A Long Distance Love Affair (20 page)

Despite the very bad planning with my ticket (7am start, 57 stop overs on the way, long waits in sterile airport lounges - next time I will ask your advice oh seasoned one) I did manage to organise my phone to be on over there.  Which is just as well because I'll be there with a couple of friends from here and we'll have to organise meeting times for important things (the cafes, the galleries, the shoe stores...) and we'll be able to do this via phone.  Also we're on watch for the arrival of the second beautiful baby boy.  The first one came six weeks early and it's about the same time now with this pregnancy.  I'm so very thrilled with this productivity.  There is something profoundly meaningful about seeing your genes continued on in subsequent generations.  It makes me feel just so connected to my parents and theirs in a strange kind of way, and I can truly say that I would be happy to die tomorrow knowing that I have these grandchildren to carry my ancestors forward.  I didn't feel this level of deep significance with my own children (although I loved them passionately nonetheless - and still do).  There's something very special about your own children having children.  I feel as though my life has had some purpose....

Oh it's the moon doing this to me.  I'm full of feelings for you and for life just now.  I'd better stop before this turns into a novel.  Wish you were my next chapter!

Anna Tolstoy

Oh mon cher coeur!

I am here at last in beautiful Montreal!

The trip over was one gruelling affair.  I ended up being 5 hours in Vancouver airport because there were delays with security.  By the time I finally arrived here very late on Sunday night I thought my bum had died from being sat on so much.  (I've been walking a lot since I got here and I am pleased to report that it appears to be coming back to life!) 

I like it here a lot.  You're right about the people - they are very friendly and I just love it that they all speak French.  I've been doing this since I arrived even though they all speak English as well.  I am feeling très 'romantique' this evening and so wishing you were here.  The conference started today so I had yesterday to orient myself and spent a lot of time in Vieux Montreal which is not far from where I'm staying and is full of lovely old buildings and great little restaurants.  I have connected with my two colleagues from work and we have had two lovely nights out together already.  I have also already bought some shoes and have seen many others I'd like to get! 

The more recent part of Montreal is very like Melbourne...a bit on the austere side and set out like a grid.  But it doesn't appear to be as populous as Melbourne, there's not much traffic to speak of and the streets aren't full of people, so that was a bit of a surprise.  I'm hoping to get to a gallery here on Friday.  Yesterday I was breakfasting on my own in a little cafe (the coffee was fabulous) in a quaint French feeling street - very old beautiful buildings - and I noticed a beggar across the street.  I spent some time watching him from inside the restaurant and he made appeals to at least a dozen people, none of whom paid him any attention.  I felt very sorry for him and decided to buy him a take away coffee which I did.  I crossed the road and spoke in French to him saying something like "Here I thought you might enjoy this"...and he said Oh no no!  I don't drink coffee...coffee will kill you!  And he refused to take it.  I walked off up the street laughing to myself and feeling proud of him as well, and thinking that he had disproved our notions of beggary....it seems as though they CAN be choosers!  So I ended up drinking the coffee and felt pretty hyped up for the rest of the morning.

Further down the street that day I came across the Montreal Intercontinental Hotel...it was just beautiful - very old exterior - and it made me think of our first time together in the Sydney Intercontinental.....oh I can't tell you how much that evening meant to me.....

Chariette

Oh mon cher ami

I'm having a wonderful time here.  Montreal is fabulous and I'm going out with my mates exploring all over the place.  We're off to the Jazz Festival now (nicking off from conference).  So wishing you were here with me...it would make things just so wonderful.  Oh you are the only one for me...the only one...(poor me! Poor me!)

Sorry I missed your call.  I wasn't naked:  it was about 10 in the morning and I was in a session, but had left my phone back at the hotel.  Would so have loved to hear your divine voice.

Your email was very clever and I enjoyed it very much - you are a clever chops as well as a sexy one.

I'll think of you ce soir very much.

Chariette

Oh mon cher

I'm loving it here.  Went last night to the Jazz Festival events in the Place de Ville.  There were four stages set up and many many people enjoying the music in about 30 degree heat late into the night.  We'll be going again ce soir.  The atmosphere here is very upbeat.  I didn't see a single policeman at the festival area despite the crowds.  Nor were there any drunken yobbos and there's a really safe feel to the place.  I love it here in Montreal.  It's wonderful with the French influence.

I think I will need to have a foot transplant when I get home.  I have walked miles (in and out of shops mainly).  I have done all my shopping for gifts for home so I can relax and enjoy myself now. 

I bought my train ticket today for my trip to Ottawa on Monday (it's still Friday here).  I'm excited about that trip as I love train travel.  It was quite expensive though - considering it's only two hours away.

