Les Poissonchats

We have moved into our new home on New Year’s Eve. It was of course not at all planned like that. Instead we intended to have had moved by the 26th and easy time getting to know the new place, the new neighbourhood, checking out a few hides etc. and a blast at a very special place on New Year’s Eve but, alas, we spent the Christmas days ill in bed instead of busy packing and moving, all was pretty much messed up and when we finally sat at our old kitchen table in the new kitchen we were too tired even to properly clink glasses, also post-flu-severe-appetite-loss, paired with a serious dose of homesickness (including a lot of whyarewedoingthis-moments) which translates to the most horrible New Year’s Eve ever.

I think we looked a little ruffled when we went for dinner in a nearby restaurant a few days later, the lady taking care of us said to me “just you wait until everything is flowering, just you wait”.

I went out into the barren garden yesterday, wet grass and mouldy leaves, brambles and little trees growing out of a flower bed, and a carpet of cyclamen flowers under the bare lilac tree, the liveliest pink and reminding me of confetti and joie de vivre and carnival.

It is still with a heavy heart that we think of our old little dear house sitting on the old town fortification looking down at the river, that river that flows so languidly that one gets the impression it isn’t going anywhere at all and a sea of stills are flooding my mind whenever I let go of my daily chores, views of an old world and its old ways, an impressionist dream, life in a Monet painting, all colour and light and soft movement and I realise that maybe it’s just a fear of being unable to bring this dream to this new house, to let that vibe of old world charm flow and create its magic.

So I started out with a little flower bouquet and tried to capture its fluttering petals and soft colours rather than the thing itself. The bouquet was created by a florist whom I like very much and he has the sweetest little shop in the town Gray, just another stone’s throw from here. Make sure you check him out next time you’re in the area, it’s a veritable rabbit hole down to Alice’s world!