The Last Post

That sounds rather like that tune they play on Anzac Day, doesn't it? Really, though, what this is about is that is the last post I'll be doing on this blog, at least for a good long while. I've sort of lost my enthusiasm for it, after the things that have happened. Besides, I don't have much time.

This is also to tell everyone that things are OK, that I'm feeling OK now and that life is going on at the castle. I didn't get to have that birthday party because of--well, all the stuff. But I'm sure it will happen, one day, when everything's completely sorted out. Don't feel much like partying at the moment, just chilling out, really. Just taking it easy and trying to work out lots of things in my head..I've started writing about it all, in my notebook. Maybe one day I might feel like putting it up in public. Or maybe not. We'll see.

Anyway thanks to all my friends who have kept up with this. I hope to see you all soon. This is Rose, signing off.

IMPORTANT NOTE: For those of you who have only just discovered my blog, I suggest you go back right to the beginning, to the very first post I put up when all this started, back in February. Otherwise it won't make much sense to you. click here: http://fairychild3wishes.blogspot.com/2007/02/this-is-it-then.html That's the start of it. After that you just need to go to the 'Newer Post' link at the end of each page.

back now..

I'm back now. We had a simply wonderful time. We did so many fun things. And I came loaded up with all kinds of goodies! Here's one of them--a beautiful silver evening dress I bought to wear at my birthday party next weekend (It's going to be held at the castle, and lots of people are going to be there!) It will go really well with my silver shoes..There's a picture of it here to show you, one that shows you the full thing and a close-up so you can see the really cool detail on the top..
Things are OK for the moment though there's been some weird stuff going on. Things I don't really want to put up here.

Anyway today is normal, I've just been doing stuff at home with Grandpere. We've been trying to put together a website for him, about Napoleon, because as you know he is a specialist on Napoleon and has written lots of books about him. At least we've just been taking a look at some of the sites people have already done., to think how we might organise ours. Tell you what, there's quite a few on him already. He's a real celebrity still, that guy, though he died nearly two hundred years ago..
For example, there's a big site about him at www.napoleon.org

We can't decide quite what style we want, I think it should be something a bit intriguing and far-out but I don't know if I know enough about computers to do that!

A trip to Paris

I've been in Paris since Tuesday afternoon with my grandfather. We just decided on the spur of the moment to go. We'll be here a week. I'm so glad because I needed time out, away from the castle and all that's been happening there. So many things have happened and I don't know what to make of it all. It feels like I'm in the middle of a story written by someone else and that I'm helpless and don't know how it's all going to end. I hate feeling like that..

Anyway here in Paris though it's raining just like it was down south(and it's even colder) there are just so many things to do and see, you forget about the weather. We've visited the Louvre, the Arc de Triomphe, the Tour Eiffel, the Champs Elysees, Notre Dame and lots and lots of other places. I've done heaps of shopping, went to all the really fashionable streets where designers like Dior and Chanel and stuff are(not that I bought anything there!) and also went to the big department stores, like my favourite, Galeries Lafayette(where I did get quite a lot of things!) You can sort of 'window-shop' there by taking a peek at their website on www.galerieslafayette.com, if you like!

Paris is so cool. And the food is fantastic. The people are nice too, mostly, though we've met one or two really rude people. But not too many as my grandfather is pretty well-known and they sort of bend over backwards for him. The hotel where we're staying is absolutely gorgeous. That's it up there on the left (the picture's a postcard from the hotel, the weather's too yucky to take a really nice photo of it).

It's called Hotel Pavillon de la Reine (which means Hotel of the Queen's Pavilion) and it's in a really lovely old building that was used by the royal family in the past. It's set in a gorgeous square called Place des Vosges, which is very quiet and green and so, so romantic! Inside the hotel it's gorgeous too. I was a bit shy there at first, I thought I would stick out like a sore thumb and wouldn't know how to behave. But it's worked out much better than I thought. The staff are just so nice and no-one makes you feel awkward.
if you want to have an even closer look at it, here's their website: http://www.pavillon-de-la-reine.com

It's really good to feel normal, or as normal as my situation lets me be, after all my life's been turned upside down and inside out and all that. I've been given my three wishes but at least here I feel like I can really enjoy them, and not have to look over my shoulder all the time, watching for something I don't understand.. And when I go back, it might be sorted out. That's what I hope, anyway.

pictures of food

Lots of people have asked me about the food here. It's brilliant, and I'm just eating and eating! This morning we went to the local market town, Castelnau, which is only 10 kms away(and the big town, Albi, is about 22 kms away). Anyway it was market day so I had a great time looking at everything. Above is some stuff people were selling--lots of different kinds of olives and some salted sardines. I just think they make everything look so beautiful, like a painting or something..

