The Little Words Mean the Most

Which of Carlas' handmade frames did Simone choose?

Click an image to stare deeply into Simone's insightful, incisive gray-blue eyes. @ Carla's Eyeworks, Montpellier, France. The video.

An afternoon walk along Agde's waterfront

Agde is a port city @ the confluence of the Canal du Midi and the Hérault river, just upstream from the Med. It's been a port since truly ancient times: the Greeks came early, long before the Romans. It has to my eye a visually gloomy cast, thanks to basalt building stone quarried from a nearby extinct volcano. The restaurants have outdoor seating that floats on the riverfront.

When the bell strikes one, is it thinking...

..."I wish I could say more?"

Thoughts while writing a DM appeal

You break the silence of the page, addressing the reader directly. "You just never know, do you?" You know the best empathy point and work toward it, the sooner the better: "They express themselves, and it always seems to end in tears." You know news value keeps readers engaged. "Maybe the best medicine is art. But no health insurance pays for that." You give the donor an important, irreplaceable role to play. You know they're all skimmers, so you respect the "F" pattern, as revealed by eye-motion studies. You know that the PS is the "real 1st paragraph of a letter." You write a tight one, restating the offer. You know that the eye skips like a butterfly, so you ask over and over, wherever that eye might alight. You know your SMIT (thank you, Jonathon Grapsas): "this wonderful thing cannot happen without your help."

That's not a paper plate, that's a mushroom: an Oct. hike above Vailhan

CLICK ANY PHOTO TO SMELL THE MICRONS >

ABOVE: It's that time of year -- trail food provided by Mom Nature, in the form of arbousier fruit. Best eaten bright red and custard-y, just ready to fall from the tree. Caught in midair is ideal. Then you fight off the birds. There's a pottery gallery in town. Those tidy rows are olive trees. Chevy Chase good buddies Steve and Lee awarded Simone a lifetime achievement award shirt. BELOW: it's pomegranate season in town; hunters are invited to police their droppings; and that's a fine looking church you got there, with a restaurant tucked into an outbuilding.

The latest in French toilet seats

Molière, as fence art

You see, flowers soften and warm a stone house

Graffiti in our town's elementary school yard

 

A walk along the Canal du Midi in Poilhes (pron: Poy) & a visit to a Valros (our town) vintner; as ever, click a photo to enlarge & ingest the fruit flies

 

Our dining room's window on small-town France, the curtains behind which Simone and I work

Too much beauty. Must die now.

The rainbow. The dove walking across the skylight. Our top terrace, where I sometimes write.

Free-range secrets

 

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