At Benmore Botanic Gatdens today there was almost as much blossom on the ground as on the plants. Wonderfully pretty.

I am astonished that a building can make me feel like this!

What makes you feel like this?

Do share..

On the way back to the Metro we chanced on Le Sequoia and splashed out our last euros on a lovely final evening meal.

Perfect.

Architecture has power.

Agree?

Disagree?

 ..to see these two buildings in Paris was mindblowing!

We saw Sainte Chapelle in the morning and Frank Gehry's Fondation Louis Vuitton building in the evening.

Neither building has anything to do with shelter from the elements!  They are about power, wealth and status, poetry and spirituality, and skill and daring and large egos - and they are both exciting to see.

Both buildings are outrageous in their own ways, in their audacity and extravagance. I think that's what we respond to...

I want to know more. It was built in only seven years, it was built to house holy relics brought from Constantinople as it then was, many ordinary people were living miserable lives in Paris in 1248, it employed skilled often itinerant engineers and craftsmen some of whom worked all over Europe. Literally awesome!

Awesome could also describe Frank Gehry's Fondation Louis Vuitton, which is a gallery and concert hall.

In a (rather grudging) review in The Guardian Oliver Wainwright said that Frank Gehry 'doesn't know when to stop'. The same may well have been said of Louis 1X.

Here are Heather and I reflected on the skin of this extraordinary building. It was open until 9pm, not busy  and there was a beautiful sunset.

Tomorrow LOTS of photos of this building....

..flowers for cutting is one of my greatest pleasures. Having a garden just big enough to be able to pick from it without leaving a great gap is a joy. Currently I have daffodil Thalia, tulip Purissima, forget me nots and blue camassias and I've had several small arrangements without spoiling the effect in the garden.

I happened to move a small lamp and find the way it lights the flowers is quite dramatic...

The travel bug that is!

Did you go away this Easter?

Grace (who I met through this blog!) lives in Paris and met up with us for a meal one evening in a favourite traditional bistro on the banks of the Seine.

Grace it was wonderful!

She also recommended the Musee Montmartre which was amazingly quiet though just a couple of minutes walk from the crowded steps and packed restaurants around Sacre Coeur. It was warm enough to enjoy coffee outside in what was Renoir's garden.

And sunny enough to create beautiful shadows..

A gem. There is even a vineyard..thank you Grace.

We chanced on a fabulous florist where bouquets the size of a table were going out of the door and whole branches of cherry blossom and fully grown and flowering clematis in pots were on the pavement. They kindly allowed me to take photographs (lots!) and I was astonished to see Iceland poppies for sale as cut flowers for the first time.

It must take a lot of skill to condition these delicate things
.

There were also refugee families in the Metro - a woman sitting on the ground feeding yoghurt to her baby, a young family carriage-hopping clapping and singing in strange rap/african/eastern european rhythms with hard voices - a young man and woman and a boy who may have been 9 or 10. They may have been parents and child or they may have been siblings. It was hard to tell.

I had buried my purse deep in my backpack, safe from pickpockets on both occasions.

The local street in Montparnasse, tiny parks and gardens and playgrounds, artworks and posters in the Metro - the lesser sights of Paris (or any city) can be fascinating too.

The prize in this competition was to sleep in the Louvre!  We were too late to enter..Do you have any special memories of Paris?

More after the Easter break -

..by Les Nympheas in L'Orangerie. (Be there when it opens.)

Here's what Monet said about them..............

..Nerves strained by work would relax in its presence...for he who would live in it, this room would offer a refuge for peaceful meditation.

I was also charmed by this fabulous lightshade in the cafe.

It's about 5 or 6 feet across and so lightweight it moved slightly.

Love it.

As for the stunning Musee D'Orsay, words fail me so here are 10 photographs!

It was marvellous to see the originals of so many Impressionist paintings familiar to me in reproduction. Do you have an artwork you long to see in the original?

The real thing.

There's

nothing

like

it.

This is the post I was about to publish when I heard of the fire.....

We fitted a lot in - sunrise at Trocadero (yesterday's post), sunset from the roof of our apartment block in Montparnasse (header photo) and Notre Dame at midnight - though not all in the same day, and with rests in the afternoons!

A few days in Paris were a tonic and a thrill.


