Thursday, December 27, 2007
Thursday 20 December 2007
A very thick frost this morning, and temperatures still well below freezing. Forecast is for milder weather by Sunday and rain by Christmas Day! It is exactly two years since I signed the papers for this house and got the keys - a day of freezing fog I seem to remember. Today there is bright sunshine, like most of this week, and this morning I have been out with my camera in the village and taken pictures of the shops and the Christmas decorations. I met Marie-Antoinette by the Post Office - I was trying to scrape the ice off the post box to make sure I put the letters in the right opening - and she thanked me for the Christmas card and kissed me on both cheeks and said, as so many people have, that she supposed we were having a lot of family here for Christmas. I do so wish we were; this is just the right sort of house for a big family Christmas party. N and I have discussed it all several times; all we can do is just keep inviting everybody, I suppose, but it is obviously so much easier for them to travel to Paris at this time of year, and to Normandy in the summer.
It was quite an eventful morning in the end; by the time I had got back after my photography, and then gone back to the shop again for things I had forgotten, N had managed to book us an outing in Paris during Kathryn and Iona's visit at the beginning of January. He had been trying all sorts of musical events and shows, but had found nothing suitable, then tried Circuses, and has got seats for the four of us at an afternoon performance at the Cirque d’Hiver, the place where I sang the Saint John Passion at Easter over a year ago. We had seen on the TV news that it had been closed for refurbishment and had just re-opened, and this is a real old-fashioned circus with clowns, animals, woman fired from a canon, trapeze artists etc etc. Also suitable as it doesn’t require much knowledge of French! and good because such things aren’t often seen in Britain these days.
The other event was the discovery of a phone message from DHL saying they had two cases of wine to deliver to us (N was expecting these) and leaving an indistinguishable phone number. We spent some time listening and re-listening to the message and noting various numbers, with no luck; until now - well after lunch - N finally made contact and they will deliver tomorrow.
To celebrate being châtelaine of this house for a whole two years, I am planning a Gala Dinner for this evening with a Normandy Theme, involving lots of apples, cider, calvados and cream. I bought two pork chops from the butcher for only 2 euros 10, and two branches of celery from the little supermarket - I love being able to buy celery by the branch; so much better than having to buy a whole head when you only need a branch or two. When I brought the celery home it still had « 0.29 euros » written on it in biro, no paper bag. N said I should have photographed it.
The boulangerie is now full of wonderful seasonal things - sweets and chocolates, spicy fruit breads and decorated logs, and a notice saying it will be open on the 25th from 7.00 am till 1.00 pm. I shall try to go a little earlier in the day than I did last year. We are proposing to do our pre-Christmas food shopping tomorrow, at the Champion supermarket in Conches.
Friday 21 December 2007
When I went out to get the bread this morning I wished I’d had my camera with me like yesterday; I could just see Father Christmas and a man leading a donkey disappearing round the bend in the road. I thought they had probably been visiting the school, and was amused at the link between the modern idea of Christmas and the Nativity. (Although there are a lot of donkeys in this part of the world...) As I left the boulangerie they were coming back into the village, stopping and shaking hands with people outside the maison de la presse. They seemed to be coming towards our house, so I went in and got the camera and then found them outside the garage, talking to the proprietor; I recognised the donkey handler as the Deputy Mayor and he nodded to me. I asked if I could take their photo from over the road, and they obligingly posed, then waved before going back in the other direction. I then saw the Village Ginger Cat rushing away quickly; I don’t think he cares for donkeys, even at Christmas.
The other Christmas development over the last day or two is the loudspeakers in the street - just like the last two years - broadcasting Christmas music and a sort of local radio; very local indeed, just La Neuve-Lyre. N thinks this is awful; I agree as far as indiscriminate pop music is concerned but rather enjoy the Christmas music (trumpet version of Jingle Bells, for example) and find the ads for local shops and businesses very interesting. I remember listening to lots of it last Christmas morning while queuing outside the boulangerie for over half an hour and will probably do the same this year.
The rest of the morning I spent making mince pies, using last year’s mincemeat from the freezer, and we enjoyed the first of them after lunch. We haven’t been able to go supermarket shopping yet, as we are still waiting for the wine delivery.
Sunday 23 December 2007
A rather confusing and eventful couple of days. We never did get our wine delivered on Friday, despite receiving a phone call from the wine company to check, and their saying they would get in touch with the delivery driver. We assumed nothing will happen during the weekend, so will wait till Monday, Christmas Eve. Because we were in all day waiting, we didn’t get our Christmas food shopping done either, and postponed it till Saturday.
In the evening N wasn’t very well at all; I think because of a rather old packet of Swiss Rosti well past its date - having not done our shopping we ate something from the store cupboard instead. (I was fine!) This meant our bathroom was out of bounds to me all the evening and some of the night; it’s just as well we have two others. Suggested as New Year’s Resolution not eating anything at all past its « best before » date. Poor N recovered slowly on Saturday; small breakfast in bed, boiled egg for lunch and Heinz Tomato Soup for supper, fortunately we had just one tin left!
I wasn’t sure he should have been driving to Conches for food shopping, but he said he was OK; admittedly it’s not very far or very difficult, and we both agreed we ought not to postpone it again till Monday as we should be waiting in for the wine. We had not been out in the car for a week, and the roads and hedgerows were very white with thick frost, almost like snow. I don’t think I have ever experienced weather quite like this before - very dry and sunny and well below freezing for seven days at a stretch. The promised rise in temperature and the rain don’t seem likely yet, either.
Food shopping went well, except that I couldn’t find any cranberries; there were lots around last year, so was surprised; will look in the village and market tomorrow. When we got back, having checked the internet, N was annoyed to find that the parcel we had sent his son-in-law John had not yet arrived; in fact had only got as far as La Barre-en-Ouche.
This is a saga that goes back a long way; to the end of November I think. John wanted to buy a computer game for Kathryn and Iona over the internet as a Christmas present; it was unavailable in Britain and needing to be posted to an address outside the UK. He asked N if he could have it sent to us (and we would then send it on). N agreed but said we were about to go to back to Paris. Many e-mails flowed to and fro relating its progress; when we got back here to LNL it was at the Post Office waiting, so we fetched it, repackaged it and the next day sent it off again; addressed this time, as John had requested, to his mother-in-law in Billericay, so as to preserve the surprise element at home.
