Are you watching me now?

Sometimes you need to have someone watching over your shoulder - encouraging you to do what you know you have to do - which, in this case for me, is writing.

So, meet Lilli. (She's French.) She is part muse, part watchcat, part taskmaster.

All female.

She sits with me when I'm working, and if I seem to be having a difficult time, will sit on the keyboard - although whether that is to encourage me to keep slugging away or to tell me it's time to take a break, I haven't decided yet.

When any of us are sad, or sick, she always knows and comes to snuggle next to us. At night, when Alain is home, she likes to lay by his feet on the bed.

She does cat tricks - although only of course, when SHE wants to. She can hunt like a lioness, and will chase Jon through the house when we say"Sic him Lilli!" She also understands breakfast, and will go running into the kitchen anytime I tell her it's time for breakfast.

She has a passion for raw green beans (not to eat them, just to carry them around and play with them!) And we've learned not to leave the sack up on the counter, because as soon as your back is turned, she'll jump up and sneak one out of the sack and carry it out of the kitchen.

She also likes to practice her tightrope walking on the narrow metal railing out on the balconies (and since our flat is 4 stories up, my heart is always in my mouth when I watch her jumping nimbly from one balcony to the next)...in fact, I'm sure she gets a perverse pleasure from knowing that.

In all, she's a wonderful writing companion, and if she criticizes my work, it's always gently and with sympathetic eyes.

Mrrs. Pankhurst Plaque

This is the plaque that is placed at the base of the statue of Mrs. Pankhurst. As I was looking at it, I couldn't help thinking how nice it was that she lived long enough to see her life's work accomplished.

So many people either don't know what their life's work is, or at least throughout history, they haven't lived to see their dreams become reality. This is especially true, I think, of many artists and composers - just think how many of them died in poverty and almost unknown, and yet after they were gone, they became famous.

Personally, I'd rather be like Mrs. Pankhurst, and live to see my dreams become reality. How about you?

Emmeline Pankhurst Statue - A crusader for Women's Rights

EMMELINE PANKHURST (14 July 1858 – 14 June 1928) was one of the founders of the British suffragette movement. Her name "Mrs. Panhurst" is the one most closely associated with the struggle for women's rights in the period right before World War I.

She was born Emmeline Goulden in Manchester, England to abolitionist Robert Goulden and feminist Sophia Crane, and married Richard MarsdenPankhurst, a barrister, in Salford in 1879. Richard Pankhurst wasalready a supporter of the women's suffrage movement, and had been the author of the Married Women's Property Acts of 1870 and 1882.

In 1889, Pankhurst founded the Women's Franchise League, but her campaign was interrupted by her husband's death in 1898.

In 1903 she founded the better-known Women's Social and Political Union, anorganization most famous for its militancy which began in around 1907, following the failure of a suffrage Bill in Parliament in 1906.

Members included Annie Kenney, Emily Wilding Davison (who was killedby the King's horse in the 1913 Epsom Derby as the result of asuffragette protest), and the composer Dame Ethel Mary Smyth.

Mrs. Pankhurst was joined in the movement by her daughters, ChristabelPankhurst and Sylvia Pankhurst, both of whom would make a substantial contribution to the campaign in different ways.

Her other daughter,Adela Pankhurst emigrated to Australia where she was politically active in the first Communist Party of Australia and then the fascist Australia First Movement.

At one point, Pankhurst lived in an apartment that was located at 159 Knightsbridge, London. The address still exists, but is now the Knightsbridge Green Hotel.

Pankhurst's tactics for drawing attention to the movement led to her being imprisoned several times but, because of her high profile, shedid not at first endure the same privations as many of the imprisonedworking-class suffragettes. However, one of the indiginities she suffered was being force-fed, because she often went on hunger strikes while being imprisioned.

Her autobiography, My Own Story, was published in 1914.

And then, later in 1914, World War I broke out, and Pankhurst felt that nothing should interfere with her country's efforts to win. All attempts togain votes for women were put on hold, and her efforts were instead directed to urging women to take over men's jobs, so that the men could go and fight in the war.

With support from David Lloyd George,she organised a parade of 30,000 women, using £2,000 funding from the government, to encourage employers to let women take over men's jobsin industry.

