Les Poissonchats

Mother used to say we reminded her of Little Red Riding Hood whenever we went to visit Grandfather, for we always carried a basket full of good things to eat for him – thankfully, with no wolf involved.  Not long ago I asked her what his favourite cake had been, the one he’d ask Grandmother… Read more

There’s the tale of Goldmarie, who tumbled down a well into Lady Holle’s land. There she helped around the house, shook the pillows out the window so snow would fall upon the world, tickled the apple tree until it dropped its ripe fruit into her basket, and rescued the loaves that screamed to be taken… Read more

I adored Princess Pea when I was little. I had a picture book of the story, and in it Princess Pea slept on a towering stack of soft, feathery mattresses, exactly the sort of bedtime arrangement that appealed to me. After all, who wouldn’t want to drift off atop a whole tower of mattresses. Of… Read more

Mother says it was lambs lettuce, most definitely lambs lettuce. Lambs lettuce in the garden of the fairy next door except the fairy calls it Rapunzel, but it’s one and the same. Enchanted lambs lettuce for sure for the queen traded her unborn child against it, thinking she’d get away with it, but, alas, this… Read more

It is strawberries the youngest daughter asks for when her father wonders what he should bring back from his business trip. Naturally, it is the dead of winter, and there are no strawberries in mid-winter – except, of course, in the enchanted garden of the enchanted Beast. One thing leads inevitably to another, and the… Read more

Back in 2018, on a whim, I started Les Poissonchats Wondrous Advent Calendar on my Instagram account. The idea was to recreate, in digital form, the much-cherished Advent Calendars* of my childhood: something whimsical, ephemeral, and delightfully old-fashioned. Over the years I’ve chosen different themes and built each calendar around them, and I think many of you… Read more