Mama Pepita's sewing machine ...

It's a sad thing, but I never knew my mother-in-law. She died twenty years before I became part of Mr B's family, and it is one my abiding regrets that I never got to meet her. Right up until his death my father-in-law used to sit on the terrace, and tell me how wonderful she was. He missed her every day of his long life without her. He used her name as the password for anything that needed password protection. It may not have been very secure, but it told you everything you needed to know about their marriage. And dear Papa was the most devoted of husbands, staying true to her memory through thirty years of being a widow.

Do you know your gargoyles from your grotesques?

Now here’s a question for you: do you know your gargoyles from your grotesques? No? Well, as I’ve only just figured it out myself, let me explain the subtle difference between the two: the gargoyle is a glorified water spout, used by medieval stone masons to funnel rain water away from the bricks and mortar of their monumental cathedrals. It was an ingenious means by which they could protect their precious handiwork from water erosion. All along those extravagant flying buttresses there was a serious risk that the flow of rainwater over the years would wash away the mortar, and, even back in the days before the Health and Safety brigade had much clout, everyone realised that bad things would happen if monolithic structures lost the glue that held their bricks together.

A splendid row of gargoyles saving the royal bricks and mortar from the rain at the Château de Chambord, France

Random thoughts on a sunny April morning ...

Do you count your blessings? I must confess that I'm usually too busy to spend much time thinking about mine, let alone trying to marshall them all into an orderly numbered list. And I've been super busy this past week. I've had my family to stay and lots of good friends to catch up with, who don't have any language in common with the aforementioned family, which has led to a lot of simultaneous translating. I've had work to do, deadlines to meet and the most wonderful sunny afternoons that I've not always been able to make the most of. But, just for Nancy and Random 5, here are five of the things that I've been truly grateful for.

Fontevraud ... where medieval women called the shots ...

Now I have to confess to having been a fan of Eleanor of Aquitaine for a very long time, and it was this interest in Eleanor that drew me to the Royal Abbey of Fontevraud, where she lived out the final years of her long and eventful life, and where, after her death in 1204, she was buried.

Wild Asparagus tortilla ...

My dear friend Marian came over for supper the other night and look what she brought:

Don't they look pretty? Good enough to eat?