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The novel is based on real people.

This was an interesting book based on 3 Belgium sisters who lived in Paris in 1880, Antoinette, Marie and Charlotte.   The father a tailor is dead and their mother works in a laundry and abuses drink every day.  All three girls have spent time in the ballet dance school of the Paris Opera. 

Antoinette gets into the fast lifestyle with a boy and loses her position at the school and opera.  The boy is no good but it takes her a long time to see it.  She works in the laundry, a brothel and spends time in jail.

Marie works very hard to support the family.  She works in a bakery from 4:30 am to 8:00 am when she heads to the dance school.  Dance classes during the day and performances in the evening at the Opera.  She is chosen by Edgar Degas a well known painter and sculptor and is immortalized in the "Little Dancer of Fourteen Years".  The original was done in wax and was shown in Paris at the Sixth Impressionist Exhibition of 1881.  The sculpture was in Degas studio all the time he was alive. His heirs decided to have the bronzes after his death and were made in the early twentieth century.

Charlotte is the youngest and smallest but eventually does very well in the opera.  She was the most successful of the 3 in the Opera. The author indicates in her notes that Charlotte was with the Opera 53 years as a dancer and teacher.

When Antoinette goes to prison Marie is left to fend for the family.  The girls are living at a subsistence level which is proven with she gains weight in prison with 3 meals a day.  She improves her sewing skills while with the nuns.  This contributes to success later on.

These girls are at the mercy of well to do men who attend the Opera who may take an interest in them.  That translates into better ballet shoes and dance outfits, pretty dresses but also unwanted sexual attention at times from some of the men.

I prefer the countryside of English estates to the hussle and bussle of a city setting.  I'm glad I stuck it out to the end.  It was worth it.

The can of Masala Chai Rooibos tea arrived.  I have drank there black tea for quite a few years and love it!  With being advised to cut out caffeine I approached the ladies at Chai Wallahs in hopes of them making a rooibos version which would be caffeine free.

I am in the testing phase of this tea.

I have not had much time to just sit down and enjoy a good cup of it yet.

I have been getting ready for the Abstraction Show at the Gallery in December.  That is now all firmed up.  Those will be blogged once delivered to the Gallery.

We had our first big snow storm on the November 11 Remembrance Day long weekend.  The rained Friday night and snowed Saturday and Sunday.

I did take an hour's walk on Sunday at about -14C.  I bundled up and took the camera.  My fingers and tip of my nose were ready to head inside.

It was nice that the wind had not yet removed the snow from all the tree limbs.  

The challenge of Flickr Macro Monday was Reflections.  I had a hard time with subject matter this week.  This is a small ceramic snowman I made in class in the 1970s.

I used my mirror tile as a background to get several reflections of his back.  I like the fact that the reflection does not mirror the front.

You can check my photo stream to see the photo I submitted on Monday.

You can check the entries to Macro Mondays.

Linking up with Through my Lens Challenge #214 hosted by Mersad.