sooooo far behind in all that has passed....
I finally have access to the internet and I will try to catch up on just too much to tell. the first of this is some writing I began when arriving at St Michel en Grave. We stayed at a motel for the first week while we readied the house for occupancy. Making sure the heatwater and plumbing worked.
All the magic I expected to greet me was delayed by a major painful adjustment to time change and work in volved in getting comfortable. It has now been a month of stripping wallpaper, painting and cleaning. We eat work and sleep. But i try to take time to walk the woods and streams... Observe the magnificent tides and we do try to see the local sights.
The area is breathtaking and the weather extreams and change. I truly have not been really warm since we got here. It may be calm one minute and vast winds the next, out of the north to set frost on the windows.
So going back to a few weeks ago i will try to update.
This is where i began writing .
_________________________

Sitting at rest now in a lovely little hotel room overlooking the sea: only fifty dollars a night and very clean and comfortable. Warm and cozy after wine and a French version of pizza. That is, flattened bread with strange cheeses scattered randomly over an ever so flat dough. But I really didn’t care. We were starving after a long day working on cleaning and organizing the little home at St. Michel en Greve, nestled by and on the sea. Stacks of magazines to be removed, three years of spiders to gently relocate, dust and brine from the windows, all the usual preparation you would expect of a home not lived in for three years. Most of the furniture was left and many utensils for the kitchen. The same family has used this house over the years so there is a sweet consistency to the arrangement of even the littlest details. I have been working mainly on the kitchen so as to prepare it to be painted. The cupboards are full of Bretagne ware that is a ceramic artist’s wet dream.
A large kitchen, bath, den ,bedroom and library downstairs and 3 large bedrooms upstairs.
A full celler too.
Large heavy furniture and wooden shelves and cupboards, six-foot windows looking out on a garden of roses and fruit trees that needs tending and all ready to bud in the springtime mist. This home is truly something out of myth n tale.
I now know why they call it the Mists of Avalon. The ongoing rain is at most a misty pelting of pin like drops… sometimes stronger into a full rain but usually just enough to decorate my glasses with tiny jewels of moisture.

…That even trees n landscape hold a different gesture here
through the prism mist
All foreign tongues to vision in the round
A stranger gone too long
I am
A pirate meant to capture
Back a heritage
Without a bawdy song
Without a tale
Or clipper sail
Or burly mate for me own brave heart
Brave is the heart
We follow through the storm and warnings of the fae
Alone we find the path to our delights
For naught is friend or foe
No mage can rightly gno
Full harmony in rhyme of reason
For our late arrival to the sea
….best let the tale unfold
And twice portray the depth of brine and brew
It knits and ties our knots
Securing all that follows
To the new


We have been staying in a small hotel until the final closing on the house. The ocean comes up below us over a hill, in maybe a few feet of water over a vast expanse of sand. Windsurfers ride the moist sand in spite of the 30-degree winds and rain. It must be a favorite sport here. When the tide is out you can walk the sand out for a quarter of a mile. I am looking forward to doing that when it warms up a bit. My Florida blood is still acclimating to this damp-cold. I haven’t really been warm since I left Florida.

Arriving here has been endless “Lion’s at the gate” at every turn …every entrance,yes,
and without persistence we may have never arrived.
Not to mention the logistics of time and money….sheesh…
Our plane from Miami to London was delayed for hours, and when we finally boarded and on our way… two hours past Bermuda to London, a woman became very ill and we circled back to Bermuda to have her sent to a hospital. More hours of delay we finally resumed our trip only to go through sever turbulence half way there mid-ocean. That was fun for some imaginings of what it would be like to slide down the escape hatch in ten-foot waves.
My friend Cheryl, who owns the new home in France, had a dripping air conditioning duct over her seat, someone’s ill behaved child was screaming like a banshee making everyone shudder and roll their eyes, as he demanded his mother’s attention and the woman who sat in the seat next to me continuously bumped me at every move…most often as I was just about to find some forced sleep. Now this would have been enough to fray nerves and encourage one to call again for the tiny bottles of spirits, but there were more gates to pass when we arrived at the airport in London. They could not get the door open. It took an hour and a half for them to find the problem and let us off the plane…then to find luggage claim down long endless corridors of Heathrow Airport…sigh…
We had a large amount of luggage, since my friend Cheryl was moving to her new home. Something like 60 boxes were sent ahead to the house but we too carried some things we needed right away.
Anyways, we did find a taxi to the hotel. And after paying an 80-dollar cab tab or 40 pounds in English currency, we finally arrived at the hotel we stayed at until the next part of our journey to Paris in two days.
It was bitter cold in London but we fiercely found time over the next two days to see all the tourist delights like Westminster Abby, Big Ben, and Oxo. We also found some delightful dining, great pubs, and even met up with some friends of Cheryl’s who took us to a restaurant called .
(about them)
More delays and problems getting to Paris.
Hardly worth remembering.
But while in Paris we visited all the major tourist delights, including a trip to the top of the Eiffel Tower. That was wonderful in spite of the bitter cold. And I was amazed at the number of tourist this time of year too.
Every Place I entered brought about a sort of despair as I realized that in order to see all and take it in , one would need months or years to behold all the detailed beauty and art and lifestyle and shopping and restaurants and all there is to experience. So, selectively we visited Versailles, Musee d’Orsay, the Louvre, Notre Dame and took an evening ride on the Beteaus-Mouches on the Seine River.We arrived at Notre dame just in time to attend Mass and receive the host. Amazing how the quiet is sustained even though tourists are a continual stream flowing around the center of the church.
Then on to Jazz club and restaurants, met friends, and was then finally on our way to Brittany by train.
Our Lions at the Gates were becoming a joke by now. So when our train was stopped by
A mob of an youths on the tracks we were not surprised. We watched as they brought out three buses of swat teams and carefully subdued and encouraged them to let the train proceed. No violence, just a bit of intimidation was used.And after about two hours we aere on our way again.
Hmmm…now what was that all about. I was wondering if it made the news to the US.


