Mairie Fontainebleau

Friday
A grey, wet and blustery day. I spent the morning at home in our warm and cozy house, but this afternoon I was out at Book Club in Bois-le-Roi, on the other side of the river. The book we were discussing was The Railway Man by Eric Lomax. Sent to Malaya in World War II, Lomax was taken prisoner by the Japanese and put to punishing work on the notorious Burma-Siam railway. He and some of his fellow POWs illicitly built a radio in order to follow the progress of the war, and once it was discovered, they were subjected to two years of starvation and torture. He would never forget the interpreter at these brutal sessions. After his return home, despite suffering from constant nightmares, he never talked about his experiences, keeping it all hidden inside. It wasn't until he was retired and with the help of his second wife Patti, who he met in his sixties, that he decided to fight his demons, and in the process learned that the interpreter was alive. Through letters and eventually meeting face to face with his former torturer, Lomax bravely moved beyond bitterness and desire for revenge to forgiveness and reconciliation. An amazing story of human courage and endurance, the book has been made into a movie starring Colin Firth and Nicole Kidman. Our book club meeting is always accompanied by tea or coffee and cake, so a very nice way to pass a grey blustery afternoon, even though the subject matter of the book was a difficult one to read about. Even though the light was fast fading by the time I got home, I still got out for a walk, since I hadn't had much exercise up to that point. Then this evening we went out to eat in Fontainebleau and I was able to get this shot of the mairie (town hall) all decked out for the season.