This was some ten days ago, and N was hoping to hear that it had arrived safely, so was annoyed to read while checking its progress on the relevant website that it had gone to Bernay, where it had had its address « amended or corrected » , and was waiting to be collected at La Barre-en-Ouche! We can only surmise that some incompetent machine or Post Office employee read Billericay as Bernay, despite the GRANDE BRETAGNE in very large letters and the address copied on to N’s part of the form which he still has, it having sent it Registered.
N will go to our local Post Office first thing tomorrow (while I wait in for the wine delivery.....) and see if the lovely Estelle can find out whether it is still at La Barre-en-Ouche, and if so whether he can go and fetch it. I also hope to get to the market. Meanwhile we have had a nice quiet Sunday, and have had Nut Roast for lunch - N’s cousin Penny’s family recipe which I found while looking for the Chestnut Stuffing recipe for tomorrow. We bought nuts yesterday, and N sat cracking them by the fire this morning as he thought this was a suitable Christmas activity, and there were many jokes about « getting cracking. » I thought the Nut Roast was better for his still delicate digestion than meat. We also had some home-grown parsnips nicely mashed and a small rhubarb crumble with fruit from the freezer. And then - beside the Christmas tree - we read the next few chapters of The Box of Delights, hoping to finish it over the Christmas holiday.
I have finished reading the final volume of Les Thibault; the end part containing the very depressing journal of the hero, wounded then gassed at Ypres, and dying in the months of autumn 1918 just as peace is declared. I have begun looking at my waiting copies of the London Review of Books, entertaining as usual, beginning with a review of a new biography of Rudolf Nureyev, an article about Nixon and Kissinger and pieces on the Crusades, Hitler, and Mussolini. Always a variety!
Monday 24 December 2007
N got up early and sorted out the parcel problem this morning - he decided after all to go straight to the Post Office at La Barre-en-Ouche. It turned out that the confusion had been caused by the Post Office employee here at LNL filing in an Overseas form instead of an International form; which was why it needed correcting and re-addressing at La Barre-en-Ouche. He then called at our local Post Office for the correct form, and said he thought Estelle looked a bit sheepish about it all, not surprisingly as this is the second or third British parcel which has caused us problems. Anyway, it was sent on its way on Friday 21st.
While all this was going on I called the number for the wine delivery; eventually got though and the two cases arrived as promised at about 2.00 pm, and are now safely in the wine cellar; N used the wheelbarrow to take them there from the front gate.
I could find no cranberries at the market - the people at the fruit & veg stall were very curious when I described them, but seemed pleased that I bought more dates. I called in at the maison de la presse for the first time in some weeks - no further shop-fitting has taken place; it still looks fairly ramshackle and temporary, but seemed to be doing a roaring trade. I found a fascinating postcard showing an aerial view of the village - our house is clearly visible, with all the shutters open! I then waited ages in the queue at the boulangerie, and have decided N can go tomorrow.
This afternoon - in the traditional way - I have listened to the Carol Service from Cambridge while making chestnut stuffing and preparing the vegetables for tomorrow. I had a sudden idea and checked the BBC website and found that I could download and print the Order of Service, just as it is always printed in the Radio Times, which made it all much more enjoyable. We listened to the end of the programme - still on the tiny portable radio - while having tea and mince pies in the salon; N said it was like listening to London while in the French Resistance.
Wednesday 26 December 2007
Boxing Day, and there is that special smell in the air of boiling chicken stock. We have spent a very nice couple of days eating, drinking, reading, opening presents, watching TV and DVDs and generally sitting about in front of the fire, punctuated by nice family phone calls. I now have three nice new fat books waiting by my bed, all auto/biographies of interesting women; Marie-Antoinette, Agatha Christie and Simone Veil. N bought me four DVDs of films of instalments of the life of the Austrian Empress Sisi; I was surprised and pleased that they were so easily available. We haven’t watched any of these so far, but yesterday evening watched the film of The Third Man, a present from my sister Issy. I thought it was interesting that both these were as a result of our visit to Vienna; N said it has obviously had a great influence on us. He also gave me a beautiful picture book of Paris and a book about Mozart and postage stamps. I gave him a book of humorously translated « mistakes » in English which I bought in Vienna, which he read and laughed at most of yesterday, also his Cambridge University Diary some time back, and have still to get him a pullover once we get back to some shops.
The best thing about Christmas though, has been the reading of the final chapters of The Box of Delights, our ‘Sunday serial’ which we finished yesterday and today in front of the fire after lunch. Definitely a good idea to read a Christmas Book at Christmas, and to have several episodes over the holiday, not just on Sunday.
I didn’t sleep well last night, perhaps because it was the first night in a week or so that we haven’t shut the bedroom shutters to keep out the cold - the weather changed as promised and it is now mild and wet. But the moon was bright, so perhaps more difficult to sleep. I thought it might also be because I didn’t go out at all yesterday, so this morning decided on a Boxing Day Walk; around parts of the village I have never seen and others I don’t see often, partly prompted by the postcard with the aerial view of the village. It was all very damp and grey and I thought it would have been a very different walk last week, or on a fine day in the summer. I saw lot of interesting little houses though, a variety of Christmas decorations and hardly any people until I got back to the market place with the shops again. Here all was a normal working day, Quincaillerie open, postmen going about their business, builders renovating a shop. I couldn’t help thinking it would all have been very different in Britain. Our postal delivery fortunately brought our circus tickets; I was worried we shouldn’t receive them before leaving for Saint-Denis.
Thursday 27 December 2007
This morning N and I both went to the hairdressers at the same time, something we have never done before. There was a lot of talk with our two stylists about what we had all just eaten over the holiday, and how the English differed from the French in this, and then N broached the subject of Monsieur A and his lack of interest in servicing our heating system. Neither was particularly surprised; one said we needed to go on and on at him and demand an appointment, the other said he tries to do too many different things and can’t keep up with the after-sales maintenance, unlike his father apparently, who had the business before him. She said that once he had come so late to sweep her chimney - after having been asked many times - that it exploded and covered him in soot, about which she was very pleased! N and I plan to drive round to Monsieur A’s « office » and confront him together, when we get back from Paris.
