Yesterday And Today

My Mother in her thirties in the sixties

 My Mother earlier this year in her seventies

 Love you Mum X

Spooky

Miss Havisham requests the pleasure of your company...

 Mrs Danvers is waiting

Brrr

 Deanna Maksimovic
Can you see Cathy at the window?

 Could this passageway lead to Bertha's rooms?

Remember, walls, have ears

So be careful who you trust!

Roman Solowiej
Where does this staircase lead?

Ahh, Dorians secret

Don't they make a handsome couple!

Elle Dunn
Enter at your peril!

They are waiting for you...

 You may need help.

Fragments

A new Marilyn Monroe book has recently been published; 'Fragments'.  This book is different it is not a biography but Marilyn in her own words, a collection of Marilyn's musings taken from her poems, intimate notes and letters.  Early reviews are promising.  Oh dear another book to add to the wish list.

Fragments edited by Stanley Buchthal and Bernard Comment available here

St Tropez On Sale

 

 Last Friday, we arranged to meet some good friends in St Tropez, as we reached the outskirts the traffic was backed up, now I know this is expected in the high summer months but October?  What could possibly be going on?  We noticed that people were parking their cars way outside the town and walking in, undaunted MG continued forth heading into the town center, we drove round a couple of times but all the car parks were full and people were everywhere, MG drove towards the parking du Port and spoke to the parking attendants, luckily they took a shine to MG's car, or was it me batting my eyelashes, after waiting a couple of minutes they opened the barrier and let us through, parking sorted.

Coming into St Tropez

Traffic

We then hotfooted it to the port and settled ourselves in St Tropez's most famous and overpriced cafe Senequier, where we waited for our friends, after phoning them to check on their progress and alert them to the fact that for some mysterious reason St Tropez was chocca and they may have difficulty parking.

Senequier

  Whilst we waited I had fun people watching, The port in St Tropez has to be one of the best people watching places on the planet, especially when it's busy; beautiful fashionably dressed girls in their first bloom of youth, jaded brassy blondes dressed as lambs, chic well heeled ladies, young women with elderly gentlemen (obviously not their Daughters or Granddaughters, MG pointed this out!), hardened St Tropez mariners, posy yachty types, normal people trying to look like somebodies, somebodies trying to look normal, etc. but one thing was apparent the majority of them were carrying a large number of glossy, shopping bags with some of the most famous brands in the world emblazoned on the front.

MG started chatting to three charming ladies sitting next to us all with large numbers of the said shopping bags, they told us exactly what was going on "it's a Grande Braderie" one of the charming ladies told us which in English translates to clearance sale, all the shops are selling off their old stock and bargains are to be found everywhere, one of the charming ladies had purchased a pair of fabulous shoes reduced from 1000 euro's to 150.  Normally I am not into sales, rummaging through piles of clothes in search of a bargain is not my idea of fun, however the shops in St Tropez are particularly nice and it was the first day of the Braderie so a lot of the clothes were neatly hanging outside the shops on rails, our friends arrived and we went for lunch, with full tummies and some fine wine down us we all succumbed and were soon picking through the rails with the best of them, we all made some fabulous purchases and despite the hordes a fine time was had by all.  The Braderie is on every October in St Tropez, my advice is get there early, on the first day.  There really are some fabulous bargains to be had, clothing, shoes and home wares with up to 80% off in some cases.

Sanary

Sanary, Moise Kisling

I feel that I should write about this place that I love so much as it is so very special and has quite a history.  Sanary is situated  in the Var department in the Provence-Alps-Côte d'Azur region in south-eastern France.

It is located 13 km (8.1 mi) from Toulon and 49 km (30 mi) from Marseilles.

 Old Sanary

Saint Nazari was established as a small fishing village in the 16th century, with buildings clustered around a medieval watchtower, a port was constructed and the harbour deepened, in 1890 Saint Nazari recievied it's local name in Provencal, 'Sanary', which was formalised and distinguished as sur-Mer in 1923.

 Thomas Mann, Sanary

With the rise of Nazism in the early 1930s, a great number of German writers and intellectuals left Germany and settled here, where the cost of living was lower than in Paris: the playwright Bertold Brecht, Egon Erwin Kisch, Thomas Mann, Ludwig Marcuse, Joseph Roth, Franz Werfel, and Arnold Zweig. Patronised by Jean Cocteau and his coterie, Sanary had already drawn Aldous Huxley and his wife, Maria, who attracted other English visitors, such as D. H. Lawrence and his wife, Frieda; Julian Huxley and his wife, Juliette; and others. The German expatriates clustered around Thomas Mann and his large family, his brother Heinrich and his wife (the model for Blue Angel), the writers Stefan Zweig and Arnold Zweig, the art critic Julius Meier-Graefe, and the artist René Schickele. The impressionable Sybille von Schoenebeck (later, as Sybille Bedford, the author of A Legacy) lived here with her mother.  Artists such as Moise Kisling and Picasso were also in residence and Kiki de Montparnasse muse to Man Ray and many other artists also lived here.

Moise Kisling and his sons on the beach

 Renee Kisling in Sanary harbour

The Church, facing opposite Sanary harbour today

The Huxley's enjoying a family picnic

"If one lives in exile," wrote Hermann Kesten, "The café becomes at once the family home, the nation, church and parliament, a desert and a place of pilgrimage, cradle of illusions and their cemetery... In exile, the café is the one place where life goes on."

 Sanary cafes, today

With the declaration of war in 1939, the French government treated these exiles as enemy aliens and interned them in camps; they were seen as no more than so many Germans. After liberation, the little village that had been known as "Sanary-les-Allemands" chose to ignore the whole episode until the 1990s, when the volume of German and Austrian tourists encouraged the unveiling of a small plaque and some signposted tourist itineraries.

 

Sanary is not a sunny place for shady people, one of the reasons why I love it, is it's understated chic, although no longer a small village the town has retained it's authentic feel.  I have been up and down the Mediterranean coast and still I think Sanary is the best and one of the prettiest and unspoilt spots.  The harbour is small, and still only little fishing boats and modest yachts are moored here, no swanky gin palaces, no brash, money talks, loud voices to be heard and no paparazzi.  There is a small market every day selling the freshest of produce and one of the biggest markets every Wednesday selling just about everything you can think of, the shops in the small lanes are all individually owned boutiques, all fabulous I always manage to find wonderful stuff, fabulous linens and knitwear, perfume, soap, luxury giftwear, you name it, it's here!  And of course, you are spoilt for choice for pavement cafes and restaurants.

 Fresh produce, every day

Begs the question, why would anyone want to leave?  It's also one of the sunniest places in France...did I mention that!

Autumn In Provence

 Must apologise for being a terrible blogger, I have not been posting or catching up with all my favourite blogs, life just seems to have got in the way!  I am currently in Provence, staying with Belle Mere in Sanary-Sur-Mer, probably my favourite place on the planet, have been out and about today and managed to take some photographs, I will be resuming normal service as soon as possible.