francofiled

My little battered Clairefontaine  carnet definitely stood the test of time but now all of its pages are used up. It was a delight to use as the pen just seemed to glide over its weight of paper with virtually no "bleedthrough" of ink. Bleedthrough? That means that each of the 96 pages, made from 48 sheets of doubled and stapled paper, could be fully used with no ghosting of writing showing through from the other side of the page.  I hate it when that happens; I like each new page to be pristine. Douceur de l'écriture  - Papier velouté - are the marketing descriptions for the product and the paper does have that soft, velvety touch that makes writing a pleasure especially with a fountain pen. Looking through it now and checking the items noted there the thing that strikes me is just how serviceable it was - contact details, numbers and emails; flight references and booking codes; quotes and books to read; meeting plans, agenda and follow-ups; vocabulary items ...

Smile! Yes this puzzle brings back a memory and makes me smile. I did it once before - although that's not strictly true as in a sense I didn't quite complete it, someone else did. It was back in 1974 and I was living then in Vierzon, renting a room from a propriétaire on the outskirts of the town. There wasn't much to do in the evenings and one way of passing the time I decided was to tackle a jigsaw.  A good sized one mind you, at least 1000 pieces. Thanks to the local librairie I was able to to get a puzzle of La Joconde, Leonardo Da Vinci's Mona Lisa and it turned out to be a labour of love. I hadn't at that stage seen the original in the Louvre and when I did it struck me as smaller than I expected.  All the same I got to know those brush strokes fairly well and the background?  Well there's a lot of detail there too.  Jigsaws are a great way to appreciate a work of art. And as for the smile?  Getting there. My efforts with the puzzle were ...