I kept a small calendar page posted on my refrigerator for years…Claude Monet’s Water Lilies. I hoped that one day I would have opportunity to enjoy his paintings and DID enjoy them in the Guggenheim Hermitage Museum in Las Vegas. Several years later, I traveled from my daughter’s home in London, England, under the English Channel by Eurostar into Paris. From Paris, I took another train into Vernon, Normandie, France. A short bus ride into Giverny and I took up residence in a medieval bed and breakfast that I used as home base for four days. On a Monday, when the gardens and Monet’s homestead were both closed, circumstances were such that I found myself perched on one of the green Japanese bridges in the garden, doing a water colour painting…no tourists, only gardeners sharing the moment! Amazing!