We arrived at the subject of heating by talking about the weather - still so much milder than last week, and getting progressively more so. Our « intelligent » heating system has adjusted itself accordingly, so that the rooms are sometimes a little cooler than expected. We have even heard one of our pigeons cooing outside, and seen him in the garden; we don’t know what they normally do at this time of year, but don’t remember him (or any of his colleagues) being around before during the winter.
Tomorrow we are driving back to Paris, ready for New Year celebrations and the visit of Kathryn and Iona next week, West Side Story and the circus. This means that most of the post- Christmas clearing up will be left until after we get back, probably not before the middle of January, but it can’t be helped, it will just have to be incorporated into an early Spring Cleaning.
We are now ready to start thinking again about selling the Saint-Denis apartment, and buying a new one - an big exciting project for the New Year.
A very thick frost this morning, and temperatures still well below freezing. Forecast is for milder weather by Sunday and rain by Christmas Day! It is exactly two years since I signed the papers for this house and got the keys - a day of freezing fog I seem to remember. Today there is bright sunshine, like most of this week, and this morning I have been out with my camera in the village and taken pictures of the shops and the Christmas decorations. I met Marie-Antoinette by the Post Office - I was trying to scrape the ice off the post box to make sure I put the letters in the right opening - and she thanked me for the Christmas card and kissed me on both cheeks and said, as so many people have, that she supposed we were having a lot of family here for Christmas. I do so wish we were; this is just the right sort of house for a big family Christmas party. N and I have discussed it all several times; all we can do is just keep inviting everybody, I suppose, but it is obviously so much easier for them to travel to Paris at this time of year, and to Normandy in the summer.
It was quite an eventful morning in the end; by the time I had got back after my photography, and then gone back to the shop again for things I had forgotten, N had managed to book us an outing in Paris during Kathryn and Iona's visit at the beginning of January. He had been trying all sorts of musical events and shows, but had found nothing suitable, then tried Circuses, and has got seats for the four of us at an afternoon performance at the Cirque d’Hiver, the place where I sang the Saint John Passion at Easter over a year ago. We had seen on the TV news that it had been closed for refurbishment and had just re-opened, and this is a real old-fashioned circus with clowns, animals, woman fired from a canon, trapeze artists etc etc. Also suitable as it doesn’t require much knowledge of French! and good because such things aren’t often seen in Britain these days.
The other event was the discovery of a phone message from DHL saying they had two cases of wine to deliver to us (N was expecting these) and leaving an indistinguishable phone number. We spent some time listening and re-listening to the message and noting various numbers, with no luck; until now - well after lunch - N finally made contact and they will deliver tomorrow.
To celebrate being châtelaine of this house for a whole two years, I am planning a Gala Dinner for this evening with a Normandy Theme, involving lots of apples, cider, calvados and cream. I bought two pork chops from the butcher for only 2 euros 10, and two branches of celery from the little supermarket - I love being able to buy celery by the branch; so much better than having to buy a whole head when you only need a branch or two. When I brought the celery home it still had « 0.29 euros » written on it in biro, no paper bag. N said I should have photographed it.
The boulangerie is now full of wonderful seasonal things - sweets and chocolates, spicy fruit breads and decorated logs, and a notice saying it will be open on the 25th from 7.00 am till 1.00 pm. I shall try to go a little earlier in the day than I did last year. We are proposing to do our pre-Christmas food shopping tomorrow, at the Champion supermarket in Conches.
Friday 21 December 2007
When I went out to get the bread this morning I wished I’d had my camera with me like yesterday; I could just see Father Christmas and a man leading a donkey disappearing round the bend in the road. I thought they had probably been visiting the school, and was amused at the link between the modern idea of Christmas and the Nativity. (Although there are a lot of donkeys in this part of the world...) As I left the boulangerie they were coming back into the village, stopping and shaking hands with people outside the maison de la presse. They seemed to be coming towards our house, so I went in and got the camera and then found them outside the garage, talking to the proprietor; I recognised the donkey handler as the Deputy Mayor and he nodded to me. I asked if I could take their photo from over the road, and they obligingly posed, then waved before going back in the other direction. I then saw the Village Ginger Cat rushing away quickly; I don’t think he cares for donkeys, even at Christmas.
The other Christmas development over the last day or two is the loudspeakers in the street - just like the last two years - broadcasting Christmas music and a sort of local radio; very local indeed, just La Neuve-Lyre. N thinks this is awful; I agree as far as indiscriminate pop music is concerned but rather enjoy the Christmas music (trumpet version of Jingle Bells, for example) and find the ads for local shops and businesses very interesting. I remember listening to lots of it last Christmas morning while queuing outside the boulangerie for over half an hour and will probably do the same this year.
The rest of the morning I spent making mince pies, using last year’s mincemeat from the freezer, and we enjoyed the first of them after lunch. We haven’t been able to go supermarket shopping yet, as we are still waiting for the wine delivery.
Sunday 23 December 2007
A rather confusing and eventful couple of days. We never did get our wine delivered on Friday, despite receiving a phone call from the wine company to check, and their saying they would get in touch with the delivery driver. We assumed nothing will happen during the weekend, so will wait till Monday, Christmas Eve. Because we were in all day waiting, we didn’t get our Christmas food shopping done either, and postponed it till Saturday.
In the evening N wasn’t very well at all; I think because of a rather old packet of Swiss Rosti well past its date - having not done our shopping we ate something from the store cupboard instead. (I was fine!) This meant our bathroom was out of bounds to me all the evening and some of the night; it’s just as well we have two others. Suggested as New Year’s Resolution not eating anything at all past its « best before » date. Poor N recovered slowly on Saturday; small breakfast in bed, boiled egg for lunch and Heinz Tomato Soup for supper, fortunately we had just one tin left!
I wasn’t sure he should have been driving to Conches for food shopping, but he said he was OK; admittedly it’s not very far or very difficult, and we both agreed we ought not to postpone it again till Monday as we should be waiting in for the wine. We had not been out in the car for a week, and the roads and hedgerows were very white with thick frost, almost like snow. I don’t think I have ever experienced weather quite like this before - very dry and sunny and well below freezing for seven days at a stretch. The promised rise in temperature and the rain don’t seem likely yet, either.
