Christmas 2006: indoors and out

For three whole days we couldn't see the bottom of the garden. The air was still and damp and chilly. What could we do other than stay in and start on the Thornton's?


We bought and decorated the tree, having performed the usual triage on the four sets of lights, which we keep in the repository. The tree is now, already, at the dump in preparation for our rapid getaway in a few days' time.

We have seen family and friends and enjoyed some good food. But there are too many chocolates left over, not to mention the Turkish Delight and calissons, which we haven't even opened yet.

Thank you for a lovely Christmas . Keep well . And may 2007 bring you happiness.

'Bye for now....

Goodbye, Paris, for now.
I'll keep your gorgeous window displays in my mind as I shop in England and wonder where style went, why we don't have hundreds of individually designed and stocked artisan shops, why assistants don't look up and say "hello" to you as you enter, why fruit has shrunk in size, why ugly plastic bags are used in preference to smart paper bags that can be used as a replacement handbag.




I will look up and see a modern office block instead of a carved limestone lintel and a wrought iron balcony. I will not open my windows to the scent of buttery croissants still baking.




But I'll be back ...

Sumptuosity

The Hôtel de Soubise is in the Marais district of Paris and its construction in 1704 was supposedly financed by Louis XIV in gratitude towards the Princess of Soubise, who yielded to his advances - but you'd better ask Mme de Sévigny for further details.


The National Archives of France are housed here and these include such treasures as the personal letters and diaries of the Kings and Queens of France, the Last Wills and Testaments of Louis XIV and Napoleon and the Déclaration des droits de l'homme et du citoyen.
These fascinating documents are sometimes on display here and this week we saw letters and dinner-seating plans, secret notes in invisible ink (now revealed) and diaries , all relating to Marie-Antoinette. We saw her gazette (scroll down to page 3), which was a large book containing small patches of patterned silk fabrics of which her gowns were made. As the Queen changed her dress three times a day (don't we all), each morning she would mark her choice of gowns by inserting a pin in the page alongside the fabrics she would wear that day. The silks were of the finest thread count and most delicate shades. Her profligate spending resulted in her being nicknamed Mme Déficit.


As well as hosting exhibitions of documents, the Hôtel with its sumptuous décor is also used as a venue for musical and literary recitals.

Busy day.

I started my day at the Louvre with some sketching in the cour Puget.
Next week it'll be my last lesson until after the New Year and we will go to the Natural History Museum in the Jardin des Plantes. I suspect we will be drawing the exhibits in the Grande Galerie de l'Evolution.
I love this class. We go to museums and sit for 3 hours in front of a variety of exhibits and draw. It has taught me to observe, to measure, to take time over hands and feet and to be blissfully unaware of passers-by.
This is Julius Caesar.


After a nice, chatty lunch with my friends from our English group, we went to a cookery lesson in the 15th to learn about festive sweets and desserts. How much sugar, chocolate and butter can you bear...? Quite a lot..? Kilos of it..?

For the first 90 minutes I was in a daze of confusion. We (and I really mean the chef) was mixing, melting, browning, chopping, stirring, beating, spreading and separating ingredients simply to make the components for the dishes. How many types of meringue are there? Too many.

This was the Bûche de Noël being carefully rolled up. It is not made of sponge as I had thought but of an almond biscuit mixture that has to be soaked in a sweet coffee liquid to make it pliable. I think this was the dessert that required a kilo of butter ( for the crème au beurre filling and topping).
It was at this stage that I was hearing "camembert" for "crème au beurre" and it didn't seem odd at all. I had heard correctly "cul de poule" and so cheese had to be an acceptable ingredient. I even thought that I heard a giraffe mentioned at one point but I must have been high on cholesterol.
We (the chef) made ten component parts to make four complete dishes. We learned basic techniques and good tips and I got told off for putting my crème anglaise ON TOP of my bûche and not around it but , hey, I'm english and I know where custard goes.


