A violet festival -- the fête

Now that you've visited the village and seen the parade, I thought I'd show you how the festival in general looked.  I've tried to capture the general ambiance of the event for you, including the village, the crowd, the market, and hopefully the French twist making it stand out from similar events elsewhere. 

As I mentioned before, we met up with our old Paris neighbors and friends, down south for a couple of months, which made the day quite interesting for us.

A violet festival -- the parade

Having grown up in the backyard of the granddaddy-of-them-all real vegetation parade, the Pasadena Rose Parade, I've scorned fake materials floats all my life.  Snobbism, I know.  But that allows me to appreciate other efforts using all fresh flowers.

Although I never made it to the Rose Parade in person until many years later, I also thought of parades on a large scale and had no experience with small town efforts.  Not only did I just attend a very small scale parade with real flowers, it was held in a Medieval village, a backdrop not possible in any American small town.

I thought you might like to see how it turned out.

A violet festival -- the village

This past weekend, we joined our old Paris friends for a fun little annual festival in a village not that far from home.  It was a beautiful day (unlike some past years), it was wonderful to see our friends again, and it's always fun to visit this village.

I thought I'd take you on a tour of the village itself before I shared the weekend festival they just held.

A Valentine dinner with friends

I friends and enjoy sharing fun special days with them, as I spend all other days of the year alone already with Doc Leo.  So last week I had some friends up for dinner, and I did everything in a Valentine theme.  Not only did I get out whatever red and heart shaped items I happened to have for decoration, but I made as much of my menu include red food as I could.

Much of the meal was in kit form, so my personal preparation was limited.  It was not an evening my guests would typically share elsewhere!

A woodsy walk

Did anybody else set some personal improvement goals for this calendar year?  If so, how successful have you been sticking with the plan, now that we are six weeks into it?  I came up with a few things, and I'm pleased to report that I've actually done fairly well with them.  So far.

One of my goals was to be more physically active.  While I'm more capable of putting forth some effort, the sedentary Doc is perfectly content to play on his computer every waking hour if he could get away with it.  In the past, at least he traipsed all over airports.  So I came up with a walking schedule for both of us, and I thought I'd share some of my backyard with you.

Creating some missing curb appeal

Despite having a completely different home improvement project planned for starting after the holidays, I ended up on a roll and just completed my third garden project down at our lower parking area. 

Coming after the massive hillside project just above this area I worked on last fall, also unplanned, I'm a bit worn out in the landscaping department.  But just imagine what I may get to look at during the springtime.