Food shopping went well, except that I couldn’t find any cranberries; there were lots around last year, so was surprised; will look in the village and market tomorrow. When we got back, having checked the internet, N was annoyed to find that the parcel we had sent his son-in-law John had not yet arrived; in fact had only got as far as La Barre-en-Ouche.
This is a saga that goes back a long way; to the end of November I think. John wanted to buy a computer game for Kathryn and Iona over the internet as a Christmas present; it was unavailable in Britain and needing to be posted to an address outside the UK. He asked N if he could have it sent to us (and we would then send it on). N agreed but said we were about to go to back to Paris. Many e-mails flowed to and fro relating its progress; when we got back here to LNL it was at the Post Office waiting, so we fetched it, repackaged it and the next day sent it off again; addressed this time, as John had requested, to his mother-in-law in Billericay, so as to preserve the surprise element at home.
This was some ten days ago, and N was hoping to hear that it had arrived safely, so was annoyed to read while checking its progress on the relevant website that it had gone to Bernay, where it had had its address « amended or corrected » , and was waiting to be collected at La Barre-en-Ouche! We can only surmise that some incompetent machine or Post Office employee read Billericay as Bernay, despite the GRANDE BRETAGNE in very large letters and the address copied on to N’s part of the form which he still has, it having sent it Registered.
N will go to our local Post Office first thing tomorrow (while I wait in for the wine delivery.....) and see if the lovely Estelle can find out whether it is still at La Barre-en-Ouche, and if so whether he can go and fetch it. I also hope to get to the market. Meanwhile we have had a nice quiet Sunday, and have had Nut Roast for lunch - N’s cousin Penny’s family recipe which I found while looking for the Chestnut Stuffing recipe for tomorrow. We bought nuts yesterday, and N sat cracking them by the fire this morning as he thought this was a suitable Christmas activity, and there were many jokes about « getting cracking. » I thought the Nut Roast was better for his still delicate digestion than meat. We also had some home-grown parsnips nicely mashed and a small rhubarb crumble with fruit from the freezer. And then - beside the Christmas tree - we read the next few chapters of The Box of Delights, hoping to finish it over the Christmas holiday.
I have finished reading the final volume of Les Thibault; the end part containing the very depressing journal of the hero, wounded then gassed at Ypres, and dying in the months of autumn 1918 just as peace is declared. I have begun looking at my waiting copies of the London Review of Books, entertaining as usual, beginning with a review of a new biography of Rudolf Nureyev, an article about Nixon and Kissinger and pieces on the Crusades, Hitler, and Mussolini. Always a variety!
Monday 24 December 2007
N got up early and sorted out the parcel problem this morning - he decided after all to go straight to the Post Office at La Barre-en-Ouche. It turned out that the confusion had been caused by the Post Office employee here at LNL filing in an Overseas form instead of an International form; which was why it needed correcting and re-addressing at La Barre-en-Ouche. He then called at our local Post Office for the correct form, and said he thought Estelle looked a bit sheepish about it all, not surprisingly as this is the second or third British parcel which has caused us problems. Anyway, it was sent on its way on Friday 21st.
While all this was going on I called the number for the wine delivery; eventually got though and the two cases arrived as promised at about 2.00 pm, and are now safely in the wine cellar; N used the wheelbarrow to take them there from the front gate.
I could find no cranberries at the market - the people at the fruit & veg stall were very curious when I described them, but seemed pleased that I bought more dates. I called in at the maison de la presse for the first time in some weeks - no further shop-fitting has taken place; it still looks fairly ramshackle and temporary, but seemed to be doing a roaring trade. I found a fascinating postcard showing an aerial view of the village - our house is clearly visible, with all the shutters open! I then waited ages in the queue at the boulangerie, and have decided N can go tomorrow.
This afternoon - in the traditional way - I have listened to the Carol Service from Cambridge while making chestnut stuffing and preparing the vegetables for tomorrow. I had a sudden idea and checked the BBC website and found that I could download and print the Order of Service, just as it is always printed in the Radio Times, which made it all much more enjoyable. We listened to the end of the programme - still on the tiny portable radio - while having tea and mince pies in the salon; N said it was like listening to London while in the French Resistance.
Wednesday 26 December 2007
Boxing Day, and there is that special smell in the air of boiling chicken stock. We have spent a very nice couple of days eating, drinking, reading, opening presents, watching TV and DVDs and generally sitting about in front of the fire, punctuated by nice family phone calls. I now have three nice new fat books waiting by my bed, all auto/biographies of interesting women; Marie-Antoinette, Agatha Christie and Simone Veil. N bought me four DVDs of films of instalments of the life of the Austrian Empress Sisi; I was surprised and pleased that they were so easily available. We haven’t watched any of these so far, but yesterday evening watched the film of The Third Man, a present from my sister Issy. I thought it was interesting that both these were as a result of our visit to Vienna; N said it has obviously had a great influence on us. He also gave me a beautiful picture book of Paris and a book about Mozart and postage stamps. I gave him a book of humorously translated « mistakes » in English which I bought in Vienna, which he read and laughed at most of yesterday, also his Cambridge University Diary some time back, and have still to get him a pullover once we get back to some shops.
The best thing about Christmas though, has been the reading of the final chapters of The Box of Delights, our ‘Sunday serial’ which we finished yesterday and today in front of the fire after lunch. Definitely a good idea to read a Christmas Book at Christmas, and to have several episodes over the holiday, not just on Sunday.
I didn’t sleep well last night, perhaps because it was the first night in a week or so that we haven’t shut the bedroom shutters to keep out the cold - the weather changed as promised and it is now mild and wet. But the moon was bright, so perhaps more difficult to sleep. I thought it might also be because I didn’t go out at all yesterday, so this morning decided on a Boxing Day Walk; around parts of the village I have never seen and others I don’t see often, partly prompted by the postcard with the aerial view of the village. It was all very damp and grey and I thought it would have been a very different walk last week, or on a fine day in the summer. I saw lot of interesting little houses though, a variety of Christmas decorations and hardly any people until I got back to the market place with the shops again. Here all was a normal working day, Quincaillerie open, postmen going about their business, builders renovating a shop. I couldn’t help thinking it would all have been very different in Britain. Our postal delivery fortunately brought our circus tickets; I was worried we shouldn’t receive them before leaving for Saint-Denis.
