Blogs which describe moments in my life, or the lives of my family.
If you have ever wondered why I wanted to update my grandmother’s memoir, this post will explain all. When my father died in 2012 I inherited many documents, letters and photographs which were relevant to both sides of my family. For a couple of years they languished in boxes in
The first time my grandmother, Countess Olga Kleinmichel, saw Empress Alexandra the Empress wasn’t smiling. In fact, according to my grandmother’s memoir in which she describes the celebration of Grand Duchess Olga’s sixteenth birthday, Empress Alexandra “wore an expression of weariness and sadness which ‘society’ took for coldness and haughtiness.”
Several years ago I reread the book my grandmother had written in the early 1930’s, her memoir Upheaval. I have always been curious. From the moment I could formulate a question, I wanted to know “why”; why some things happened and others didn’t, why people made the decisions they made,
Walking in the footsteps of my maternal grandparents and my grandmother’s family, led me from Istanbul to Marseilles, Le Grau du Roi, Rayol Canadel sur Mer, Nice, Paris and finally Baden-Baden, in Germany. As I expected, in Nice and Paris at least, I practically had to run from one address
What will you be reading over the holidays? When I’m not trolling through the real estate websites (because I’ve decided to downsize) I’ve been researching my grandparent’s journey after they were forced to leave Russia during the Civil War which erupted as a direct result of the Bolshevik Revolution. So
It’s been two months since I last posted, but I have a reasonably good excuse. I’m putting my apartment on the market and have spent these weeks sorting, packing and cleaning, as well as overseeing tradesmen. This week my apartment officially went on sale, which doesn’t mean I can relax