When I was very young I thought that one of life's bitterest truths was that bedtime so often arrived just when things were really getting interesting.
Now I could stay up all night and do all what I’d feel like, but I have realized that what makes things really interesting depends on our attitude to them.
Sometimes friends ask me if I don’t feel a creepy loneliness, living on my own in my country cottage, while my only relative, my beloved nephew Frimpong is always absent, too busy with his compulsory trips.
My answer is always the same, I don’t feel alone, because when one has a good and well balanced relationship with oneself, one is never alone; maybe it depends on age and I don’t want to consider it as a general and absolute certainty, but this is the way I feel.
When I go to sleep here in my cosy bedroom (maybe I was a little too cheeky in showing you this so intimate time of my life and my night outfit as well...) I feel in good mood, I read a book for a while, I think of all the positive experiences of my life, but, even though I’m a very old lady, I refuse to live retrospectively.
Maybe this is another little secret to be well... Thinking over about the past, remaining totally ready for the future.
What will tomorrow bring to me? I’m looking forward to that!

Anyway being serene doesn’t mean being constantly happy, I think that showing a never-ending happiness is very close to foolishness.
Ernest, one of my friends, an American writer I met in Paris many years ago, used to tell me:
“Violet, happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.”
Ah, Ernest...my nephew Frimpong reminds me a little of him, the same love for life, women, trips and drinks, but also the same intelligence and independence.
I trust Frimpong will have a different life from Ernest in his old age anyway...
When I was in Paris with Ernest he was a very lively and hectic person and he asked me to go with him to Pamplona, Spain, then he wrote a novel about our trip there and....
But this is another story.