Monday, June 12, 2006
Monday 12 June 2006
We have had four very eventful days here in Paris in beautiful sunshine and temperatures in the low 30s, since we arrived last Thursday afternoon. I went to the chorale in the evening; it's strange to be here again in bare-shoulder weather. It was my last rehearsal until September; they are singing twice next week when we will be away in the UK, and then stopping until mid-September. We sang only modern French songs; when I say modern mostly 1930's and 1940's, a lot of which I am getting to know quite well now. On TV last week at LNL we watched a programme about the songs of 1936 – an important year in French culture as it was the year of the first paid holidays for thousands of workers, so a new era of leisure, with lots of popular songs and dance music. And I was able to recognise several of them!
N was playing string quartets on Friday, and I went out into Paris in search of "adresses" in my little book "Chic et Jolie à Petits Prix" to look for a wonderfully inexpensive shop called Eurodif. There used to be a branch in Saint-Denis which I used to go to during my visits here, but it closed a couple of years ago, so I was delighted to find that one still existed not far from the grands magasins at the Boulevard Haussmann. I spent a long time there looking round, and buying a straw hat to wear in the garden at LNL, before going on to the grands magasins themselves.
Another thing we had been following, but on the radio this time, was the Saint-Denis Music Festival; a very prestigious few weeks with lots of internationally known orchestras and conductors, some of whose concerts I heard live on France Musique. I was interested to get to Saint-Denis and find out what there was that we could go to in the few days we were here. The Verdi Requiem was being performed in the Basilique on Thursday and Friday evenings, and in the event – N having read about it in the local paper – we took folding chairs and sat outside with many other local residents where it was relayed on a large screen! This was of course more interesting and cost nothing, and we were able to look at the concert-goers going in, and children playing round about and people casually riding bicycles through on their way home. Because of the temperature we weren't at all cold, and it wasn't even properly dark by the time it finished at about 10.15.
It was a short night's sleep, as we were up and out of the house before 8 on our way to the Sorbonne for the doctoral thesis, for which N was now not only a member of the jury, but president of the jury. In France these events are open to the public (usually just the colleagues, friends and family of the candidate) but I had heard so much about it – and the candidate! - over the preceding weeks I was interested to go along and see it too.
The argument of the thesis was that differences in manuscript versions of 15th and 16th century songs in France were due not to errors in copying (the usual theory) but that they were sung and remembered differently by different singers who then wrote them down. The candidate and one of the members of the jury were Spanish, and another jury member was Australian, which gave an interesting international flavour. There were not many other audience members, presumably because his family were all in Spain. It started just after 9 and didn't stop until 12, and then only for a short break; all the members of the jury had so much to say. Finally at about 1.15 they stopped for the "deliberation" - about 10 minutes of discussion amongst the members of the jury in private, then we all went back in and stood while the doctorate was officially awarded. And then, best of all, we had lovely little canapés and champagne and - very suitably - Rioja, and I was able to talk to some of the others and congratulate the candidate not only on his doctorate but on his tie; which had some bars from the score of Puccini's "Tosca" printed on it (he said he had bought it at Boston Airport) The Australian was confused and asked me "Now are you English or French? Because you could pass for either", and I said I'd been told that before. I told him he was the second Australian man I had met in Paris in a fortnight and that confused him even more.
Eventually N and I left, after he had managed to dump the very heavy thesis in a faculty office, to avoid carrying it round all afternoon. It was a lot hotter than when we had gone in, but we set off for our next task, to look for the specialist bookshelf shop from the address and details we had found on the internet in La Neuve-Lyre last week. The shop was in the Avenue Ledru-Rollin, near Bastille, and it was the kind of afternoon where you needed to slink along the side of the pavement in the shade, and we began to think we would never get there, especially N who was still carrying his jacket and briefcase from the morning.
Finally we found it and it was not only open and beautifully air-conditioned, but we had the sole attention of a very efficient young woman, and managed to order the shelves we had found and noted on the internet in all the right measurements, and in the nearest colour to the Italian dining room suite, beside which it will stand. The only snag was the price which was very expensive (not quoted on the internet!) and certainly much more than IKEA, but after all the searching we knew that we weren't going to find anything else which would fit and that we could have delivered. It should come in about six weeks, at the end of July.
We stopped at a café for a drink before walking all the way back to the metro station and eventually home, N still commenting on the morning's events and seemingly having forgotten all about the bookshelves.
On Sunday we didn't go to the Flea Market as I had suggested, as N had an even better idea, something I had seen on a poster at Evreux station on my way to Paris two weeks ago. It was a annual medieval fair at a town called Provins, south-east of Paris; I had never before heard of the town or the fair, but the poster looked like the kind of thing we had been to in Italy, and it turned out that N had visited it some years ago.
