Posting for Cee’s Flower of the Day: Garden Scene.
Tag: memories
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This trip to London had many “firsts.” Such as: “my first time to see a play in London since 2019” or “first time back at the Harold Pinter Theatre since 2019” or “discovering there’s a TKTS in Leicester Square,” which led to my watching a Jez Butterworth play for the first time since I saw The Ferryman several years ago.
This was also the first time I tried Poppies fish and chips (thanks, nephew!). We ate at the branch in Old Compton Road. That was my first time to eat in London’s Chinatown since I stopped for a quick meal at Hung (restaurant specialty: Peking Duck) before seeing a production of The Curious Case of the Dog in the Nighttime.
This is a post dedicated to the idea of moving forward. Thanks, Becky, for reviving the Squares Challenge this month, and for allowing me to document this trip! So fun!
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Whoa! Kate Reese in Three Hours in Paris has her very own La Femme Nikita moment: she has to dismantle her Lee Enfield before the Nazis come charging into the building. She starts to sweat. She stores the parts in a large canvas bag and conceals them beneath bunches of dandelions.
She emerges from an alley
onto a road that was really no more than a steep step of stairs lined with teardrop lampposts leading down the hill from Sacre Couer . . . Behind her at the top of the stairs came a flurry of horns, shouts, and the thump of boots . . . “Achtung!”
— Three Hours in Paris, p. 54Lucky for Kate, there’s a man selling melons right at the base of the steps. Immediately, he is swarmed by the Gestapo and pushed into a car decorated with swastikas. Clearly, they’ve mistaken the melon seller for the shooter. Phew!
Whenever I read a book set in Paris, I get nostalgic. One summer, my friend let me stay in her apartment that sits at the bottom of the steps to Sacre Couer. It was a short walk to the Turkish quarter, where early in the morning men sipped Turkish coffee from tiny, delicate cups (and looked at me askance the few times I dropped by for some coffee).
Another nearby haunt was an atelier. The designer made one-of-a-kind wallets and handbags. She’s still in business, I get regular emails from her.
In John Wick 4, the climactic final battle takes place on those very same steps. John Wick has something like 10 minutes to reach the top (I forget why) and there’s a fresh assassin on every step. He kills them all, of course. And does make it to the top, in 10 minutes. YAY!
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There is an English cemetery in Dharamsala.
It’s a desolate place. The Anglican church is abandoned. The dates on the grave markers show that the soldiers were very young, twenty or twenty-one years old. They died putting down a rebellion, sometime in the 19th century. The grief of their families must have been sharp, especially since they are buried so far from home.
Max, one of two brothers who ran the Snow Crest Inn, where I was a guest in January 2012, showed it to me. Max was 26, married, with two small children. He refused to let me wander unaccompanied. So we went to the market, to the monastery, up and down the crooked streets. I stayed a week. It was very cold, and the inn lost power for two days. I thought I’d die. It was the first time I couldn’t stop my teeth from chattering, and the sound was loud. I’m amazed I didn’t crack a tooth.
In the morning, Max and his brother knocked at the door to my room. “Madame, are you all right?” I could barely answer: “I’m all right. Bring more blankets!”
Posting for Debbie’s One Word Sunday.
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Posting for Debbie’s Six Word Saturday.
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Posting for Dan’s Thursday Doors.
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One of my great Airbnb finds of the last couple of years was an East London flat facing Haggerston Park, where I stayed the summer of 2022. Not only was the flat homey and spacious, it had the most interesting collection of books (I looked up the flat, thinking to return the following year, but the rate had doubled).
Here was one of the books:
Posting for Debbie’s One Word Sunday.
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Leya is the host of this week’s Lens-Artists Photo Challenge. The theme is circular wonders.
Without further ado . . .
- Picture # 1: Stafford Park, Redwood City, last summer
- Picture # 2: Parroquia de la Sagrada Familia, Roma Norte, Mexico City, the church where my nephew got married last week!
- Picture # 3: Main courtyard, Museo Nacional de Antropologia, Mexico City (That pillar is so imposing!)
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Posting for Debbie’s One Word Sunday.