Travels around the world.

It is lunchtime on the first day of this project. I ran up and took pictures as soon as the 2 workmen left for lunch. So far they have cut away the beams in front of the window and opened up a hole in the roof for the first of the skylights. They have also installed some metal bars that I assume will support the wallboard or whatever they put up there. Here’s the skylight. And again. Here’s where they stacked the slates they removed. And I reached out the hole to take this one of the roof. Okay, that’s it for now. Stay tuned.

We are back in Normandy after a month at home in Duluth. It’s warmer here than it was there, but is still cool. It’s stopped raining, however. We talked to a builder today and he is going to start on Monday.  So I took some more pictures of the attic before the space gets covered up.  He is going to add insulation, including on the other side of the bathroom, which was never insulated.  We think the bathroom was done rather recently, possibly in order to help sell the house, but we are just guessing about that.  The bathroom on that level has lights in the ceiling, but no  electrical outlet. He said he could put an outlet near the sink, which we think would be useful. So here are some photos: Right now in order to approach the window one must duck under that beam, which is about 4.5 ft. high.  The builder suggested cutting the beam away to make a dormer that one could walk into.  I was skeptical about cutting these beams, but he said it would ...

We went back to Normandy for a few weeks in March. We wanted to do a few more things to the house before another of our co-owners, Jim's sister, Alice arrived. And Jim continued working on his book. He went to Munich for 3 days, but I stayed in Normandy. I had planted a few bulbs in the fall. When I bought them I asked for ones that would bloom in April, so I wasn't sure there would be much in bloom in March. I was therefore surprised to find the garden looking like this. I didn't plant any of these. The ones I planted are in a small group just to the right of the photo. They were blooming too. By the end of our three weeks the forget-me-nots were in full bloom in the back half of the garden. They're just weeds, but are pretty in the spring. I thought that in order to make better use of the garden, it needed some stepping stones.  I wanted round ones, but couldn't find any, so we settled for these square ones that match the ones in the pathway. On the insid...

On Wednesday I took an all-day tour of the old part of Istanbul with Istanbul Walks .  I recommend this company. They have lots of options for walking in various parts of Istanbul. My guide was very well-informed and gave me more historical background than I could absorb. I met him outside the entrance to the Hagia Sophia museum. We were joined by a guide in training. I was the only customer that day. It was cold and rainy, which you will see in the photos. We first visited the Blue mosque, but I had visited it on Monday, so the pictures of that mosque are on that post . From the Blue mosque we went back to Hagia Sophia .  The Blue Mosque closes at noon and my guide told me that because he talks so long, he sometimes doesn't finish with both before noon, so he liked to start with the Blue Mosque. Here is the outside of Hagia Sophia or the church of Divine Wisdom. The current building was built in 532 by emperor Justinian on the site of an earlier Christian church, built ...

Jim picked up a brochure for me for the company Istanbul Walks . They offer a whole menu of different walking tours. One was listed as starting every Tuesday from Taksim square near our hotel.  It seemed like an easy way to check out the company, so I went to the starting point on Tuesday, but had not called them to register.  It was a cold rainy day and the guide didn't show up. I assume they didn't have anyone signed up for that tour.  As long as I was there, I decided to walk down that street on my own. A tram ran down the middle of the street, but I think otherwise it was supposed to be a pedestrian street. There were several Christian churches here and many buildings from the 19th century and possibly earlier. This church was just off Istiklal street on a side street. It wasn't open, but this foyer was quite pretty. Here's another shot of the ceiling. Here are a couple music shops on Istiklal street. There were lights hanging above the street ...