Memories of Christmas

Christmas went by in a way that it was not too exuberant for me. Nice and homely though.  There were no Polish excesses of 12 dishes on my Christmas Eve table this year but my Aussie favourites – oysters, prawns and a blue swimmer crab. Even if I do not follow the lessons of my original catholic upbringing, I still follow the tradition of fasting on Christmas Eve. Fasting in the sense that no meat should be present on the table this special day. In this case, I am more catholic than the Pope. The Christmas Eve fast has been actually abolished some time ago by Vatican. But at my family home there was never any meat this evennig and for some reason it is important to me to keep the tradition.

Even if it was a non event Christmas, I got two presents that I enjoy very much and that have left a mark of Christmas 2014. I am a tea drinker and all accessories related to tea are very important to me. I have many tea pots and special tea cups but I still stop at tea shops and examine any possibilities to add to my collection. My friend recognising the weakness of mine, gave me for Christmas a lovely tea pot and matching mugs. I am enjoying my tea in the new mug while I am writing this post.

Another special gift from another dear friend was a book by John Baxter – The Most Beautiful Walk in the World. John Baxter is an Australian writer who lives in Paris. As it turns out we, John Baxter and I, have at least one thing in common. Love for Paris is the thing. For many years I have been fascinated by France and French and especially Paris. A promise of three years of life in Paris many years ago, made me leave my home country. It turned out to be only eleven moths and the Paris assignment continued, to my chagrin, in Dusseldorf but I had great time in this wonderful city even if at that time I was home sick crazy.

The book about Paris woke up my love and fascination with Paris. It also reminded me of flaneur-ing. I heard first the word flaneur from another friend of mine, who likes the word so much that he is going to camino flaneur-ing in Spain. This is taking the word flaneur to its extreme. So many kilometres of flaneur-ing! I think that this is a great plan, Hans, and I envy you.

So what does it mean to flaneur? It is to wonder the streets without an intent to get somewhere but just to observe what’s around. Diane Johnson, in her book Le Divorce, defines it as "mess[ing] around with no guilty sense of being unoccupied." So maybe Hans will  not  exactly flaneur in Spain as his intention is to get to Santiago de Compostela is clear.

Rain should not stop a real flaneur

After reading the book and under its influence, I took into flaneur-ing in Mosman. My observations include inspecting the neighbouring properties. Checking the architecture, gardens, size of the houses, local pets.... I am wondering if being a flaneur in Mosman does not carry a bit of danger of being misunderstood for a Peepping Tom. Paris is definitely the ideal place to flaneur, but for now Sydney suburbs will have to do for me.

Curiosity and need for detail in observations are important to a flaneur

Flaneur-ing in Mosman made me notice that gardens of the properties are shrinking and the houses expend their living space. This is not a happy observation. Green spaces are shrinking. Mosman Council pay attention!