This nougat glacé is not a hard chocolate left in the box after everyone else has had their pick. It is mostly whipped cream added to Italian meringue with added raisins, cherries and crushed nougatine. It was served on top of wafers of nougatine with tangy fresh fruit and raspberry coulis. It looked and tasted gorgeous but we had lost our appetites and could only pick at the dishes - except for the chocolate truffles...
Now, they were just out of this world and for some reason I haven't got a photo of them to show you.

Ile Saint-Louis

The Ile Saint-Louis is the island without Notre-Dame on it, yet it has the most beautiful views of the cathedral. It is now the expensive residential area of choice of film stars and politicians - Daniel Auteuil and former president Georges Pompidou amongst them.


This highly desirable length of downpipe is attached to the Hôtel Lauzun, which formerly housed the Hashish Club frequented by Victor Hugo, Eugène Delacroix, Baudelaire (though , apparently, he never inhaled) and run by Théophile Gautier. It has recently opened as a museum and it's on my list.


Our walk took us past Berthillon, the ice-cream and tea shop.

As we will not be in Paris for ever, it is our duty to sample every delicacy this city has to offer while we can. So I had a chocolate and vanilla coupe with meringues and Chantilly cream, while Steve had a Poire Belle Hélène. It was delicious.
The ice creams are all made with fresh produce, following seasonal availability, so now you can try the sweet chestnut flavour - and I may have to.

Right, get out of that !

And they did !

View from a kitchen

This is the view from my kitchen window in Paris - when I open the window fully, that is - which I only do in cases of noxious fume build-up. Normally the view is veiled by a net curtain so that stray gazes from across the way don't ignite an international incident of the " she saw me in my nightdress " variety.

The bars are there to deter burglars, not so much from climbing up the drainpipes but more from abseiling down from the roof. The floors most likely to be burgled in a building here are the ground floor and the top floor.

The next photo is the view from my house at home in England.

Spot the difference.

Twists and turns.

This sculpture is one of several on display at the Palais Royal gardens. It starts as a flat plane of 4 segments then very slowly, silently and gracefully it expands, twists and turns, catching sunlight on its haphazardly polished surfaces, until it stretches out so far that you feel it must judder to a stop but it doesn't ...

It is mesmerising.

Another Sunday in Autumn.

A walk in the park? Then it must be Sunday. But this time it is the Tuileries.
We had just been to the Place Vendôme to see a display of old, second-hand English cars - I think they called them "vintage" - and then we headed for some greenery.

After a coffee and a chocolate-smothered crêpe sprinkled with slivered almonds, we queued for half an hour to get into the Orangerie, which has recently reopened after huge renovations, which have reinstated the natural light required for optimum appreciation of you-know-what.



The canvases (eight of them, four in each oval room) are massive. It's like being suspended in an aquarium. This was my favourite and these two Parisian ladies give an idea of the scale as well as being a study in elegance.

And after all this nourishment of the senses, I got home in time for a double dose of Mr. Rochester...

mmm....... nice...

I don't know whether to go Louis XV with ormolu trims or edgy avant-garde with smooth lines.
This table was in a shop in Boulevard Raspail. I don't know if the wheels are fixed or if they swivel. As I see it, avant-garde and practicality don't fit in the same sentence so this table probably wanders across the room at will but it does look cool, doesn't it?

Perfect symmetry.

How long did I have to wait to achieve this symmetrical shot? Precisely no time at all.
I believe the figures are on runners and they appear at their windows on the hour to perform a couple of mechanical gestures before retreating into their living space.

Sunday afternoon in the Park.

A sunny Autumn afternoon in the Jardin du Luxembourg is a treat.

For 2 euros you can send toy yachts speeding across the boating lake for half an hour.

Or you can wander around, watching and admiring, as Parisians soak up the last of the Summer's warmth.
Then you can walk across to Odéon and order a dessert with coffee.

Who's a clever boy, then?

Enough said.

I love old oak trees.

I am just emerging from the depression that hits me each time we come back to Paris after a long break in the UK.

The main cause of our discontent is a lack of English (and Welsh!) friends here. I have made several English-speaking friends during our stay but all, without exception, have left Paris to move to the country, to the UK or to another job location. The latest friend to do a runner is going to Kazakhstan for a year. How desperate is that!?

