I never saw "pauper spirit" defined so I'm saying it means lack of imagination. Since I'm at the stage of life when my imagination ebbs more than it flows I try to steer clear of banality. However the weather was cold enough a couple of days ago for me to obey VR's steely insistence - "Wear your old après-ski boots." - when I went out to pick up The Guardian.
These boots look comically clumsy but they are thermally efficient. They also have a strange tread pattern which is only hinted at in the photo. On the way back from the filling station I tried to follow the exact route I'd taken outwards but I was not alone in leaving distinctive footsteps in the snow. Was this what the snow looked like in and around Stalingrad during the siege? That got me thinking about the inappropriate clothing the troops wore during this titanic struggle. Overcoats which ceased to button up somewhere north of the wearer's waistline, much of the fabric flapping loosely and thus offering little in the way of insulation.
Soldiers - from all countries - are renowned for their grumbling. Napoleon called his lot Les Grognards and you can guess what that means. Stalingrad would be a perfect source of grumbling if you were German. Those doing the shooting (while being shot at) are entitled to grumble as much as they like, in my view. A series of novels by the German author Hans Helmut Kirst about WW2 gets to the heart of wartime grumbling. I read them forty years ago, would they still stand up?
I'm back with The Guardian. Plenty to read (but little of it new) about Brexit.
Ah oui, les Grognards – that does not sound as nice as what they really were, la Garde Impériale de Napoléon. Your boots look comfy but here in Nashville I don’t think we would need them often.
ReplyDeleteDo you suppose that is a stylized snake on the bottom of the boots?
ReplyDeleteVagabonde: A new name and very welcome. From the off the terminal e hinted at something exotic yet familiar; reading your profile confirmed my instincts. I have toured l'Hexagone many times, ski-ied there, rented villas in the Languedoc, owned a house in Loire Atlantique and struggled to speak the language for at least half my life. Kind French people - pleased by someone who at least makes an effort - tell me I speak French well but they fib. Using "pouvoir" (yes, I know it's wrong) I tell them I cannot speak French but I am able to communicate in French. It's one of those nice philosophical points that the French warm to. Thus is a conversation born.
ReplyDeleteWhat a wealth of material you supply in your profile. Immediately I needed to check whether I knew anything about the 9eme (Here's Wikitravel's judgment: un secteur assez plaisant à visiter et à vivre, quoique assez stressant .) Of course I knew it well. I am not a keen shopper but I make exceptions with Galeries Lafayette and Printemps. Ah, what a skylight.
As to my boots, they would have been welcome during the six years I spent in Pennsylvania. But in those far-off day (1966 - 1972) I wasn't a skier.
Colette: Could be. I think I bought them in Cervinia on the Italian side of the Matterhorn. Their predecessors, bought I know not where, suffered the fate that regularly overtakes après-ski boots: the inner insulation separates from the outer waterproof section. Thus two boots becomes four, none of them any use.
Thanks for coming to my blog and for your great comment. I was also in Pennsylvania at the same time as you. My husband studied and was awarded a Master’s Degree in Environmental Planning at the University of Pennsylvania in 1972, so we were near Philadelphia 1970-72. Growing up in Paris in the 9eme, we lived closer to the Sacre-Coeur (which is in the 18eme but at the limit of the 9th) than the Galeries Lafayette, although I could walk there. I hope you’ll come back to my blog. I don’t have time to post too much but you can peruse the posts on the side of my blog. Take a look at my post of December 26, 2011 – A New Year Party to remember. It is about London.
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