Thursday 27 December 2007
This morning N and I both went to the hairdressers at the same time, something we have never done before. There was a lot of talk with our two stylists about what we had all just eaten over the holiday, and how the English differed from the French in this, and then N broached the subject of Monsieur A and his lack of interest in servicing our heating system. Neither was particularly surprised; one said we needed to go on and on at him and demand an appointment, the other said he tries to do too many different things and can’t keep up with the after-sales maintenance, unlike his father apparently, who had the business before him. She said that once he had come so late to sweep her chimney - after having been asked many times - that it exploded and covered him in soot, about which she was very pleased! N and I plan to drive round to Monsieur A’s « office » and confront him together, when we get back from Paris.
We arrived at the subject of heating by talking about the weather - still so much milder than last week, and getting progressively more so. Our « intelligent » heating system has adjusted itself accordingly, so that the rooms are sometimes a little cooler than expected. We have even heard one of our pigeons cooing outside, and seen him in the garden; we don’t know what they normally do at this time of year, but don’t remember him (or any of his colleagues) being around before during the winter.
Tomorrow we are driving back to Paris, ready for New Year celebrations and the visit of Kathryn and Iona next week, West Side Story and the circus. This means that most of the post- Christmas clearing up will be left until after we get back, probably not before the middle of January, but it can’t be helped, it will just have to be incorporated into an early Spring Cleaning.
We are now ready to start thinking again about selling the Saint-Denis apartment, and buying a new one - an big exciting project for the New Year.
Wednesday, December 19, 2007
Monday 16 December 2007
To market, to market to buy a Christmas tree. N went and fetched a good big one yesterday morning, which we have put in the salon in front of the French windows as last year, but as it is so tall have moved the sofa sideways, as we had thought of doing when the piano comes here. The tree smells lovely, and we had fun decorating it yesterday afternoon, also a couple of smaller artificial trees and decorative candles.
There are more and more decorations in the village too; this will be the third year we have seen them as they were all here when we arrived almost exactly two years ago. The street lights have been up for some time, now joined by two big fir trees either side of the church door and the life-size crèche and manger in the market place, with Mary and Joseph in their second-hand polyester garments as usual. Shops are decorated too, in particular the hairdressers, (I complimented them when I went to make an appointment) the boulangerie and the traiteur.
When N came back from the market with the tree he said that all the stalls were "huddled" together - when I went along later I could see this new arrangement; the fish man said what did I expect, it was cold; and the fruit & veg man said last week they had to give up and go home as the stall almost blew away. (We had noticed reports of storms in Normandy while we were in Paris.) I was buying some wonderful large and sticky soft dates; I'd had some three weeks ago when last visiting the market, and was pleased to find there were some left. Dates and clementines are our constant and very seasonal « dessert » at the moment.
Temperatures are very low at present; typically -4 or -5 degrees first thing in the morning and not much higher later. There is ice on the water butts and watering cans all day. On our newest rhododendron nearest the verandah door there is a large fat icicle, which we think is as a result of the steam coming from the heating chimney above. This is an « Albert Schweitzer » rhododendron; last week N confused me by referring to it as Albert Einstein; I said I thought neither of them would be flattered by the comparison, he said on the contrary both should be very flattered.
On Sunday we lit the fire as usual, although we had also lit it on the day we arrived back last week to warm us and the house up, and because it was nice having tea and reading all our Christmas correspondence in front of it. After lunch we began reading «The Box of Delights«, N’s choice and a book I have never come across before. It’s not that easy to follow, and reminds me of so many other children’s stories - « The Snow Queen », « The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe », various E Nesbit stories, and Harry Potter, to name but a few. As the story culminates on Christmas Day, I think we shall have to have a few extra token Sunday readings, so as to finish it on either Christmas Day or Boxing Day, and not be reading it through various Sundays in January.
It’s very pleasant and a little unusual to have all presents and cards finished and done with so early! The presents we have received are under our tree, and I am enjoying receiving cards from friends who have received and answered my Christmas letter and who are sending their own! In Cambridge it was lovely to receive cards of course, often posted through the door from friends nearby, but they are all the more special when they have come over the sea, and contain news from people I haven’t seen for some time, and not heard from since last Christmas.
N is still spending a lot of his time on researching adverts for apartments, both in magazines and on the internet, still occasionally changing his mind about exactly what he wants and needs and about which areas are best. It’s all we can do at the moment - until the holidays are over and we are back in Saint-Denis - but I don’t think any research into suitable areas will be wasted - we both already know a lot more about the geography of the western Paris suburbs than we did, and will doubtless know even more by the time we have finished. He has also had fun re-arranging the theme from the Wallace and Gromit films for trumpet and piano, in response to a Christmas request from his granddaughter Iona. This involved buying a book over the internet called « Movie Themes You Have Always Wanted to Play » some of which he might even play on the piano!
After knitting and sewing various small Christmas items, including some fabric napkin rings for the apartment at Saint-Denis, I have returned to my long-term project - a rose-patterned cushion which had lain unfinished in my sewing trunk for many years. It went into store when I moved from Cambridge and has been upstairs in the sewing room ever since, but was re-started when I finished the red sampler, and should keep me busy for a long time to come.
I am now half-way though reading the final volume of Les Thibault, trying to make it last! There will be two editions of The London Review of Books to catch up with before I start on anything new.
To market, to market to buy a Christmas tree. N went and fetched a good big one yesterday morning, which we have put in the salon in front of the French windows as last year, but as it is so tall have moved the sofa sideways, as we had thought of doing when the piano comes here. The tree smells lovely, and we had fun decorating it yesterday afternoon, also a couple of smaller artificial trees and decorative candles.