I appreciate that we live in a stunning flat, in a pretty quartier with all possible amenties close by, in one of the most beautiful cities in the world, with food, wine and restaurants to make you all envious but, hey, what is life if you can't have a good laugh with mates?

So, have a look at this parking. Yes, they are parked - not in a queue of traffic waiting for the road ahead to clear. Now, tell me that doesn't make you laugh out loud.



And the oak tree ...... that's just there to cheer me up.

Long distance empathy

No 1 son is not happy.
He has a long commute to work and is travelling up to 4 hours every day. Yesterday it all got too much and he msn'd me about it. He is a very resilient soul and he'll cope either by biting the bullet and continuing as he is or by getting another job.

I still feel that I should be able to solve all his problems and I've worried about him today but this evening I found out that he's at our home with his brother, playing football in the back garden and I feel relieved. Tomorrow he'll have a short ride to work with the Remote Gardener and the prospect of a long weekend ahead.
That's better!

Just outside the city boundary.

At Boulogne-Billancourt, a quick 6 minute metro ride away, you are no longer in Paris proper. You are in Japan.
Or rather, in the Japanese garden at Jardins Albert Kahn.
The park comprises an English, a French, an Orchard and a Prairie garden as well as an eerie blue conifer forest, which didn't photograph well as the eau-de-nil needles came out as dull grey.

Like all Paris parks, it is not very big and you can meander around it easily in well under an hour but it is green and a welcome break from the tarmac.

And no-one noticed .....

This was the end product of 6 hours spent fiddling about. I didn't see the impact but I heard it from our flat and stuck my head out of the window to catch sight of a puff of artificial smoke rising from the crash site.
Local traffic here is down to 10% its normal volume due to the holiday exodus so few cars were passing by and those that did, hardly gave a second glance to this "accident".

Bumps, scrapes and bashes are acceptable collateral damage in Paris, to such an extent that the frequent accidents around the fairground racetrack of the Arc de Triomphe are considered so humdrum and inarbitratable (This word should sooo exist - just like "explorativity". I bet there's even a book about that.) that Insurance companies have decided to split liability 50-50, whoever caused the accident.

p.s. The film is called "Fragile(s)". Ahhh, the wonderful subleties of grammar.

Action !!! Or a rough approximation.

We've been back to England for a three week respite holiday: from the noise and the bustle of Paris. Yes, we had a lovely time , thank you.
We saw family and REALLY OLD friends and in the final week, once normal cloudy weather conditions returned, we did lots of gardening. The earth was as hard as concrete and we had no rain to speak of during our stay but copious amounts of water from a watering can (we have a hosepipe ban) eventually softened the ground. Plants revived during our stay, unfurled new leaves and reached out delicate tendrils but The Remote Gardener is now in charge again and I fear for their wellbeing.



Back in Paris and straight away, it's all go ! In a very cool sort of way, that is.

They are making a film at the top of our street today, starring one of the blokes from Les Choristes, François Berléand. I hung around for half an hour and as you can see, tension was running high. It involved a car, lots of traffic cones and fiddling about but very little excitement. I might pop out this afternoon to see how things develop.

A bit of a faux pas ......

We stood in Reception and watched the owner stride purposefully towards us, wearing a baggy check shirt and baggy canvas trousers. I wasn't quite sure whether it was a man or a woman. Her hair was dyed blonde and pulled back in a curly ponytail and on closer inspection I could see that the eyebrows were plucked and her face was lightly made up although her jawline was pronounced and angular.

We all smiled, said hello but I didn't commit myself to a gender title. Her facial mannerisms were feminine and her voice was alto, so after a few moments I just had to commit myself to a "Merci, madame" for the sake of politeness. Phew! Right choice! She smiled shyly.

In the room, S and I talked about her appearance - the signals had been so confusing.

