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!