A few photos of CHM's Paris apartment

Just a few photos today. I'll try to describe CHM's Paris apartment in words tomorrow. It had some rare features, and some features that needed to be re-done. It also needed refreshing throughout. I'm not sure when CHM's mother died, which would have been when he inherited the apartment. As far as I know, his mother died later than his father (d. 1956). And CHM packed his bags and moved to the U.S. in 1969.

Artwork in CHM's Paris apartment

Twenty-five years ago, in the year 2000, I had temporary custody of the keys to CHM's Paris apartment. He had loaned them to me because we were in negotiations aimed at Walt and I buying the apartment from him. He was in the U.S. and had only recently retired from his job in Washington DC, sold his house there, and bought a house in California. He wanted to keep a place in France. Walt and I were going to spend a week in Paris and we wanted to show the apartment to a French friend who had extensive experience when it came to buying and selling properties in France. We also wanted to show it to a notaire (a contract lawyer) that CHM had recommended we consult about finalizing the negotiations... which, for numerous reasons, were never finalized. One reason for that was CHM's requirement that he would retain a lifetime right to occupy the apartment. By 2002, we were ready to leave California and re-locate to France. We needed to buy a house or apartment in France outright, not a property that might not really become ours free-and-clear many years later.

While I was in the Paris apartment in Oct. 2000, I took some photos of paintings and other artwork hanging on the wall of CHM's place. I don't know who the people in the paintings are, and I don't know who had painted them. I assume some of them might have been painted by CHM's grandfather, but I never asked CHM about them. I've never posted them on this blog before. There were other artists in CHM's family. When CHM passed away a couple of years ago at age 99, he still hadn't sold the apartment. I've heard that he didn't leave behind a valid Last Will and Testament. I would love to know what happened to the apartment, where CHM's father (the doctor) lived from about 1880 (not a typo) until his death in 1956.

Paintings by CHM's grandfather

CHM's grandfather, the 19th century painter Charles-Henri Michel, was born in 1817 and died in 1905. I don't know how many paintings he did, or how many of them still exist. Below are some that hang in museums and churches in and around the town of Peronne. I know there's one of his paintings in the Tour Jeanne d'Arc in Rouen and another in the chapel at the Château de Blois

CHM-the-grandson, the one I called a friend and who spelled his middle name Henry with a Y, was born in 1924 in Paris and died at the age of 99. So the two CHMs, grandfather and grandson, never knew each other. The father of CHM-the-grandson, who was born in 1860, was a well-known doctor in Paris. He died in 1956.

CHM photos from Neufchâtel-en-Bray

These are some photos CHM (Charles-Henry) took in the town called Neufchâtel-en-Bray in July 2010. We were driving from the Somme, site of World War I battles, to Rouen, just 25 miles south of Neufchâtel. CHM had an appointment in Rouen, a place I'm always ready to go to, because I have many good memories of it dating back
to 1972. The night before, we had feasted on a big platter of Neufchâtel cheeses in a restaurant.

The church in Neufchâtel-en-Bray is dedicated to Notre-Dame (the virgin Mary) and was built in the 12th century.
It was destroyed and rebuilt at least twice over the centuries.

CHM loved taking pictures in French churches. He also loved to go on road trips.
Tu me connais, he would tell me. J'ai toujours un pied dans la voiture...

Le Tour de France est actuellement en Normandie

A current event that's been making me think a lot about my friend CHM (Charles-Henry pour les intimes) is the Tour de France bicycle race. The race is in Normandy this week, riding through cities and towns like Rouen, Caen, Bayeux, and Vire. Charles-Henry and I visited many of those towns several times over the past 25 years.

We stayed in Rouen a few times with friends of mine. I lived in Rouen for a year back in the early 1970s. We went to Caen (rhymes with temps) on a road trip from Carteret in Normandy to Rouen in 1998 and CHM took pictures. I didn't yet have a digital camera. We went to Bayeux to see the famous tapestry there. Here's a photo of the Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Bayeux.

Walt and I have been to Normandy numerous times as well, including a good road trip in 1992 and another in 2005. We've also been to Rouen by train together several times, years ago, when we were staying a week or two on vacation in Paris. Rouen and Bayeux both have impressive cathedrals.

Seafood in a Paris market

I haven't been back to Paris since 2019. Or to the U.S. The pictures here are some that I took in 2016, coincidentally on July 9 that year. It was one of the last times that I saw my friend Charles-Henry (CHM).

I was looking at old photos this morning and came across these. We were walking through an outdoor market near his apartment, not far from the Eiffel Tower.

