Caught in the act.

On my 5 minute walk from my painting class opposite the Pompidou centre to the metro at Hôtel de Ville , I pass this shop window. It is full of beautiful blue glass syphons and papery white ceramic vegetables. They are irresistible. I took lots of photos, flash and non-flash from different angles .


They required very close inspection to appreciate fully the delicacy of the execution of leaf and root so I got closer and closer to the window , still snapping away ....

...until the net curtain behind the glass shelves was gently pulled aside by the gentleman I had been blinding as he ate his lunch. He was gracious enough to smile at the woman, who had been peering into his face and food at a distance of 30 cms.

Deep breaths ....

An English Oak.

I prefer torpor to stress.

For some unfathomable reason I pressed the "Update" button on my blog and hoped that the improvements would function without any effort on my part. I have delayed further blogging because I'm not sure I'm in control of it any more - just like lots of other things.

We left England on Sunday, knowing that we were paying water rates at four times the cost of our neighbours, who use more water than we do. The Water Company checked our meter, which was 6 inches under water at the time, after 2 weeks without rain and in a position on top of a hill. That seemed perfectly normal to them and they decided we had no leak.
"Oh , yes we do!"
"Oh, no you don't!"

Today Team 2 appeared , poked about with a rod in our meter chamber and a jet of water spewed up into the air.
"Yes , you do have a leak."
A neighbour said that as the day wore on and the water continued to gush, flooding friends' garages and electricity junction boxes, people at the bottom of the hill were able to use canoes to cross the road. Are we paying for that water ? Yes, I imagine we are.
We await the return of Team 2 tomorrow. Is the leak roadside or homeside of the meter? Is this the only leak or is there another one under our drive? Whose idea was it not to take out leaky pipe insurance?

This same evening Son no 2 phoned to say he had had an accident. A bus had pushed up against his car on a narrow one-way system, denting and scraping his door and back panel. He is fine but shaky and worried because the bus drove on and he has no witnesses.

I hate not being in control. Long-distance problems cause more stress. And I haven't got a photo for this post.

Please take a chair.

It looks like the Sixties to me: the era of orange plastic and chairs you either slid off or stuck to. This was a display at the wonderful Museum of Decorative Arts, housed in a wing of the Louvre. The building is newly renovated and the recommended tour of the exhibits is marginally more complicated than the route out of the Labyrinth.

Just what the doctor ordered.

My bad cholesterol level is too high so the doctor told me, amongst other advice, to avoid alcohol - apart from 2 glasses of wine a night! Honest, that is what he said!
Now, that's the kind of doctor you like.

Yes, very beautiful.

- We are very beautiful, non?

Animal or vegetable?

Have you ever seen a French poodle in its horticultural form? Well, here it is: pruned, trimmed and tortured to within an inch of its life.


This tightly shaped shrub has no merit. It is as charmless as a Victorian corseted waist or a bound Chinese female foot.
I feel no pleasure in looking at it, only dismay that successive gardeners have spent years forcing it into this ugly, humiliating shape. It reveals no love of the natural world, simply a desire to dominate, tame and bend to the human will.

Feast your eyes on the Best of Breed parade on permanent display at Versailles.

Feeling a little woozy.

I have been having dizzy spells lately due to nano particles in my inner ear swishing about in the wrong canal. So imagine how I felt when we came across this sight on avenue Georges V last weekend. I could barely keep upright.
There is no crazy mirror trickery going on here. This is how Parisians deal with the sight of "not beautiful" scaffolding. In the stylish and expensive 8th arrondissement, ugliness is not tolerated in either human or architectural form so with panache and wit they construct an outer skin to hide all the dirty, messy, untidy process. When the Gucci shop was undergoing a similar process, the whole building was enclosed in one massive Gucci suitcase complete with metal locks and leather trim (or so it appeared).


The windows are recessed and glassy. The corbels are three-dimensional. It is a very disorienting experience - take it from me, as I lie flat on my back on the pavement.

Back in the Land of Plenty.

I don't see much of the Winter sky in Paris. Light pollution and tall buildings obscure most of it. Consequently I can't judge what the weather is going to do apart from sticking my head out of the window to see what the locals are wearing for the day.
This lovely wintry sky will keep me going.

Remind me again where I live. Darfur? Zimbabwe?
Oh yes, Paris: gourmet capital of the world.
Then why do we insist on bringing back with us Red Cross food parcels of groceries?!!? You cannot see the kilos of porridge oats, boxes and boxes of Shreddies, jars of curry pastes and marmalade.


And this! Will I be able to make any sense of this? After today's attempt, obviously not. These are remote headphones, which should enable me to listen to podcasts of Radio 4 plays while I do my ironing. The reason I cannot listen directly from the computer speakers and iron in the same room is too long and involves melted plugs and metal prongs welded into a socket.

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.