Later on, I went down to ask her if she would book us into a local restaurant. Again, on surer ground this time, I asked, "S'il vous plaît, madame..?" and again she smiled, and replied "That's twice you've called me madame and I'm a monsieur. What time shall I book the table for?"
The screaming in my head lasted for twenty minutes but I apparently said,"Oh, sorry. Half past seven, please."

From here ... to insanity.

This is where we had breakfast this morning.It was at a beautifully renovated, remote farmhouse in a secluded, wooded valley, where wild boar roamed and buzzards soared. We were three kilometres from the nearest house.


Three hours' travel time and we are back to shunt-and-park, where a vehicle of any size can insert itself into a parking space two feet shorter than the car's actual length by means of shunting back and forth, pushing adjacent cars into neighbouring cars. In another country this would be called "an accident" and would involve insurance companies .

Dry, overgrown and uncared for.

Is that me?

Nooo! It's my garden back home.
It has been neglected for 12 weeks and so Steve had the task of using his slash and burn technique to subdue the weeds, deadhead son no. 2 for failure to water and remove all brown, withered growth to the dump. He assures me that it looks much better now.
But I miss my lychnis, my lavender, my honeysuckle and clematis. Here on the windowsill -no way can you call it a balcony- I cram some form of greenery and Steve adds a vine because he loves them. When we go home to England the plants either survive according to the vagaries of the weather, come home with us in the car like pets, or die. This time the travelling plants are a bay, a fantastically scented rose called Brocéliande and a third vine.
But first we have to go to Burgundy, taste some/lots of wine, eat at a Michelin restaurant and discover Beaune.

A headbutt ! Good job nobody's watching.

If it were cooler and I knew what time the event was to take place, I would go to the Champs Elysées to see the French football team return to Paris.
They deserved to win on the night but Zidane's rib-crunching headbutt is all I can visualise of the game. What on earth possessed him to do that? What was said to him to provoke such a violent, uncontrollable response?

It's a sad farewell for a great player.

Think Chirac and some coloured chalks ... but the snails will have to do for Frenchness.

I wish I had my camera.

Steve has taken it to England so he can give me a visual update on the state of the garden. (The verbal reports have not been good.)
But I really needed it this morning to capture a rare sight. Some of my market stallholders have painted French tricolores on their cheeks and foreheads in support of their football team. Some look a bit sheepish, others can't stop smiling - it's a big improvement.

Auvers the rainbow

Our Sunday jaunt was to Auvers-sur-Oise, a 45 minute motorway mix-up away.
The atmosphere is as far removed from Paris as a village in the Midi and it was here that Vincent van Gogh spent the last 2 months of his life, dying from self-inflicted bullet wounds after 2 days of agony, in the arms of his kind, loving brother Theo, who died six months later from a broken heart.
They are buried side by side in the village graveyard, overlooking Vincent's beloved cornfields; their simple headstones linked by a single covering of ivy.

Vincent arrived in Auvers on May 20th 1890 after spending a year voluntarily in hospital in Saint Rémy. He stopped off to see Theo in Paris , couldn't stand the noise and dog muck (I made that bit up but who knows..?) and took the train to Auvers to stay in an attic room above Ravoux's café-restaurant. By the next day he had painted his first canvas of cottages in Auvers, which now hangs in the Hermitage Museum.

He continued to paint in a frenzy, finishing at least 26 works, hoping that one day he would have his own exhibition in a café.

Sweaty metro weather.

It's been swelteringly hot here for the last few days. Steve emerges from the metro in the evening looking drained but still continentally stylish in his pale linen suit and blue shirt. Last night a fellow passenger in a sweat-soaked shirt leaned back towards Steve and the moisture rubbed off onto his hand. YUK!

I, on the other hand, don't have to go near public transport for my daily needs. The market round the corner is packing up as I write but I'll wait till 15.30 when there's a lull at Monoprix and when the butcher has just opened.

Where have I seen that before?

Another weekend and another wonderful discovery.
Obviously, nobody else knows about this little town just 40 mins north of Paris.
And yet...

The tortured-looking church, which would look so familiar with an inky blue sky, and the cornfield, which just needs a little added movement from a passing flock of crows.