And above are some pictures of two gorgeous shops in Castelnau. The one just above is a cheese shop, full of every sort of cheese you can imagine, and the one on top is the most stupendous wonderful cake shop I ever saw in my life! And once again it all looks so beautiful, but not too beautiful to eat! It's like, perfect: looks fantastic, tastes fantastic. The icing's not too thick and sweet, it tastes light and full of flavour. We bought one of those deep pink cakes--it turned out to be the most beautiful and light cake, filled with the yummiest raspberry cream and iced with the same thing...Wow!

the path into the woods..

I followed a blackbird into the wood the other day. It's not far from the castle, hectares and hectares of it, the last remaining bits of the vast forest that existed here in the time of the Gauls. This wood is known as Le Bois du Merle, or Blackbird Wood, so it was kinda cool it was a blackbird showed me the way!

They're deep and green and people say they're enchanted..I don't know about that, but I did meet an interesting old lady there the other day...a real character, a bit like a witch!

Anyway, above is a picture of the path as it goes into the woods..

some photos taken in my grandfather's library

As you know, my grandfather's a writer and he also has this most amazing library, full of really old and rare books, as well as his own, of course! Here are some of them:the red books at the end are two of his books about Napoleon, published in a special Academie Francaise edition, very classic and all that--
these books above are some of the things in his collection, rare books from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Also on the bottom shelf you can see some of my father's childhood books..this book above was published before Australia was settled!
this illustration by a French artist called Gustave Dore, of Bluebeard giving his wife the keys to the castle, is in a beautiful old book of fairytales my grandfather owns.

The Chateau..

Well, I arrived at the Chateau du Merle de la Tour d'Argent, my new home for the moment, yesterday, absolutely exhausted from the huge long plane trip. Lots of things have been happening but I can't really write much about them just now, there's too much to think about!

But I thought you might like to see a picture of the Chateau--there it is above, that's the very first photo I took of it, through the bars of the gate just before we drove in!

The Chateau is really quite big and there's lots of exploring to do..there's also a really big garden, more like a park with gardens really, it looks really nice. I've met Grandpere(that's my granfather) and it's been going pretty well. I'm coping really well with all the French but then I could speak it pretty well anyway before--you just have to shift up a gear or two here because some people have such thick Southern accents that they sound like they're speaking through a mouthful of dry cake that's got stuck to the roof of their mouths! But I'm learning to cope with that too! And I've met quite a few other people..and some very interesting ones too, I might add!

More tomorrow, I'm too tired just now, I'm going to bed!

In a dream world..

It's been a week since I last wrote on this blog and boy, what a week! Everything's changed. I feel like I'm in a dream world. You all know what's happened, how last Thursday I found out about my grandfather in France...And now it's the day before I take off for France, and meet someone I didn't even know existed..what's more, someone rich and famous. I have no idea what he expects of me...no idea whether I'm going to like him or what's going to happen next..

It seems like those wishes are all coming true. I even found that special pair of silver shoes the other day in a strange little shop in the city(there they are). Or maybe they found me..I know, that sounds off the planet. But honestly everything's been so weird. I really don't know what to think about it. I really don't know..

A fairy story of mine...

This is a story I wrote a little while ago. It was inspired by that picture on the left, which is one by Edmund Dulac(who also did that one on the right of my blog), which is called Meeting the Fairy Princess.
I hope you like the story. It's a story I might add to later, I mean it's like a kind of long-running story which could have chapters or could be left as it is.


Violet and the Fairy Gift

Once upon a time, but not that long ago, there lived a little girl called Violet who believed in fairies. She believed in them even when other people laughed at her and said they didn't exist. She believed in them even when all her wishes went unanswered. She believed in them even though there was no magic in her life, only an ordinary sort of everyday. She was sure that one day they would come to her, give her three wishes, and her life would change forever.

Well, one day Violet was out walking in the woods when she met an old lady. The old lady carried a covered basket. She came up to Violet and said, 'Good morning to you, my pretty one. '

'Good morning, Godmother,' said Violet. It wasn't really Violet's godmother, of course, but as soon as she set eyes on that old lady, Violet just knew it had to be her fairy godmother, come at last. 'I am pleased to see you,' she added. 'Have you come to give me three wishes?'

The old lady looked at her with eyes as bright as blue beads. 'I'm not that kind of a fairy,' she said. 'But I do have a gift for you in my basket.' She opened the basket and there Violet, to her surprise, saw three old books. The old lady looked at her with a strange smile on her wrinkled-apple face. 'Don't be disappointed, my dear,' she crooned. 'These are magic books. Whichever one you choose will come true, and that gift will be yours. So be careful what you choose.'

Violet picked up the books one by one and looked at them. One was called Riding the Back of the Wind. One was called The Speech of Animals. One was called Meeting the Fairy Princess. The books were plain, their covers rather battered. And inside, the pages were quite blank.

