This New Life

            My life is changing, and maybe it would've been more fitting to start a new blog instead of continuing here. This is/was my photo-blog, and although there will be pictures here in the future as well, there will also be some thoughts around starting over, moving out and into the single-life after so many years.
Everything changes of course, and I like that, so here I'll try to list mostly the positive side of "This New Life". Those who know me well also know where they can find my darker side...
Even my computer is spanking new! I'm not even sure I can find the pictures I wanted to start with. Well, anyway, tomorrow I'll be at "My New House", but only to look at the mess that was supposed to be ready for me to move in to. This summer's torrential rains and tempests did damage to the roof. Which was a real bummer as the repairs from  previous water-damages were just completed. Oh well, no matter how much I bitch, moan and stomp my foot my moving in is postponed for at least ten days. Thank God for friends and their offers of beds, couches and what have you!

Now I'll go look for those pictures..... and they're not where I thought they would be, so that's for the next post then.

Couting Down, and more

It feels good to up and leave this time. No stress (yet), only a kind of relief. This season's been rough, and boring, and odd in many ways. But more than anything, I feels it's good that it's over....

The downside is a black hole, and I'm not going there again, not right now. The up-sides quite a few, and i feel good about most of it, with hindsight. I managed to get my "hommage" off the ground, and onto the walls of an almost gallery. If you havent seen it already;

Voilà, my very own first exhibit! it's coming down again on Sunday, although I was just offered another week. no need to flatter myself, I know the French, and their bad planning. Anyway, the great migration is here, so on wednesday we're off for the next season.

Oddly enough I've made new friends! In for me the most unlikely place.;The Internet has its good points and bad ofcourse. I was swept away earlier this winter on a Twitter-wave that I'm just now re-surfacing from. It's an odd place, and I've come to see that I might not be for me. Still, I'll leave with some friends and some aquaintances, and a very dear special friend I hope to spend a lot of interesting time with. No names here, I do try to respect privacy, when i stop to think. I don't think I'll stay a Tweeter, but hopefully my friends will still have me...

Now I'm heading North, and I look forward to it a lot! I have an artistic challenge I've taken on, and am serious about. I have projects, both private and for the family. I have family and friends to re-connect with, and I so so long for my peaceful haven of a tiny garden! No projects there this year! I just want to be, and enjoy, and watch it take care of itself.

There's so much more to contemplate and to tell about, but I'l save it for another place, and another time

Preaparing for take-off is harder every yaer, and I'm tired now. well, at least I've blogged again...amazing!

Sweet Home!

Freda's Girl

Summer's turning to autumn ever so slowly. I'm back in the South, and should be glad, but right now my life has turned a corner, and I would just prefer to turn back the clock, or hide somewhere dark and quiet. My dear friend is gone and I will never ever see her again.
Most of us have friends we've had forever, or at least since our schooldays. That's quite common and we never question it. To find a new friend when we're already grown up is rare. Of course we have aquaintances, and friends to have a nice time with, and that's perfectly fine. But then there comes that person that makes you think " Ah, there you are, my friend,I didn't know, but I think I might have been missing you for some time now".
 Karen was that friend in my world, and I am so very happy we had what short time we did before her life ended. I will not write about the violence of the end, or the past week of sorrow.
Instead I want to celebrate this special and beautiful person who went through so much hardship in her life, and yet came out smiling and generous, to share her wisdom and understanding, and her joy in life. She set me on a path that I need to continue to follow, and for that I'm greatful.
I could go on and on, but I won't. Nothing will be changed now anyway.

There once was a small yellow play-house covered in clinging blue flowers...

Here's to Freda's Girl with my love.
Nin

The Fallen...

In the Lords year 1875, on the 15th of April, Joseph Croce-Spinelli and Théodore Sivel went up in the balloon Zénith ready to beat the record of 7300 metres they'd set the year before. They made it, but didn't; both of the men died of asphyxiation, and the Zénith went down in the mountains near Bérgerac. Only Hervé Tissander survived the ascent up to 8000 metres...
I found the tomb of the two friends and adventurers at the Pére-Lachaise quite by chance, and was enchanted by the dramatic sculpture by Dumilatre.

A Peaceful Walk

Listening to Cecilia Bartoli sets the mood perfectly for the photos I want to post today. They're from the Père-Lachaise cemetary, a place I could easily spend days, even weeks in. I don't think of myself as someone morbid, it's just that the catholic cemetaries are so full of both sadness and joy, light and dark that I just can't stop myself from visiting, and from taking pictures.
First a small collection of pretty colours.

To walk around in Père-Lachaise is almost like walking in a small town; streets and streets full of these beautiful "houses".

Ofcourse there are ordinary tombs as well, and also some decay and ruins, but all fit in so beautifully within the walls of this serene place.

Odd and beautiful!

A cat...

...and a guy who plays at one...

The prettiest door of them all!



L'Heure Bleue, and beyond

Views from my window...

Top picture; The Tour de Montparnasse, with the Jardin de Luxembourg just outside the balcony slightly to the right. Well, the next one doesn't really need any explanation...

Leaning over to the right I could just about catch the quartiers down by the river.

Nightfall, and the tower lights up! To the right, Dôme des Invalides.



The view from my narrow but pretty bed.



Grief carved in stone

Before continuing with my pictures from the Seine-trip, I've decided to share some of all that which I found at the Père Lachaise Cimetière. No, I didn't look for the celebrity-tombs, far from it, where the crowd went, I turned and took another route. I did stumble on the tomb of Frédéric Chopin though, which was very nice since I really love playing his music on the piano, in the summer in Sweden, where I keep it. No more text now, only pictures!

Chopin

Grief can be pretty as well as sad....