There are more and more decorations in the village too; this will be the third year we have seen them as they were all here when we arrived almost exactly two years ago. The street lights have been up for some time, now joined by two big fir trees either side of the church door and the life-size crèche and manger in the market place, with Mary and Joseph in their second-hand polyester garments as usual. Shops are decorated too, in particular the hairdressers, (I complimented them when I went to make an appointment) the boulangerie and the traiteur.
When N came back from the market with the tree he said that all the stalls were "huddled" together - when I went along later I could see this new arrangement; the fish man said what did I expect, it was cold; and the fruit & veg man said last week they had to give up and go home as the stall almost blew away. (We had noticed reports of storms in Normandy while we were in Paris.) I was buying some wonderful large and sticky soft dates; I'd had some three weeks ago when last visiting the market, and was pleased to find there were some left. Dates and clementines are our constant and very seasonal « dessert » at the moment.
Temperatures are very low at present; typically -4 or -5 degrees first thing in the morning and not much higher later. There is ice on the water butts and watering cans all day. On our newest rhododendron nearest the verandah door there is a large fat icicle, which we think is as a result of the steam coming from the heating chimney above. This is an « Albert Schweitzer » rhododendron; last week N confused me by referring to it as Albert Einstein; I said I thought neither of them would be flattered by the comparison, he said on the contrary both should be very flattered.
On Sunday we lit the fire as usual, although we had also lit it on the day we arrived back last week to warm us and the house up, and because it was nice having tea and reading all our Christmas correspondence in front of it. After lunch we began reading «The Box of Delights«, N’s choice and a book I have never come across before. It’s not that easy to follow, and reminds me of so many other children’s stories - « The Snow Queen », « The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe », various E Nesbit stories, and Harry Potter, to name but a few. As the story culminates on Christmas Day, I think we shall have to have a few extra token Sunday readings, so as to finish it on either Christmas Day or Boxing Day, and not be reading it through various Sundays in January.
It’s very pleasant and a little unusual to have all presents and cards finished and done with so early! The presents we have received are under our tree, and I am enjoying receiving cards from friends who have received and answered my Christmas letter and who are sending their own! In Cambridge it was lovely to receive cards of course, often posted through the door from friends nearby, but they are all the more special when they have come over the sea, and contain news from people I haven’t seen for some time, and not heard from since last Christmas.
N is still spending a lot of his time on researching adverts for apartments, both in magazines and on the internet, still occasionally changing his mind about exactly what he wants and needs and about which areas are best. It’s all we can do at the moment - until the holidays are over and we are back in Saint-Denis - but I don’t think any research into suitable areas will be wasted - we both already know a lot more about the geography of the western Paris suburbs than we did, and will doubtless know even more by the time we have finished. He has also had fun re-arranging the theme from the Wallace and Gromit films for trumpet and piano, in response to a Christmas request from his granddaughter Iona. This involved buying a book over the internet called « Movie Themes You Have Always Wanted to Play » some of which he might even play on the piano!
After knitting and sewing various small Christmas items, including some fabric napkin rings for the apartment at Saint-Denis, I have returned to my long-term project - a rose-patterned cushion which had lain unfinished in my sewing trunk for many years. It went into store when I moved from Cambridge and has been upstairs in the sewing room ever since, but was re-started when I finished the red sampler, and should keep me busy for a long time to come.
I am now half-way though reading the final volume of Les Thibault, trying to make it last! There will be two editions of The London Review of Books to catch up with before I start on anything new.
Sunday, December 16, 2007
Monday 10 December 2007
After seeing Madeleine and Caroline off at the Gare du Nord it was nice to be on our own again, and we began to wonder when we would receive the valuation for the apartment, and what it would be. I had a list of things I wanted to get done before the arrival of the next visitors on Friday; one of the most important was the Christmas cards. I had brought from LNL the labels, envelopes and stamps and having got the cards themselves in Bon Marché and finished the newsletter to go inside them, got them all in the post in Friday morning. All the making-up of beds and cleaning and tidying was done on Friday morning, too. I also went along to a picture framer N had recommended near the Basilique, with my poster of coffee and cakes from Vienna and an old gilt frame from the Italian house. The framer will add some glass and a border, and I can collect it when we go back at the beginning of January.
On Tuesday morning N had sent an e-mail to the estate agents asking if the valuation was ready and whether he could come and fetch it (he wanted to avoid it going in the post, where it would have automatically been forwarded to LNL along with the rest of his mail.) They said it would be ready that afternoon, so after going shopping together to get more family Christmas presents in the Virgin Megastore we went along and collected the valuation, which was considerably higher than N had thought it would be, in fact two and a half times what he paid for the apartment 10 years ago! (Taking into account the change from francs to euros.) This not surprisingly put him in a very good frame of mind for the rest of the day; in fact a Good bottle of wine was opened for dinner, and different and more expensive pages of the house magazines were consulted.
After much discussion and looking at maps and the house magazines themselves, we had decided that the best areas for a new apartment were those in the west or north-west of Paris, the right side for getting to and fro from Normandy. The western suburbs around the bend in the Seine are also the most desirable and expensive; we're not sure if this is a good or a bad thing! However there seem to be a good number to choose from with 2 or 3 bedrooms, about 70 or 80 m2 of floor space, a modern kitchen and bathroom, a garage or parking underground, a balcony, cellar, storage and nearby trains and shops, in the right price bracket. (Inevitably, perhaps, we are finding lots of words and especially abbreviations which were not included in the latest edition of the Lexique, and think we should begin to note these for the next edition.) We are both excited at the thought of a new “project”; the new verandah door at LNL is the last large (expensive!) thing needed there, and there is not so much to do and think about as there was when we first arrived.
Space is important - originally N thought of taking the grand piano to LNL, and perhaps some of the vast number of books, but has now decided he wants to keep all of this together, so storage is crucial. This is also because in the apartment here at Saint-Denis there are two lits-placards - beds which fold up into cupboards - one in the library where we sleep and a spare one for guests in the music room. Ideally these would come to a new apartment, and require specialist removing. There is also a huge piece of furniture called a "gentleman's commode", which N bought in an auction in Newmarket many years ago, and which houses not only his clothes but table and kitchen linen and spare bedding.
