo nephew), Lilian (1yo nephew) and Camille (2yo god daughter)
Dans les yeux d’Amélie: Paris
Photoshop playtime just for fun. Inspired by beautiful Paris and Amélie movie x
A bit of blue and…
Carte Postale de Bretagne/Postcard from Brittany^_^ We often tend to forget how beautiful Brittany is especially when it doesn’t rain hehe… Tanguy and I were staying with his parents in the little town of La Turballe near Guerande (famous for its gourmet salt) full of character and very charming.
Yum Yum Highlights
I had to share these New York best bites before I start le chapitre FRANCE.
My Nota Bene 