On September 8, 1914, Christabel re-appeared at theLondon Opera House, after her long exile, to utter a declaration on"The German Peril". Pankhurst toured the country, making recruiting speeches. Her supporters handed white feathers to every young man they encountered wearing civilian dress, and bobbed up at Hyde Park meetings with placards: "Intern Them All."

The British government started to implement voting rights for women, across the then United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, in March1918.

While the Representation of the People Act 1918 only gave voting rights to women over 30, and that with a property qualification, while all men over 21 were enfranchised, the Suffragettes nevertheless saw it as a great victory.

In November1918, women over 21 were given the right to become Members ofParliament — meaning women could be MPs and not be allowed to vote. In 1928, women finally achieved equal voting rights to men in the UK.

Pankhurst died at the age of 69, ten years after seeing her most ardently pursued goal come to fruition. She is buried in Brompton Cemetery.

This is the "Victoria Tower" at the Houses of Parliment, and
is the gate that Queen Elizabeth uses when she visits the Houses of Parliment.

I wish the picture had turned out better, because the carvings go all the way up to the
vaulted ceiling, and the statues that are over the door are lifesize.

Richard the Lionhearted

This statue of Richard I, also known as Richard the Lionheart is in the private parking lot of the Houses of Parliment. The day we were visiting, the parking lot was full, and it was quite interesting to watch the gentleman who parks the cars - he wears a kind of court costume, including a tall hat, and he bows when he takes someone's keys to park their car.

Richard the Lionheart was King of England from1189 to 1199, and he wasn't always portraryed as the brave King we know from the movies and television (particularly from the Robin Hood series and movies.)

Because he was the third legitimate son of King Henry II of England, Richard was never expected to ascend the throne. Some historians depict him as a mama's boy. His mother was Eleanor of Aquitaine.

Richard was an educated man who composed poetry, writing in both French and Occitan. He was said to be very attractive; his hair between red and blond, he had light colored eyes and a pale complexion. Historians also think he was above-average in height, but we have no way of knowing, because his bones have been lost ever since the French Revolution.

Richard was said to have significant political and military abilities from an early age, and was noted for his chivalry and courage. He fought to control the rebellious nobles in his own territory, and like his brothers, Richard went through his rebellious stage, and challenged his father's authority. Richard's sense of responsibility was open to question - maybe because he was his mother's favorite, he lived with her rather than at the palace under his father's eye, and because he never expected to become King...who knows?

Something I found interesting is that Merlin is said to have predicted Richard's status as the favorite child of his mother. According to Matthew Paris, Merlin reportedly said, "The eagle of the broken covenantshall rejoice in Eleanor's third nesting." (And since Merlin didn't count the daughters in the family, only the sons - that meant Richard. Very Chauvinistic of Merlin, don't you think?)

Richard's history - although a bit hard to follow as were most of the royalty in those days, is fascinating. He had an unhappy marriage, may have been homosexual, plotted to have his father overthown, went on a crusade, was captured, and, just before his death, he pardoned the boy who fatally shot him with an arrow and sent him on his way with 100 shillings. After he died however, one of his men had the boy caught, flayed alive and then hung. Ouch...

Richard wasn't buried intact. His brain was buried at the abbey of Charroux in Poitou (forthe land's perfidy towards him), his heart was buried at Rouen inNormandy, while the rest of his body was buried at the feet of his father at Fontevraud Abbey in Anjou.

During the French Revolution, the revolutionaries invaded the basilica and other resting places of the kings, dug up their remains and destroyed or threw away their bones.

London Bobbies - Always so helpful!

I couldn't resist snapping this Bobbie's photo - he's one of the guards in front of the Houses of Parliment, and he was kind enough to let me inside the grounds so that I could get a photo of the huge statue of Richard the Lionhearted - (you know the king from Robin Hood's time!)

Although the sky was overcast, we ended up only needed our umbrella one time - the rest of the trip the weather was beautiful - in fact it was a little bit hot a couple of the days.

Did you know that Bobbie's are one of the few police forces that don't use guns? (Which is why when we were at the airport, waiting for our plane to Paris it was so weird to see the police patrolling - not just with guns, but with machine guns! But this gentleman was unarmed - except for his charming smile...