It was further than he thought, but through beautiful countryside in a part of France I didn't know at all – Brie and Champagne – although I had visited the Château of Vaux le Vicomte to the south and Rheims to the north. There were complicated parking arrangements well outside the town with notices to follow, making me think of parking at the East of England Show at Peterborough. We saw people getting out of cars and changing into medieval dress in the car park; this was because entry was free to those in medieval costume, and in case of argument there was a notice at the ticket office (reached after a long walk up a steep hill) clarifying the fact that "medieval costume" meant at least a hat and a robe. Some of them must have been very hot indeed, it was not the day to start wearing leggings or a cloak or armour if you were not used to it. There were several amusing anachronistic outfits; my favourites were a monk pushing a buggy with a toddler sitting in it, a crusader in chain mail and designer sunglasses and a pilgrim in a large hood lighting a cigarette.
There were stalls and side-shows all over the town, a lot of music and dancing which pleased N, and many stalls selling "medieval" food and drink. It was quite late when we finally found somewhere for lunch –definitely the highlight of our day, in a tree-filled hotel garden full of shady umbrellas. It was a set menu with many small exquisite dishes, beautifully served and presented, and quite the nicest meal we've had in a long time; not remotely mediaeval except when I asked the way to the toilets and the waiter said, "It's mediaeval, it's outside!" From time to time various acts went past on their way to the starting point of the procession. This we saw from behind a lot of other people, as we were rather too late to get a good position; lots of soldiers and musicians and "bawds" on stilts and some horrible lepers with green painted sores.
Afterwards N bought a wooden bowl for his daughter from a lady with a headdress just like the Duchess in Alice in Wonderland, which she was wearing with spectacles; I wished afterwards I had taken her photograph.
After looking round the church (dated 1060) in an effort to get cool, we set off again to look for our car park, and then for home – as so often happens – by a completely different route, and having to stop for cold drinks on the way.
And so, after an excellent night's sleep, we get to today, when we have caught up with lots of odd jobs and clearing up; washing and gardening and e-mails and having my eyebrows shaped and wrapping gifts to take to family and last minute shopping for our departure to the UK on Wednesday. I have also carefully wrapped N's portrait which at last is to be delivered to College on Thursday. Tomorrow – Tuesday - we leave for LNL early in the morning, and after much watering of the garden and packing will set off for Calais at about six in the morning on Wednesday. The hot weather is forecast to last in France and Britain until next weekend!
We have had four very eventful days here in Paris in beautiful sunshine and temperatures in the low 30s, since we arrived last Thursday afternoon. I went to the chorale in the evening; it's strange to be here again in bare-shoulder weather. It was my last rehearsal until September; they are singing twice next week when we will be away in the UK, and then stopping until mid-September. We sang only modern French songs; when I say modern mostly 1930's and 1940's, a lot of which I am getting to know quite well now. On TV last week at LNL we watched a programme about the songs of 1936 – an important year in French culture as it was the year of the first paid holidays for thousands of workers, so a new era of leisure, with lots of popular songs and dance music. And I was able to recognise several of them!
N was playing string quartets on Friday, and I went out into Paris in search of "adresses" in my little book "Chic et Jolie à Petits Prix" to look for a wonderfully inexpensive shop called Eurodif. There used to be a branch in Saint-Denis which I used to go to during my visits here, but it closed a couple of years ago, so I was delighted to find that one still existed not far from the grands magasins at the Boulevard Haussmann. I spent a long time there looking round, and buying a straw hat to wear in the garden at LNL, before going on to the grands magasins themselves.
Another thing we had been following, but on the radio this time, was the Saint-Denis Music Festival; a very prestigious few weeks with lots of internationally known orchestras and conductors, some of whose concerts I heard live on France Musique. I was interested to get to Saint-Denis and find out what there was that we could go to in the few days we were here. The Verdi Requiem was being performed in the Basilique on Thursday and Friday evenings, and in the event – N having read about it in the local paper – we took folding chairs and sat outside with many other local residents where it was relayed on a large screen! This was of course more interesting and cost nothing, and we were able to look at the concert-goers going in, and children playing round about and people casually riding bicycles through on their way home. Because of the temperature we weren't at all cold, and it wasn't even properly dark by the time it finished at about 10.15.
It was a short night's sleep, as we were up and out of the house before 8 on our way to the Sorbonne for the doctoral thesis, for which N was now not only a member of the jury, but president of the jury. In France these events are open to the public (usually just the colleagues, friends and family of the candidate) but I had heard so much about it – and the candidate! - over the preceding weeks I was interested to go along and see it too.
