20 February 2019

Sneaking up on Notre-Dame de Paris

I mentioned the other day that a month-long stay in Paris and Normandy in 1997 might have been the time in my life when I realized I needed to get out of Silicon Valley and move my life to France. Well, another trip to France, for three weeks — a week in the Loire Valley, at Vouvray, plus a week in Champagne and Normandy again, as well as a week in Paris — was the moment when I realized, I think, that the Loire Valley might be the best place for me to live. Walt and I both already spoke French well enough to live here without language problems.

I wanted to live in the country and have a big vegetable garden. We had a dog, so moving to the countryside made more sense than moving into an apartment in a big city. I couldn't really afford to live in Paris. I definitely didn't want to live in the Paris suburbs. In 2000, Walt and I weren't yet ready to make the move. However, in 2002, we were both ready for this adventure. It took us only six months to sell our house in San Francisco, buy the house in Saint-Aignan where we've now lived for nearly 16 years.



Here's another slideshow, this one from Paris in October 2000. I'm enjoying seeing these photos again and putting the slideshows together. I took these with my first digital camera, a Kodak DC260, and recorded the show in Windows Movie Maker.

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If you look at this blog regularly, you might wonder how many other people are reading over your shoulder. Bloggerprovides blog authors with a few statistics. Traffic on the blog is measured in "pageviews" — I assume that means how many posts are opened by readers over a certain period of time.

For example, yesterday this blog registered 1,039 pageviews. Last month (the calendar month, January, I assume), Blogger counted 21,497 pageviews for my blog. And over the past 12½ years — I started the blog in October 2005 — the total pageview count is reported as 2,771,525.

13 comments:

  1. You have a very popular blog!
    It's great reading, both of your blogs. Keep on posting..

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  2. Proud and pleased to be one of your numerous (almost daily) readers. Your posts, and Walt's, from bucolic France always helped to lower my blood pressure before heading off to stressful working days in Los Angeles. My husband and I have now retired to France ourselves and love every day here. Perhaps we'll meet up one day!

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  3. Wonderful views of Paris, today, Ken :)

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  4. You are first on my morning blog list, living the dream vicariously

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  5. The way both of you share I feel like I am one of a few somewhat close friends that check in with you both each day. Guess that means you are both doing a good job!

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  6. belle et longue vie à ce blog que je regarde tous les jours, ainsi que celui de Walt avec un très grand plaisir, cela me permet accessoirement d'entretenir mon anglais 😉

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  7. Those are interesting stats. You do a great job keeping your blog interesting.

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  8. You have a lot of readers! I certainly understand why you moved after your descriptions of your San Francisco commute. And San Fran has decent public transport!

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  9. Thanks a million (or two) for your magnificent blog, Ken, ainsi que celui de Walt. They are a breath of fresh air in these challenging times.

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  10. Congratulations! I'm not surprised in the least you have so many readers. As for myself, I check your blog several times a day to read the comments to learn something new. Keep up the good work, and remember what I told you so many times

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  11. Kiwi, That's a lovely blog. Have just added you to my reading list.

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    1. Thanks, Emm. I need to update that Blogger site. The one that is more current (not on Blogger) is about renovating our village house in Normandy: http://www.atinyhouseinnormandy.com/blog.

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  12. And to Ken, Yay you!! Yours is one of the must-read blogs, yours and Walt's. Reading both is like visiting with friends and family.

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