My Pilgrimage Begins

Chimneys for the Boulevard Haussmann:

I've decided against installing garret windows in the roof of said building: far too many challenges in terms of getting the angles right and choosing a suitable material from which to construct them.

Instead, there will be 6 very prominent chimney stacks. These were relatively easy to manufacture and install.

Basically, they consist of off-cuts of wood that I already had. Six slots were cut in the cardboard roof and the wooden sections inserted therein.

At some point the stacks will be painted and be given a topping of some kind.

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Currently listening to:

A performance on Radio 3's Lunchtime concert of Cesar Franck's wonderful Piano Quintet in F minor.

Outside 95 Boulevard Saint-Michel, Paris

This quintet is getting me in the mood for France. Consider this view of the Gironde at Blaye.

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Last night's dinner - kind of - on a shoestring:

Because we had visitors ,take-away pizzas were ordered.



Cost about £4 per head.

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My Pilgrimage:

Yesterday, Pope Benedict XVI retired. He is to spend the rest of his days in a little monastery within the Vatican walls. He has described the first day of this final leg of his journey on earth as the first day of his final pilgrimage.

I feel the same way about today. Yesterday, I at last got two monkeys off my back and so I am treating today as the first day of my last pilgrimage on this earth.

This first day will be marked with a session of meditative prayer.

I will sit cross-legged, not because I think such a posture is necessary for meditation, but because I feel it will align me spiritually with all those people who over the eons have also sat cross-legged in the hope of enlightenment.

I do not intend to focus on "nothingness" nor on the Universe but on a specific Christian notion; namely, that we are all, regardless of outward mannerism and appearance, God's children. This choice of subject matter follows on from my comments of yesterday on the novel, "The Man with the Golden Gun".

I'll report back tomorrow.