Rapt

Don't you think that to wrap someone up in a blanket is such a considerate and generous act of kindness?

1972

I just googled my birthday and discovered that on the 20th November 1972 the Time Magazine cover showed Richard Nixon holding up the victory sign with the headline "Landslide, Prospects for the second term". 

A movie released that day was a British version of" Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" starring Michael Crawford, Peter Sellers and Dudley Moore. 

I think I was actually born into that story As the youngest of seven children, I definitely remember growing up with at least one white rabbit, definitely more than one Mad Hatter, endless packs of cards and being scolded by the Queen of Hearts and I am quite certain that my elder brothers often smoked stuff they shouldn't have in the 1970s. 

However I was not Alice.  My elder sister was known to have so vividly dream the 'Alice' scene where she grows and shrinks that she loudly and vocally re-enacted the whole thing in her sleep for our entertainment. She must have been Alice. 

The sleepy mouse might have been me. I wonder if Dudley Moore was the sleepy mouse? I would've wanted to be Peter Sellers but am definitely more Dudley Moore. 

 

I like that Richard Nixon and Alice in Wonderland were significant on my birthday. It reminds me that you can never be sure of what will happen next.

Assistance, s'il vous plait?

So we are going on a Smith family adventure to la belle France, as I might have boasted previously, and I need to plan the trip. We are pretty much overseas travel virgins and so require un peu d'assistance.  Does anyone have any tips about finding self-contained/self-catering accommodation in France -Paris, Biarrtiz, Provence? Cheap places to stay in Paris? Good places to take kids in France? 

Anything? 

All suggestions would be most gratefully received.

I am still pinching myself a wee bit that I am even required to ask these questions. Woohoo!