I am reminded of the atmosphere in York in 1984 when the Minster was badly damaged by fire - there was a palpable hush over the whole city the following morning as people wordlessly acknowledged each other by making eye contact, and the only sound was that of a helicopter circling. The south trancept and the rose window are now fully and beautifully restored.

A grey and grieving day in Paris as one French commentator said, but mercifully there were no fatalities.

Travel makes me feel alive.

Out of the red gate and down Barry's path.

The air fs filled with the wonderful scent from the leaf buds of the Balsam Poplar (far right) about 50 mtrs away

as I walked to our spot on the shore.

A short blog break coming up...I hope you have a spring in your step no matter what season you are in!

..now and then.

Although I trained in Printed Textiles at Glasgow School of Art, in my home I like plain and simple, and pattern only on things which are brought out occasionally..and usually one at a time. William Morris, Arts and Crafts, the Bloomsbury set and Liberty? I love to visit these kinds of interiors but would not want to live in them. (Too much visual stimulus! I would find it exhausting.)

Well, maybe not all, but I do love making plans and having projects. It's another thing which makes me feel alive.

I like the research, the decision making, the anticipation and finally (though they don't always come to fruition) the execution.

I currently have garden plans, fitness plans, travel plans and  a wardrobe update plan is slowly taking shape....

Even a plan for the morning or the next hour helps shape my time and my thoughts, and gives me a sense of purpose.

When I go to the city I am doing diligent research to find a substitute for my favourite restaurant which has closed down.  Carluccio's was ideal for me when I was travelling. positioned between the bus station and the railway station, on a level, roomy and table service - all helpful  when you have luggage, the food was good with regular small changes to the menu to keep it interesting, the staff were always friendly (I wonder if they all found new jobs) and the street was in view so you could watch the world go by. They also sold a good range of italian foods which made great gifts if I was going to stay with someone. And they never made me feel hurried. Perfect in other words!

So far, and several mediocre and one very bad meal later, I have not found a good alternative.

Zizzi was good yesterday (belated Mother's Day meal with my daughter - best salted caramel ice cream!) but this branch is out of the centre of the city in Ashton Lane in the West End.

If you have any recommendations I'd be glad to hear of them....

So, that plans do you have that are making you feel alive?

And if you haven't got any can you make one?

Even a little one?

Yesterday I mentioned the words from a Lloyd-Webber song and trying to find it on YouTube, I ended up spending an hour or so listenigng to Elaine Paige - what a combination those two were! If you have time for the first four minutes of this it will take your mind off the news...

And I find this combination rather touching... (sorry I couldn't find versions without ads.)

For many years I've felt I had a good balanced approach to the news - I listened once a day max and never before bed. I felt informed but I wasn't getting frustrated, depressed or anxious about any of it. I was staying sane.  Well, that's the way it seems to me :-)

Today I find I am having to wean myself off it! The crazier it gets (and it seems to get crazier by the hour)  the more I want to hear!

So today I distracted myself with other things -

I did some more of the financial paperwork (that emotional baggage bag trick is working for me.)

I sowed more seeds and watered the New Zealand cosmos

I took note of a Mary Berry recipe for rum and raisin ice cream (will let you know....)

I arranged some daffodils and changed the batteries in the tiny lights in the birch branches.

I caught up with the ironing, did some cooking, listened to music instead of the news, phoned a friend, sent some emails, brought in some logs and exercised for a full hour.

And I am trying to ignore my need to hear the result of the 20th vote today in the House of Commons or whether Donald Trump has remembered yet where his father was born!

In the words of the song maybe I should  Let the world turn without me tonight.

..materials.

I enjoyed this short video about Leonardo da Vinci's drawing materials.

Some hardly changed over 500 years.

Original Leonardo da Vinci drawings!

 
I found it really thrilling to stand close to and examine carefully the real things!

To celebrate the 500th anniversary of Leonardo da Vinci's death there are currently 12 exhibitions here in UK each with I think 12 original drawings from the Queens's collection..
(See more here.)

In Scotland the only venue is at Kelvingrove Art Gallery in Glasgow which rang with the sound of humdreds of children enjoying themselves today (school holidays here). The gallery has always been free, and always been family friendly and (the replica of) Dippy the Diplodocus  - see this post - is still drawing the crowds.