I don't know about you, but I can almost smell the ocean when I look at the photos below of fish that were for sale that day in Paris, nearly a decade ago. And I grew up just a few blocks from the fish markets in my home town on the North Carolina coast. I did a lot of fishing, crabbing, and clamming back then, and enjoyed eating fresh seafood. I also like the color of the shrimp on the right, which were sold cooked.

I'm homesick for both N.C. and Paris. Maybe I'll get to go back to both one day.

Seen in Touraine

Why did the caterpillar cross the (dirt) road?                    Was the bat in our belfry? No, in our wood stove.

Works of art at the Logis Royal in Loches

Photos taken in 2009 and 2010 with two different Lumix cameras (ZS1 and TZ3).
And no, we don't have a belfry.

Fleurs d'eté en Val de Loire, années diverses

This is not the kind of weather we're having or flowers we're seeing right now. It's rainy and chilly.
What a difference a week makes....

Salmon and shrimp for lunch

Walt has been cooking a lot of our lunchtime foods on the barbecue grill while we were experiencing extremely high temperatures. We've had sausages, beans, shrimp, salmon, and vegetables including grilled courgettes (zucchini) and aubergines (eggplants).

Other vegetables, including broccoli, green beans, and potatoes, have required some slow cooking in pots and pans that have tight-fitting lids to hold in the heat. And cooking in the morning before temperatures climbed as high as 98 or 99 degrees F. We've also been enjoying ice cream for dessert. This morning it's raining and the high temperature is predicted to be in the low 70s. Brrr.

Two photos of the Château de Saint-Aignan

Above, a view of the church and the château at Saint-Aignan in the Loir-et-Cher. I took the photo in July 2004, about a year after we came to live here. Our house is less that two miles from the château.

Below, a slightly closer view of just the château. It stands on the left bank of the Cher river about 35 miles west of the city of Tours. It was built between the 10th and 16th centuries (another July 2004 photo).

 

Another chilly morning

The daisies and the artichokes obviously haven't been unhappy with our recent torrid weather. Here's what they look like out in the back yard. This morning, like yesterday morning, the outdoor air feels chilly. This is ideal weather for the season.

The chill is back

Yesterday we cooled down a little, but by afternoon humidity started building. It was muggy, but the humidity didn't last too long. This morning, the air coming into the house — windows wide open right now — feels downright chilly. Above is a photo I just took from a west-facing window.

Below is a photo I took from the same window on July 3, 2018 — seven years ago. The skies that day were more dramatic than this morning's. The weather guy on TéléMatin just said that we'll be going into a rainy spell starting on Monday, with much milder high temperatures (low 70s F).

Salvation

Salvation on two fronts: first, the weather is changing. A weak cold front is moving across Brittany, Normandy, the Channel, the Loire Valley, and the Paris region today. It's a beginning. Temperatures won't be quite as high. By 6:00 p.m., the temperature will be just 30ºC. Yesterday, it was more like 36ºC at that hour. We'll be able to breathe again. Maybe we won't have another extreme heat wave this summer.

Can you even tell that there's a fence on our north side of our yard? It's a fence that we had put in 20 years ago. Nobody seems to know who owns the land that is on the other side of it. Not even the mairie or the maire. We wouldn't want to buy it because we'd have to pay somebody to clear the land and make it usable.

The north side fence is 50 meters long; that's more than 150 feet. The woods on the other side of it are full of blackberry brambles and other noxious, invasive weeds.

You can see one of our apple trees in the photos above. The two are about the same size. They need pruning.

The other salvation arrived yesterday morning. It has to do with yard work. Walt sent the guy who runs the landscaping business an e-mail early yesterday and asked him if he could come over and do a walk-around out in the yard to see all the big and little jobs that need to be done. We expected him to say that he'd get over here one day soon. He lives just five miles up the road from us, and he said "I can come over this morning." That was unhoped for. After seeing everything we need done: pruning our two apple trees and the big linden tree out back; cutting back plants that are invading the north side of our property and threatening to pull the fence down on that side of the yard. And also digging up the bed of millepertuis (St. John's Wort) on the south He's going to send us what is called un devis (a bid or contract) for the job. He said almost all of it is work he'll do this winter after his crew has done the annual hedge-trimming job in the Fall. So now we can breathe a sigh of relief. The work will get done. He and his crew have always done a good job for us over the past dozen or more years, but sometimes they are hard to pin down. They know we always pay our bills and have no complaints about the work they do.

Maybe I'll finally get the greenhouse cleaned out. Now that we'll be having more comfortable temperatures and also a plan of action for all the other tasks that need to be taken care of. I just noticed that we are no longer in the MétéoFrance vigilance red zone. Hurray! (See Walt's blog today for more about this subject.)