The argument of the thesis was that differences in manuscript versions of 15th and 16th century songs in France were due not to errors in copying (the usual theory) but that they were sung and remembered differently by different singers who then wrote them down. The candidate and one of the members of the jury were Spanish, and another jury member was Australian, which gave an interesting international flavour. There were not many other audience members, presumably because his family were all in Spain. It started just after 9 and didn't stop until 12, and then only for a short break; all the members of the jury had so much to say. Finally at about 1.15 they stopped for the "deliberation" - about 10 minutes of discussion amongst the members of the jury in private, then we all went back in and stood while the doctorate was officially awarded. And then, best of all, we had lovely little canapés and champagne and - very suitably - Rioja, and I was able to talk to some of the others and congratulate the candidate not only on his doctorate but on his tie; which had some bars from the score of Puccini's "Tosca" printed on it (he said he had bought it at Boston Airport) The Australian was confused and asked me "Now are you English or French? Because you could pass for either", and I said I'd been told that before. I told him he was the second Australian man I had met in Paris in a fortnight and that confused him even more.
Eventually N and I left, after he had managed to dump the very heavy thesis in a faculty office, to avoid carrying it round all afternoon. It was a lot hotter than when we had gone in, but we set off for our next task, to look for the specialist bookshelf shop from the address and details we had found on the internet in La Neuve-Lyre last week. The shop was in the Avenue Ledru-Rollin, near Bastille, and it was the kind of afternoon where you needed to slink along the side of the pavement in the shade, and we began to think we would never get there, especially N who was still carrying his jacket and briefcase from the morning.
Finally we found it and it was not only open and beautifully air-conditioned, but we had the sole attention of a very efficient young woman, and managed to order the shelves we had found and noted on the internet in all the right measurements, and in the nearest colour to the Italian dining room suite, beside which it will stand. The only snag was the price which was very expensive (not quoted on the internet!) and certainly much more than IKEA, but after all the searching we knew that we weren't going to find anything else which would fit and that we could have delivered. It should come in about six weeks, at the end of July.
We stopped at a café for a drink before walking all the way back to the metro station and eventually home, N still commenting on the morning's events and seemingly having forgotten all about the bookshelves.
On Sunday we didn't go to the Flea Market as I had suggested, as N had an even better idea, something I had seen on a poster at Evreux station on my way to Paris two weeks ago. It was a annual medieval fair at a town called Provins, south-east of Paris; I had never before heard of the town or the fair, but the poster looked like the kind of thing we had been to in Italy, and it turned out that N had visited it some years ago.
It was further than he thought, but through beautiful countryside in a part of France I didn't know at all – Brie and Champagne – although I had visited the Château of Vaux le Vicomte to the south and Rheims to the north. There were complicated parking arrangements well outside the town with notices to follow, making me think of parking at the East of England Show at Peterborough. We saw people getting out of cars and changing into medieval dress in the car park; this was because entry was free to those in medieval costume, and in case of argument there was a notice at the ticket office (reached after a long walk up a steep hill) clarifying the fact that "medieval costume" meant at least a hat and a robe. Some of them must have been very hot indeed, it was not the day to start wearing leggings or a cloak or armour if you were not used to it. There were several amusing anachronistic outfits; my favourites were a monk pushing a buggy with a toddler sitting in it, a crusader in chain mail and designer sunglasses and a pilgrim in a large hood lighting a cigarette.
There were stalls and side-shows all over the town, a lot of music and dancing which pleased N, and many stalls selling "medieval" food and drink. It was quite late when we finally found somewhere for lunch –definitely the highlight of our day, in a tree-filled hotel garden full of shady umbrellas. It was a set menu with many small exquisite dishes, beautifully served and presented, and quite the nicest meal we've had in a long time; not remotely mediaeval except when I asked the way to the toilets and the waiter said, "It's mediaeval, it's outside!" From time to time various acts went past on their way to the starting point of the procession. This we saw from behind a lot of other people, as we were rather too late to get a good position; lots of soldiers and musicians and "bawds" on stilts and some horrible lepers with green painted sores.
Afterwards N bought a wooden bowl for his daughter from a lady with a headdress just like the Duchess in Alice in Wonderland, which she was wearing with spectacles; I wished afterwards I had taken her photograph.
After looking round the church (dated 1060) in an effort to get cool, we set off again to look for our car park, and then for home – as so often happens – by a completely different route, and having to stop for cold drinks on the way.
And so, after an excellent night's sleep, we get to today, when we have caught up with lots of odd jobs and clearing up; washing and gardening and e-mails and having my eyebrows shaped and wrapping gifts to take to family and last minute shopping for our departure to the UK on Wednesday. I have also carefully wrapped N's portrait which at last is to be delivered to College on Thursday. Tomorrow – Tuesday - we leave for LNL early in the morning, and after much watering of the garden and packing will set off for Calais at about six in the morning on Wednesday. The hot weather is forecast to last in France and Britain until next weekend!
# posted by Chez Katherine @ 1:02 PM 
