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Victoria Corby

~ Reading, writing, living in France

Victoria Corby

Tag Archives: new year’s resolutions

New for 2012 – number 5 (and breaking some rules along the way)

08 Wednesday Feb 2012

Posted by victoriacorby in Books, France, New Experiences 2012, Reading

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new experiences, new year's resolutions, Paris

I’ve never been one of those people who reads all about a place before going somewhere new.  Of course I consult guidebooks – I’m not that much of a free spirit and anyway I’d feel remarkably stupid if I missed out on a treasure because I didn’t know about it or turned up on the one day it was closed.  But I don’t compile a reading list in advance though I’ll often read all about where I’ve been, getting even more pleasure from being able to place where the action was.  A horribly crowded flight from New York was transformed by the New Yorkers by Catherine Schine which I’d picked up the day before because I’d enjoyed a couple of her other books.  It was set two streets down on the Upper West Side and I spent a wonderful seven hours not feeling I’d left New York at all.

I’m going to Paris with one of my daughters at the end of the month which is in fact a trip inspired by a book.  I was reading The Private Lives of the Impressionists last year during a particularly tough time and when everything got on top of me I’d say to myself that when it was all over I’d go to Paris to the Musée Marmottan and see Monet’s pictures.  So I’m going at last and staying bang next door to Notre Dame (can you get a better location than that?) thanks to those internet coupons I bought.  I’m not going to read up all about Paris before I go – that smacks too much of homework, but I decided that on this trip I’d only take books that were about Paris or set there.  As there are just one Paris related book in my to-read bookcase this also gave me a convenient excuse to break the rule I imposed at the beginning of the year that until I managed to make a visible dent in the to-read pile the only books I’d buy were ones I needed for my bookclubs.  I have to confess here to a serious book-buying habit which has become worse since I discovered Awesome Books but at least I don’t have a tottering pile of to-use handbags.

I already had The Lost Mona Lisa by RA Scotti about the theft of the Mona Lisa in 1911.  It wasn’t recovered until two years later by which time several near perfect copies had been made.  I’ve been fascinated by this story since I was about 8 and a friend of my parents, a delightful old picture restorer, told me of being a student in Paris before the theft and going to see the Mona Lisa nearly every week.  After it was retrieved he viewed it again – and said it wasn’t the same picture.  He believed the experts simply hadn’t been able to tell which was the original and which was the fake.  He added that he’d also heard that to make sure their judgement could never be questioned the experts had ordered that the picture they deemed a fake be destroyed.  Just the sort of story that would fascinate a child and I’m really looking forward to reading the book and seeing just how much of Mr Booker’s theory was based on fact.

I had a lovely morning looking up books about Paris before deciding that I’d buy myself Hemmingway’s A Moveable Feast, about Paris in the 1920’s, and Foreign Tongue by Vanina Marsot which everyone seems to love.  Three books seemed plenty for a four day trip and anyway the hotel is five minutes walk away from Shakespeare and co so if I get really desperate I can always nip over there.  Lets face it, I will anyway.

So feeling very virtuous that I was only going to buy two books I logged on.  And saw that Dancing To The Precipice about the life of Madame de la Tour du Pin, something I’ve wanted to read for ages was on Amazon at half price.  Of course it would have been silly not to buy it.  Then there was French Secrets by Roisin McAuley whom I met last summer and really liked.  At least it’s about France as is The Lantern by Deborah Lawrenson.

Oh well, what’s the point of making rules if you can’t break them?

New year, new experiences…

02 Monday Jan 2012

Posted by victoriacorby in Uncategorized

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new experiences, new year's resolutions, Paris, Sicily

Catherine Fox, who wrote the wonderful Angels and Men, was coming up to a serious birthday last year and decided to ward off any suggestions that she might be becoming a stick-in-the-mud by making a resolution to try to do one new thing every week.  As she’s a black belt at karate I doubt anyone sensible would call her a stick in the mud but I’ve had a nagging feeling recently that I might be slipping into a rut and perhaps it’s time to do something about it before said rut becomes a trench.

I’ll have to play  fair of course and try to do things that are really new or stretching my own boundaries.  So reading 52 new books this in 2012 would definitely be cheating as would trying out a whole load of different  recipes as I’ll be doing both of those anyway.  Though I might try making choux pastry, I’m no baker and when I get a new cook book usually don’t bother to even glance through the cake section.

Even if you’ve led a pretty adventurous life you tend to find that by the time you’ve reached fifty or so you’ve actually done quite a lot (even if you can’t always remember doing it.  I had put ‘visit a volcano’ on my to-do list for this year and then realised we visited a little one on our honeymoon ).  There aren’t many classic authors I haven’t at least tried, even for the sake of rut-busting I don’t think I’m prepared to tackle Ulysses, I’ve bottle fed a lion cub and a badger, made a tiger cub purr, driven a steam engine – albeit a half-size perfect replica, appeared on television, walked around the Statue of Liberty, climbed the highest sand dune in Europe, cuddled a Koala and seen a Duck-Billed Platypus (much smaller than I’d imagined).  I’m an adventurous eater so there aren’t many normal foods I haven’t at least tried.  I admit I haven’t ever knowingly had dog, cat, horse, monkey’s

Not today, thank you.

brains, shark’s fin, anything that slithers, insects, eyes or private parts and orifices from any species and I don’t intend to start now.  I’m not keen on feet either.  I’ve never eaten ostrich or kangaroo though…

I’m not interested in new experiences gained from hallucinogenic drugs or cocaine either, I don’t think I’m up to the pilgrimage walk to St Jacques de Compostela  and as I don’t have an unlimited budget, or much of a budget at all, I can’t go to India, go up in a helicopter, have a balloon ride, buy myself a serious piece of jewellery or go down to the bottom of the ocean where it’s so deep the light doesn’t penetrate and it’s very, very strange, something I’ve wanted to do since I was about twelve.  But I am going to Sicily, where I’ve never been, to see my daughter and though I’m not sure I’ll be able to do one new thing a week like Catherine, I’m going to try for 52 new things over the year so at least it averages out.

So far my initial list of possibilities goes like this:

  • Going to the top of the Eiffel Tower in the elevator (something I’ve always been too chicken to do).
  • Visiting one museum in Paris which is completely different to my normal taste.
  • Drive my husband’s 4 x 4 (the thing terrifies me).
  • Mow the lawn which means using the tractor mower on quite a steep slope.

    I'm sure this will count as "doing the mowing".

    (Fear isn’t involved here, it’s blind terror.)

  • Make profiteroles.
  • Cook scallops – I’ve always been frightened of bogging it up and wasting rather a lot of money.
  • Visit the caves at Lascaux
  • Go to one of the places that’s marked on our map as being ‘of interest’ without looking it up to see if it’s worth it first.
  • Plant three apple trees.
  • Make regular detours to follow those signs that direct you to a tenth century church, a medieval château or a ‘point de vue’.
  • Go to the Musée des Beaux Arts in Bordeaux

There’ll be more added as things occur to me but any suggestions (reasonable ones, children) will be most welcome.

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