Monday March13
The kitchen is almost finished, that is , the painting.
The walls are highly textured and the painting is tedious and tiring. No scaffolding, so we go up and down the ladder a few million times. The colors she chose are new green and tuscan sun. The trim will be white and we are painting the cement floors
It Promises to be bright and cheerful and with the large windows looking out on the landscape of flowers it will be wonderful.
This all matches her new dinnerware and curtains. It will be interesting when finished.
We have been making our meals at the house and finding new spices and combinations or meals at the stores. The groceries are priced about the same as in the US but there are many things missing that one gets used to. There are only a few sandwich breads to choose from. Peanut butter is scarce. And I have yet to figure out the best coffee…we are trying three different kinds. All the home improvement items including paint are very expensive. Most of the colors are already mixed and any computer color that you may desire is very limited.
There is a full moon hanging heavy over the Mer tonight…or almost a full moon. Hard for me to tell. I have no internet access yet to check. But the moon reflecting over the water is incredible. And the serge of dream time that accompanies full moons has been in full force.
And today it was finally warm enough for me to briefly venture to the oceans edge. Strange shells and seaweed must have washed in and decorated the shores with curious designs coaxing one to read like tealeaves in a cup. Wondering what manner of creatures these are that occupied these dainty, frail balloon shells,I wandered in between the waves to look for more treasures.
What an enchanting beach.
I wonder if the locals have become so accustom to this incredible beauty that it is mundane to them.Although I never grew tired of the Florida beaches and all their moods. I am overwhelmed here and just can’t seem to take it all in yet. Perhaps because the dream of walking the shores of France has been a fantasy for so long.
I find I walk with my eyes down and tremble at times at the thought of even being here. Maybe I am just live to long in the imaginal. I even let the nothing words escape as I walked on the sand amid the kelp. The wind was blowing so no one heard and the tumbling out of rhythm sound released a bit of the tension of finally being present here.
Wondering if mine
Are eyes that see a new
Or mere imagined haze of
Breathing wide eyed Giea
Waking frim her dream
First time lovers see each other in the
Colors of the prism that
Divides and pours out rainbow bridges
Mine to yours
And when you read these words
You gno
Its you
That woke the edges of my spring
So late
But soon enough
For me to gasp
When … light
Upon the lips
Your kissssss…..

Interesting that when you leave the beach you immediately walk on dark moist soil rich with flora and fauna climbing over hills and rocks. The walls of paths and vine imply some hidden caves to be discovered. But me queasy feeling about bugs keeps me from exploring further.
We are on the edge of spring here, and the forsythia are just beginning to show a bit of bloom in our back yard. Daffodils are edging the gardens and forest, and the promise of abundant roses and various other blooms teases the imagination with new growth showing through the untended edges of the property. Several fruit trees are budding. I suspect they are apple trees.
There is an old mill is in her back yard at the edge of the rushing stream. Perhaps an old flour mill for the family in the past or means of enterprise I have been told that there are salmon and trout in the streams here, so I will probably try my luck at fishing.
Behind the gardens, Cheryl owns a couple acres of forest with paths winding through violets and vines, tall pines, oak and birch. I have yet to venture there. For now we are concentrating on making the house livable.
Two feral cats have been keeping house in the mill and watching all the comings and goings. And they have shyly accepted our offerings of cat food and treats. Although they are shy they seem to be enjoying our presence. One is black and white (Madam Fred) and the other black one we call
Surprisingly ,there are few insects and animals to be seen. No squirrels. I hear many birds but there is a strange silence at times. Not quite sure why. As if something is missing.

HAHA…I spoke with the woman at the front desk in the hotel we sleep at for now. I asked her if she spoke Breton…the language of the Celts that is fast disappearing although one million people still speak this Celtic language. She said no but that the old woman across the road did. I saw the woman she spoke of this very morning opening her shutters to let in the morning light and thought what a wonderful head of white hair she had. Perhaps I will find a way to meet her.
I then mentioned to her that I had ancestors from this region that may have been Druids. She startled at this and asked Oh , are you a witch?”
I paused at this and said no. She looked at me very strange. And I wondered if it would have been a different reaction if I had said yes. More to investigate.
There are several standing stones scattered around this area. In fact, the largest collections of Stone Age monuments in the world are scattered around this area-Plouharnel, Carnec, Locmariaquer, the islands in the Morbihan Gulf and the Crozon peninsula. The remains of the ancient Broceliande-Forest is also here where memories of the Knights of the Round Table, Merlin and Vivian La Fae linger too. Many different types of Fae haunt this region of Brittany .
Much to know and learn about the past here. Brittany was described by the ancients as the “land facing the sea. ..easy to see why when standing on the Pointe du Raz ...looking west. I am told that it is like leaning on the furthest most point on the brow of the ship as she leans into the surf and sea. Perhaps we will make it there on our trips .
___________________