So Much For Our Early Warning System

Shortly after he arrived, we attached a large bell to Little Man's collar to because we noticed that he moves very quietly and one resident (ahem) kept tripping over him.

Brian just found what was left of that bell.

Knitting - A Seal Toy from 1965

From Margaret Hutching's children's craft book, What Shall I Do From Scandinavia, part of her "What Shall I Do" series.  It can be borrowed for two weeks from Open Library.  Reading the instructions, I'm a tad dubious that the end result would look anything like a seal but if someone would like to try and send me a photo, I'll post it.

(I'm rather backed up in knitting projects at the moment - in a rash moment I promised slippers to the niece who helped dragged me and my grossly-overloaded suitcase all over Alsace.  Alas, I failed you - I listened to the cruise ship's blandishments and packed too much). 

Vintage Advertising - Br'er Rabbit Molasses

From Woman's Home Companion, January 1921.

Caturday!

Quote Of The Day

Renoir, "Julie Manet with Cat" on Pinterest

Cats make one of the most satisfying sounds in the world: they purr...a purring cat is a form of high praise, like a gold star on a test paper.  It is reinforcement for something we would all like to believe about ourselves - that we are nice. ~ Roger Caras

The Online Bookshelf

Strangely applicable to current events.

Signs of Spring

image from agence eureka

The Old Gunfighter demanded to be let outside in the lovely fresh air and sunshine this morning; after vomiting on the front porch, he promptly came back in and is now curled up in the recliner.

(Little Man dug up the herbs we had planted in those ceramic pots on the patio - they are now outside the fence until he grows up.  Whenever that will be).

Rittershoffen

image from Pinterest

Before 1945, there was one church in Rittershoffen, where the Catholics and the Protestants took turns having services.

Like the rest of the place, it was destroyed during Operation Nordwind in January 1945. As the Americans were hanging on to one small triangle of the town, a soldier sought shelter in the cellar of a house with a Frenchwoman who had a baby and a small boy. While she soothed the baby, the GI took the boy on his knee and tried to distract him from the sound of the shells falling all around by singing to him, and teaching him to count to five in English.

In 1990 the man returned to Rittershoffen and with the help of a local historian was able to find the house.  The boy, now fifty years old, remembered him.  Also still remembered how to count to five.

The residents have deliberately left the bullet-riddled wall standing. 

After the war, the respective congregations decided they no longer wished to share a church and built two new ones.  As the historian remarked to us with Gallic wryness "Now no-one goes to church."

Caturday!

Returned last night from two and a half weeks in France (and one unscheduled side trip to Germany).  I think I'm being judged.