taste and smell of fall

It's not exactly warm outside today, but at least it's sunny and we don't have the horrible wind we had a few days ago.

weather.com tells me that days are getting shorter by approximately three minutes every day. I wonder how long the shortest day in Lyon is -- about nine hours of daylight? Considering there are 24 hours in a day, that really doesn't seem much.

So I do what I must do, to compensate. Lots of candles seem to help. I light them in the morning, too, because they make the breakfast table cozy and my son likes them. In my home, candles are always white, and all unscented except for a few in the entry hall and living room.

I cook soup often -- I'm in love with all the beautiful mushrooms that are available now, and I find great comfort in the warmth and aroma coming from the simmering pot. Speaking of simmering pot, 'tis the season for vin chaud! This recipe calls for Cognac -- I must try it.

And last, but not least, cold weather is made tolerable with chocolat chaud. I had never been a chocolate enthusiast; in fact, I never really ate much chocolate until I moved to France. Now I feel as if I'd been missing out all my life ("Is this what chocolate is supposed to taste like???"). Bernachon is my favorite chocolate shop in town, and during the cold season, you can find me dreamily sipping the chocolat chaud at the salon de thé.

In fact, I just might head over there this afternoon....

sights and sounds of fall

Kids see and hear things we grown-ups don't. I wonder at what age we lose that ability.

out on a red bicycle

The weather was beautiful last Saturday.

I felt like a bike ride, so I rented a vélo'v. My destination: Île Barbe.

I crossed Presqu'île and a bridge, and up the quai I went. There wasn't much traffic once I went past Pont Massaryk. I pretended I was Audrey Hepburn riding the bike through the fallen leaves along La Saône.


Once I got to Île Barbe, I parked my bike, sat on a bench, and snacked on the baguette. A guy was playing a guitar nearby, a woman was taking a nap on another bench, and a father-and-a-daugher pair was playing on the playground equipment. It was a lovely, quiet moment on a lovely, quiet afternoon.

I wanted to explore further down in the residential area, but I chickened out. Technically, the area is off-limits to non-residents (althought I'm sure they get "visitors" all the time), plus I didn't know where to secure the bike. I wondered what it would be like to live on a little gem of an island like Île Barbe. I mean, I don't think there's garbage collection -- so do the residents haul their garbage off the island themselves? To the arrondissement dump?






Time flows a little bit more slowly at places like this, I think.

I rode the bike past the Île Barbe Pétanque Club and its two members (seriously, there must be a club -- the sign said "Île Barbe Pétanque" and the two gentlemen sitting in front of it looked very authentic, very professional-pétanque-player-like). I pushed the bike up to the bridge, back to the quai and biked for about a mile. I then returned the bike to a station and caught the bus back to town, because my legs gave up.


Here are two photos of Pont de Lîle Barbe (which show just how small the bridge is -- there's no way a gargabe truck can go over it), along with some of the other pretty bridges from Lyon. Ours is a lucky city, to have two beautiful rivers running through it, and such pretty bridges adorning them all along.

problem solved... at least temporarily

Okay, I had some extra time today and was a bit more patient with my research -- and I found a way to upload photos again.

The following is for my fellow Bloggers who are having the same problem and have not discovered this solution yet:

At the top of the post editor page are several tabs, one of which is Settings. Select that, and toward the bottom, find Global Setting, and select Old Editor (be sure to Save Settings). Voila, and we can happily upload photos again!

Blogger should really make this information a little bit easier to find.

Hmmmmm

Blogger won't let me upload image files from my hard drive! It has been nearly two weeks since the problem started, and Blogger is aware of the problem. But it isn't affecting everybody, or they will be working harder to fix it. Rather frustrating.

In the meantime, the weather has been beautiful in Lyon. MIL is visiting, and I actually made time to do some sightseeing with her. What fun. I should do this more often. I took some nice photos (if I say so myself) at Fourvière, but oh darn, I can't upload them here.

Tomorrow my MIL and I will be participating in a group tour of Vieux Lyon (with a guide!), and I'm hoping I get to go inside of some traboules that I haven't been able to see in the past. Then we'll have lunch with everybody at one of the bouchons in the area. Can't wait!