'How can I choose the right one?' cried Violet. 'There's nothing to tell me what they're about.'
'Really?' said the old lady. 'The titles say it all, my dear. Think about it. And choose carefully, for you only get one chance.'

Violet looked at the books. She thought that riding the wind must mean flying through the air. It could be useful but she didn't much like the idea of flying at the best of times. Then the speech of animals must mean being able to talk with and understand animals. Well, that would be nice too, she had always wanted to know what her cat Mrs Puss really thought, but it could be horrid too. You didn't really want to know what a fly thought when you swatted it, for instance! But meeting the fairy princess--now that would be something wonderful. And maybe then too she'd be able to prove to everyone that fairies really existed.

So she said, 'I choose the third book.'

'You have chosen well, my pretty one,' said the fairy, smiling, 'because this book is a gift that never stops giving. You will not only meet the fairy princess and be made welcome at her court, but you will have lots of adventures, and all your dreams and wishes will come true.'

Then the book flew into Violet's hands. And beautiful pictures started appearing on the pages--pictures that moved and shimmered. And she heard a soft voice saying, Come into our realm, dear Violet, come in and you will see what you will see..

Now Violet felt herself becoming smaller and smaller till she was as small as an illustration. And suddenly she fell right into the book, straight into the picture of the fairy court, with the princess Celestine waiting to greet her.

Dreams and wishes..

I was thinking about dreams and wishes the other day, and what's the difference between them. I reckon that a dream is something you'd like but don't expect to happen, but a wish is something you really really want and think might happen. Or a dream is like a wish in your sleep? What do you think?

My Three Wishes...

When I was a little kid, I used to write down wishes on bits of paper and put them under my pillow, or sometimes, hide them in odd places in the garden, for the fairies to find. I always half-expected that they would be gone in the morning, or that the paper would have gone blank or something like that. They didn't, but I still believed that the fairies had read them..

One time, just before my seventh birthday I think it was, I got a big shock, because under my wish on the piece of paper was another line, in sparkly gold writing, which said, ' Wish noted and filed. Action will be taken.'

And on my birthday, I got the thing I wished for--which happened to be a fairy princess doll, dressed in the most amazing dress that looked like it had been cut out of sky, and gleaming silver shoes. She had a wand, too, and a crown, and beautiful wings that looked like those of dragonflies. And there was a little card with her, in the same gold sparkly writing as before, which read, 'My name is Princess Celestine. I'm on a visit to your world, so please look after me.'

It was a doll like I'd never, ever seen in the shops, and for a long, long time I was sure it proved that fairies existed...

Anyway, I'm not a little kid any more, and I don't believe those sorts of things anymore. But I still like writing wishes down and seeing if they'll come true. This time, though, I'm not going to do it on a piece of paper, but on this blog. Just in case the fairies are up to date and read blogs these days instead of bits of paper!

These are my three wishes, oh Fairy Godmother of the Web:

1/To win the lottery so Aunt Jenny doesn't have to scrimp and save all the time and we can stop worrying about money;

2/To have something exciting happen to me, because I want to be a really good bestselling writer one day, and how can you be that, if nothing ever happens to you but going to school every day and hanging out with your friends on weekends;

3/A pair of silver shoes--and not the sort that dance you to death, or anything horrible like that, just a really nice pair of silver shoes that fit me perfectly and look really good. The sorts of shoes Princess Celestine had, but my size.

This is it, then...

We were given this task at school, to start our own blog. It's for one of those English media exercises. Ms Bryce is really enthusiastic about it. She says it will show us how to manipulate a new media form. She says we don't have to worry about it, it's not like writing a story or an essay--more like writing a diary, except more creative.

And yes, except that your diary's private, too. This is out in public. Plus, we're all supposed to have a 'theme' for our blogs. I've chosen this theme--three wishes.
So, I'm going to ask this question: What would you wish for, if some fairy popped up in your life and offered you three wishes? And I'm going to ask my friends--and anyone out there who feels like contributing--what they would ask for, if they had three wishes..

Careful what you wish for, though. That's always the message in those old stories where someone gets given three wishes. Careful--don't say the first thing that pops into your head. Like the guy who asked for a plate of sausages first off, then his wife got really cranky with him for wasting a wish, so he yelled I wish a sausage would land on the end of your stupid nose! And well, it did--and then he had to waste his third wish of course, getting it off her nose! So there they were, no better off than before, except I suppose, they still had the rest of those sausages..

And then there's the one, I think it's in a story called the Monkey's Paw or something like that, where the old couple ask for money in their first wish and the next thing you know they hear their only son's been killed in a factory accident--and they're getting a lot of money as compensation. So after he's been buried the old lady goes a bit mad and wishes that he would come back to them--so of course up he comes out of his grave and his poor horrified father has to wish his son was back in his grave at rest..And they're not only worse off, they've gone through a really, really horrible time.

So be careful what you wish for. Remember that!