N favoured the area of Bougival, out to the west of Paris, as a place to begin the search for an apartment, so on Thursday afternoon we set out in the car - taking the opportunity to give it an outing after its various battery problems, and to put into the boot the two stools from Habitat and the laundry from last week's guests, going back to LNL for washing. It was not a good day for a drive; heavy rain and wind and traffic jams all round the outskirts of Paris. We got out in the main street in Bougival and visited an estate agent, the same chain as the one we are dealing with in Saint-Denis; got our names and requirements on his list, and picked up lots of local brochures. We also went though Chatou and La Celle Saint Cloud; nowhere looking particularly inviting on a wet December afternoon.
Eventually we had to get back to thinking about our guests arriving the next day, so stopped at the Super U supermarket in Chatou to stock up in readiness. By the time we had crawled back along the autoroute in the rain, and I had taken all the shopping upstairs to the apartment and N had got back after parking the car, it was dinner time.
Thursday 13 December 2007
Claire, Dan and Charlotte were due to arrive early on Friday afternoon. Another thing on my list of things to do last week had been the Messiah - to sit down and listen to the two CDs while following the score, in preparation for the Sing Along on Sunday at the American Cathedral. This I sat down to do after N left to meet the family at the Gare du Nord, unable to believe that I had over an hour all to myself just to devote to Handel. It was all too good to be true however; after about 20 minutes N rang saying that there was no train listed at the time Claire had said; could I find Dan’s parents’ phone number in his address book and ask them to check?
There was no number in his book; just the address, so I spent some time vainly trying to find the number of an International Directory Enquiries (in phone books mostly dating from 1998) with the Messiah going on valiantly in the background; N phoned again and said couldn’t I use BT on the Internet, as I had done before. I couldn’t get into the Internet, and when I at last found a relevant French phone number, there was only a recorded message saying I could now find the information on the Internet! Eventually N and all the guests turned up - the train had existed all along; no-one knew why it wasn’t on the Arrivals board. And I had listened to some of the first half of Messiah.
They only stayed the weekend; not long but perhaps enough with a small person in an apartment, the dark days and bad weather, and the impossibility of going anywhere in the car as there was no car seat for Charlotte. She not surprisingly had matured a lot since we last saw her, speaking very eloquently and playing on her own a lot of the time. The highlight of the weekend was a visit from the Palmers for Saturday afternoon tea; Charlotte and Daren looked at each other a bit suspiciously; apparently he didn’t know many girls, certainly not any who spoke English. I had done some baking at LNL, had bought some biscuits and Malika brought a cake, so I think all the grown-ups enjoyed it.
Afterwards we watched a video of the film Fantasia which Charlotte found quite captivating apart from saying “Where’s Mickey Mouse?” every few minutes. When she was in bed we watched Porterhouse Blue; Dan and Claire knew the story and we hadn’t seen it for some time. On the Saturday morning we had all gone for a walk to the Basilique and seen a wedding party arrive at the Hotel de Ville - and to Carrefour and a playground, and on Sunday morning Dan and Charlotte went out on their own, to fetch patîsseries for lunch and to see the market.
After Sunday lunch - roast chicken, stuffing, roast potatoes, cauliflower, broccoli & gravy, and the said patîsseries - we all set out together, me towards the American Cathedral and the others, having decided against the animated shop windows, to the Zoo at Vincennes. I was far too early, and when I came out of the metro at Georges V it was raining, so spent time looking at the Champs Elysées and in particular the Drugstore Publicis next to the Arc de Triomphe and the bookshop there.
I arrived in good time at the Cathedral, and they seemed pleased I had my own score. It was a long while since I had been in such an environment, and was amused at the overheard pieces of conversation, just like one always hears before choral events or rehearsals. Most people seemed to be either French or American, but there were a few English accents. The central aisles were divided into four sections for sopranos, altos, tenors and basses, and the few members of the “audience” were at the sides. I talked to a chatty French lady on my right, who commented on my accent and said I was “de vrai”, whether she meant for Handel and the Messiah or as opposed to all the Americans, I don’t know. On my left was a very tall, very blonde young French woman, a member of the Paris Choral Society, sponsors of the event.
It was only when I’d arrived that I saw that we were to sing just Part I of the Messiah, plus the Hallelujah Chorus. The conductor - in residence at the cathedral, and very good - took us through all the usual things to remember, in both French and English, and introduced the soloists and the organist, and also said that it was an annual event; for the fifteenth year running. Must look out for it next year. I thoroughly enjoyed the singing, although noticing that my breathing was not what it was, and that the trills needed some work. I was certainly doing much better then the lady next to me; the young woman the other side sang the notes well enough, but with a very French accent - I had forgotten this syndrome which I then remembered from the Saint-Denis chorale - trying to sing properly pronounced English words while everyone else is singing them wrongly is not easy! There were forms to fill in if one was interested in singing Parts II and III at a later date; I left my details and have since received an acknowledgment by e-mail.
We ended by singing the Hallelujah Chorus twice, also a tradition apparently, and all went out into the dark and rain. The weather was exactly the same last December when I had gone to the Carol Service; I must try and have a look at the place one day in the summer! At least I saw the Champs Elysées and the Arc de Triomphe with all their Christmas lights.
C, D and C set off for the Gare du Nord in the middle of Monday morning, accompanied by N; we exchanged Christmas presents, and wished them well for the arrival of the newest member of the family due in February. I stripped beds, tidied a little and wiped sticky door handles and when N came back we had a quiet lunch and collapsed gratefully on to the sofa. He had been as far as FNAC and bought up-to-date maps of the Paris suburbs and of the RER train system; the ones we had been consulting were about 10 years out of date; we need current ones if we are to make proper decisions. We spent the afternoon looking at the new maps and the previous house magazines in the light of the new maps.
By this time N was beginning to change his mind about both the piano and the lits placards, and thinking about Saint Germain-en-Laye as a place to look for an apartment. That evening we saw a useful house programme on TV; the, kind I have seen countless times in Britain, but never before in France. It dealt with a house that would not sell, and advised the owners to get rid of personal items and bring it up to date. I could see that might help a lot with the apartment at Saint-Denis; N was not so sure. One always thinks that if one likes certain things oneself then how could any prospective buyers not love them too?
