Sunday 6 January 2019

REALLY FRESH FOOD NOT WRAPPED IN PLASTIC + PAULINE BONAPARTE BORGHESE AND HER HOUSE

YubbaDubbaDoo.. Oh, we are having a lovely day. Whilst we were watching the programme on BBC iPlayer, two pots were hubble-bubbling away on the stove.

One pot was full of a glorious mix of sweet potato, squash, onion, carrot, parsnip and swede together with fresh turmeric and ginger roots with several cloves of garlic.

The other had pulses and beans which had soaked overnight and were cooking with herbs from the allotment.

In January the winter vegetables are so delicious that our meals are sometimes just that, vegetables with pulses. 

Yesterday she took a large thermos of vegetables and went off to the Balham Farmer's Market to meet up with Debbie of Ellie's Dairy.

Rather her than me I thought, for oh, my ears and whiskers it was chilly, but she looked very stout when she left here for she is not stupid and she was wearing multiple layers of clothing, plus a hat and gloves.

The market was quiet but the vegetable man from Dorset was there and she came away with a bag of very fresh purple sprouting brocolli.

Debbie dropped her in the King's Road and she scuttled into the library. 

Time for some serious serious reading she thought and came away with two biographys. One on Pauline Bonaparte*, Napoleon's sister and John Jacob Astor, aka America's first multimillionaire.

Upon Emperor Bonapartes abdication in April 1814, his sister Pauline sold her home, the Palais Borghese, together with most of her assets to improve her brothers living conditions on Elba, she was the only one of his family to go into exile with him.

It was bought by the Duke of Wellington as an embassy for the British Government. He bought it with all of its contents, the artwork, clocks (some of which are priceless and came from Versailles), furniture and stables. 

He moved into the house - known formally as the hotel de Charost and then as the Palais Borghese - on Monday the 29th of August, 1814.

Wellington was transferred in 1815 to Vienna and  that year Napoleon escaped from Elba and rallied his troops, the duke was given overall command of the allied forces and after the Battle of Waterloo, he became the Commander-in-Chief of the Allied Army of Occupation in France.

Some years later, another building next door was purchased for embassy offices and the Palais Borghese is now the official residence of the British Ambassador to France but it is still used a the location for many official occasions.

HISTORY.. isn't all dry and dusty, that's for sure, and Pauline Bonaparte certainly wasn't!

GeeGee Parrot.
January 6th, 2019.
PostScript: *Pauline Bonaparte was married twice. Her first husband was General Charles Victoire Emmanuel Leclerc. Her second was Prince Camillo Borghese. She died on 9th June, 1825 aged 44 of pulmonary tuberculosis. 

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