I hope things will be OK with you re your time off.  I hope things in general are going OK for you.  Are you going away again? Oh how lovely it would have been to have you here with me!!  Oh mais c'est la vie.....

I'm having a great time, but think of you often, tenderly, lustfully, and every other way imaginable.

Your très heureuse Chariette

Oh mon cher

I have been to the Musée de Beaux Arts today, and it has put me in such a passion for you....how I would love to be with you just now, naked with you lying behind me doing delicious things to me with your delicious appendages...  It was a beautiful gallery with a special showing of a Canadian painter called Edwin Holgate.  I didn't much like his work as it was in a 'naif' style, very stylised, but it was very evocative of life in the Canadian outback.  I would really like to go adventuring out there too, on the rivers and through the forests (in the summer....).

My two companions have now left but I will be here until Wednesday.  It will trim my wings considerably so no more Jazz clubs or festival for me.  It was so good having their company and being able to experience all these things that I never have before.  I'm not really a Jazz fan, but there was such a fabulous variety there of Blues and African beat music that I really like.  There was one group called Mississippi Heat who were a fantastic blues group with a lead female singer who was a very big girl - a negress with a divine voice.  One of the songs she sang made me want you so much.  It was called 'Footprints on the Ceiling' and that is where I'd like you to send me next time we're together....'hanging from the ceiling like a chandelier'.

We've been out adventuring on the metro as well and have discovered the 'Quartier Latin'.  I'm not so nervous of the metro now and may try it again on my own, as my feet are in need of serious repair and rest.  Tomorrow I'm off to Ottawa, early in the morning.  I haven't prepared my seminar for them yet, so will need to do that before I go to sleep.

Oh I am so longing for you just now...poor me!!

Chariette de Montreal

Dear Chariot

Home again at last!  Thank you for your lovely messages while I've been away.  It's been so lovely for me to share my thoughts and feelings with you and to have the sense of contact with you. (Would have loved other contact with you as you probably surmised...oh how I wanted you there).

I am unspeakably knackered after the long flight and delays at every turn.  I think I am now part of the walking dead.  I'm going to get in the shower now and have a good soaking.  Family are very happy to see me and me to see them.  Apparently the dog spent many a sleepless night outside my bedroom door...I'm sure he spent many a sleepy night on the couch...

Au revoir for now

Chariette

Dear Chariot

Have been thinking of you a lot today (what else is new....) Hope you're relaxing and managing to revive your great stocks of energy and drive.  I'll be on leave next week too for a couple of weeks.  My best of friends (well, not bester than you of course), , from WA is coming over to stay with me and we are going to go on jaunts around and about - up to the Sunshine coast, into the hinterland, down to Byron Bay, maybe go to where the wines grow in Queensland and things like that.  I'm so looking forward to it.  I haven't had a holiday like this in such a long time. However it's made this week very frantic for me with a 100 things to be done. 

I'm still feeling quite tired after the Canada trip, and not in complete control of myself.  On Sunday I managed to 'fall up' my front stairs...had my hands in my pockets and just landed flat on the stairs and couldn't use my hands to break the fall, so I have a series of horizontal bruises at regular intervals down my whole body.  I could do with some kissing better...

I would love to be kissing you better too.  I would apply myself to this task with unparalleled dedication.  How lovely it would be to be indulging in you tonight.

Look after yourself, and try not to let things get to you.  You will emerge from this temporary lull, even stronger and more magnificent than ever...maintain the faith!  I have the utmost faith in you.

Chariette

Dear Handsome Prince

I woke up this morning feeling very joyful.  I'm so filled with happiness and I just love my life as it's unfolding for me now (would love it even more if you figured more frequently in it...).  I think I now understand those 'born again Christian' types....not for their religious fervour of course, but for their sense of transportation into something new and wonderful.  That's what I'm feeling - just transported! I feel as though I've been released from a prison of constant tension, and worry and despair into a brand new world of wonder and delight. The smallest things bring me pleasure.  I was out the back last night in the dark, looking back at the house which was all lit up with a lovely warm glow to it and oh god I felt such peace!

You bring me much pleasure and warmth too.  I just need to think of your beautiful smile, or your wonderful sexy hands or your voice that I love so much and I'm off! Oh how I'd love to be enveloping you in pleasure just now.  You would be signed sealed and delivered.

Your mad Chariette

Dear Chariot

My leave is coming to a rapid close.  I've had a lovely time with my friend and travelled all over the place.  I've seen more of the state in the past two weeks than in all of the three years I lived here before. There are some really glorious parts especially around the hinterland of Byron.