Chez Katherine

Meanwhile, I have slowly been getting used to life here. I have been visiting this apartment two or three times a year since N moved here in 1997, so unlike the two previous occasions when I came to live in France, I have arrived somewhere familiar.

Apart from unpacking all my clothes into the attic bedroom, I have been rearranging things in the bathroom and kitchen – with N's blessing, I might add! He admitted things needed sorting out and rationalising, and at times it has been like an edition of TV's "Life Laundry" as I have thrown out or away things worn out or rarely used, and cleaned and put on display others which are useful or beautiful, as William Morris might say. N seems delighted, and keeps commenting on how much space there is in the kitchen. We have also completely cleaned the loo (separate from bathroom) and N has fitted a new wooden seat, wondering as he did so, what becomes of all the wooden circles cut out of the middle of the seats. I now think about this every time I go in there.

I have been accustoming myself to my new life as a menagère, and getting to grips with the washing machine, the hoover and the iron, the lack of dishwasher and the fact that all the washing has to be hung up and dried in the bathroom (I think longingly of the washing line between two trees in the garden of the White House!) I should add here that responsibility for laundry and cleaning was my choice, not something imposed upon me by N. My most important purchase has been a caddie (shopping trolley) very necessary here as almost all shopping is done in local shops or markets, unlike Britain where shopping for the most part consists of trips to the supermarket by car, or in my case ASDA by bicycle. I have always loved food shopping in France, and am enjoying getting to know local shops, and we both went to Saint-Denis market last Sunday, in its temporary location as the covered market is currently being refurbished. A wonderful experience; you come as far as France but seem to have arrived in Africa. I have also spent a great deal of time queuing in supermarkets and the Post Office, as there have been documents relating to the house purchase to be sent, and paperwork to do with the opening of an internet bank account, and the finalising of things for the house at Ainsworth Street.

At first I seemed to be eating and sleeping far more than in Cambridge, but this has slowly adjusted. I now wake at about 7.45 or 8.00 am, as opposed to 6.15 in Cambridge, partly because the library in which we sleep has thick shutters which are never opened, so is always dark and the only way I know how late it is because of the traffic going past. As for eating, N just says that is "la gastronomie française", but we have now agreed to eat slightly different things and different amounts.

N surprised me by saying that the main difference in my new life here is that I don't know anybody – I regarded the most important differences as (a) I no longer go to the office and (b) I now live as half of a couple. As soon as there was time (in the middle of last week) I tried to find out how I could go about getting to know people by joining a choir and some exercise classes, even though I brought my Plilates video with me, and have so far found time to do this every three or four days. I found the Saint-Denis Union Sports office, and was pleased that it is fairly near, just by the metro station, and was given a comprehensive catalogue which seems to indicate that the sports themselves – a vast array of different activities – happen in a variety of sports halls and stadia. The next step is to discover how far away are those with the activities which interest me: Stretching, Yoga and Low Impact. I went for a very long walk to see the one which seemed nearest, so this needs re-thinking, possibility of a bus, or somewhere else, or a phone call to the name which seems to be in charge of all these activities?

I had more immediate success with the choir; having visited on the same afternoon a Conservatoire de Musique in the street next to la rue des Ursulines. It was a scruffy building full of parents taking children to and fro from music and drama lessons, and reminded me of King Slocombe Ballet School in Cambridge. I knew there was an adult choir too, as I'd seen this in the guide to Saint-Denis, and saw a poster in the entrance for a concert by them on 15 October: Mozart, Gounod and Couperin, which seemed promising. When I eventually managed to speak to someone I was told just to turn up on Thursday evening at 7.00 pm. I spent Thursday in a slight state of anxiety, in case there were difficult auditions, or the standard was impossibly high, or in case I couldn't join just before a concert – all quite likely with Cambridge choirs. I needn't have worried however; I met some friendly ladies in the lift who told me just to come in and sit down with everybody else. I was amused by the fact that before any singing took place, there was a great deal of discussion as to which colour blouses the ladies would wear for which concert; (in this case black or red) definitely par for the course with Cambridge choirs, and couldn't help thinking that I had thrown out at least two red shirts and one black one before leaving Cambridge, although I have since found a black one I had forgotten about.

I have now been to two rehearsals, and it seems that the choir is run by the community for the community, so the standard is not very high, which suits me fine. There seem to be several concerts about now for which they have been rehearsing for some time.

So far I have sung Mozart's Ave Verum Corpus, which I know and love; La Cantique de Jean Racine which I have heard but not sung before, and is beautiful, a mass by Gounod - nice and simple, and something by Couperin. Then it all gets a bit vague – a Slav liturgy, something Italian renaissance and a folk song in an eastern European language.

The best things about it are that we do lots of voice exercises at the beginning, there is lots of standing up, no costly set editions to buy (everyone just gets given a load of photocopies) and that it's in the next street. I haven't actually been inscrit yet, so I don' know how much it all costs. Our "chef" who was quite happy for me to sing in concerts, says that it's not always sacred music; sometimes it's jazz or gospel (I haven't told N this yet, as he might have a fit) and that soon we will be doing some choruses from Rameau's Les Indes Galantes, which I like but didn't know had any words. I have bought myself a plastic folder from the supermarket in which to keep all the photocopies.

There was a concert last Sunday out of which I opted as it was a bit soon, and required a red shirt, see above; but hope to take part in the one on Saturday 15th, as it is not far, in Saint-Denis, and black is to be worn.

Meanwhile the weather has been beautifully warm here over the last few days, and yesterday we went into Paris (for only the second or third time since I arrived) and visited a wonderful exhibition of medieval bestiaries at the Bibliothèque Nationale. We also saw a new museum of cinema, La Cinémathèque Française, which has a marvellous constant programme of classic films, to which I shall certainly return, and then spent a long time in some new gardens at Bercy, including vegetable gardens tended by local school children, and I said to N that I supposed that this is what retired people do, spend Tuesday afternoons walking in parks, and he said he preferred sitting in parks. As we were by then a very long way from Saint-Denis, we managed to find a bus to take us as far as the Gare St Lazare, on our metro line home, and had a wonderful slow ride over the river twice and past Notre Dame, les bouquinistes, Saint-Michel, La place de la Concorde and La Madeleine, before arriving in front of the Gare Saint Lazare.