Leaving the apartment at Saint-Denis on Tuesday morning was fraught as usual. The big front door was locked, but even if it had been open the car would not have got in as the pavement was blocked by Ursuline dustbins awaiting emptying; I don‘t think we have ever tried to leave at that time in the morning before. Once we were safely in the car with all our luggage, laundry, Habitat stools, the viola, Christmas presents, left-over food and butterfly net and assorted other items being relegated to LNL, N said did I fancy going via Saint Germain-en-Laye, which seemed like a great idea. Unlike the previous Thursday the weather was bright and sunny; with not much traffic on the roads.
Neither of us had been to Saint Germain-en-Laye before, although we knew it was rather expensive and “sought-after”, but we were unprepared for the magnificent château in the middle of the old town, right next to the RER station. After driving round a few times we parked deep in an underground car park and then walked around; there were lots of very nice expensive shops with well-heeled customers and I reflected that I would need an increase in my dress allowance if I was to live there. (“But you don’t have a dress allowance ….” said N; “Exactly,” I said.) We also saw a good big market, and visited a very helpful estate agent. He explained that none of the properties in the old town had parking as they were all too old, and that in any case there were never very many on the market. He advised us to look at an area called Bel Air, where the prices were lower - with parking, a bus ride away from the old town. There was also a station there linked with Saint-Lazare, which would make getting to and from La Neuve-Lyre very much easier. (This had been the case with other properties west of Paris which we had read about, and I thought was a great advantage.)
We gathered information from outside other agents and then decided it was time for lunch in a nice cosy little restaurant, and then drove over to Bel Air, very modern and seemingly a long way away. The only plus seemed to be that all the streets were named after composers! We drove back to LNL - not that far as we were on the right side of Paris - and N decide that a pied-à-terre in Paris should be just that, not another country property. I had thought this all along. His definition of “Paris” is not quite the same as mine however; I wouldn’t just limit myself to addresses within arondissements, I count anything on the metro line as Paris and would be very happy there. We did agree though, that Saint Germain-en-Laye was a wonderful new discovery which merited visiting often.
Saturday 15 December 2007
We got back to discover lots of post: a few Christmas cards, one or two parcels and lots of reading material - London Review of Books, CAM Magazine (one each) and the latest issue of Maisons Normandes, the latter very strange after looking at so many pictures of modern Paris flats. There was also the December catalogue from the frozen food company - I perused it in bed that night and they rang the next day for my order, which was delivered this morning. All very efficient. With the delivery came a free Johnny Hallyday CD; last time it was a not-very-useful recipe book. N said he hoped I would not listen to the CD while he is around; I said it was important to listen as it is French Culture! I see that in January there is a free white china cake plate with all orders; much more practical.
And the new stools are just right under the kitchen table, I’m pleased to say.
Monsieur P the carpenter arrived on Wednesday morning for the payment of his bill for the verandah door and the new little window in the second outhouse, unfortunately a lot more than either of us remembered, but we agreed again that the door was necessary and well worth it, and nothing else so large needs doing, touch wood. He kissed me on arriving and departing; I hope we will still continue to see something of him even though we have no more large projects for him.
On Thursday a whole sheaf of Christmas cards arrived together from Cambridge; I think the senders must have all done them last weekend and got them in the post on Monday!
The house took some time to warm up as for much of the time since Tuesday temperatures have been very little above freezing with thick white frosts. Yesterday morning we set off to Bernay for the car service; this was due for 9.00 so we were up early in the dark, and expected the roads to be icy, but fortunately they were dry. (The car was being serviced in Bernay as it is now a year old and the Saint- Denis garage has closed down.) We had two hours to fill in until the car was ready, so walked to the Post Office and to Petite Italie where we stocked up and then had a welcome hot chocolate in the Café de la Gare before going on to our usual supermarket. Afterwards N walked back to the garage while I waited - an hour! - with the shopping in the supermarket café with a newspaper. Amongst other interesting things, I read that this time last year the temperature was 11 degrees. Also, we now have all next week’s TV programmes, lists of Christmas markets and some unusual recipes for topinembours.
N is now looking at properties in the Sèvres, Boulogne-Billancourt, Asnières, Courbevoie, Epinay and Enghien areas, and has decided after all to bring the grand piano to LNL, about which I am very pleased. He has also brought the viola and wooden music stand down to the salon and decided it will become the “music” room straight away because of the acoustics. I will clear a shelf in the large built-in cupboard next to the fireplace for all the music which will come from Paris with the piano. (But not before Christmas ….) The cupboard must be one of the very oldest parts of the house, and is currently filled with all the things that used to be in my loft - Christmas decorations, old photos - framed and in albums - LPs and pieces of china not wanted at present.
This afternoon while I was sitting here at the computer there was a ring at the garden gate and Robert Urset was there; especially welcome as when it rang yesterday afternoon it was only the local firemen selling calendars (a French tradition!) He was lucky as we had just decided to eat our panettone cake bought yesterday at Petite Italie, and not save it till Christmas. N also not surprisingly picked his brains about buying and selling properties in the Paris area and I told him we had been to Bon Marché again. He said he would call us in January and invite us to dinner. Perhaps after all we are getting somewhere with making new friends?
After seeing Madeleine and Caroline off at the Gare du Nord it was nice to be on our own again, and we began to wonder when we would receive the valuation for the apartment, and what it would be. I had a list of things I wanted to get done before the arrival of the next visitors on Friday; one of the most important was the Christmas cards. I had brought from LNL the labels, envelopes and stamps and having got the cards themselves in Bon Marché and finished the newsletter to go inside them, got them all in the post in Friday morning. All the making-up of beds and cleaning and tidying was done on Friday morning, too. I also went along to a picture framer N had recommended near the Basilique, with my poster of coffee and cakes from Vienna and an old gilt frame from the Italian house. The framer will add some glass and a border, and I can collect it when we go back at the beginning of January.
On Tuesday morning N had sent an e-mail to the estate agents asking if the valuation was ready and whether he could come and fetch it (he wanted to avoid it going in the post, where it would have automatically been forwarded to LNL along with the rest of his mail.) They said it would be ready that afternoon, so after going shopping together to get more family Christmas presents in the Virgin Megastore we went along and collected the valuation, which was considerably higher than N had thought it would be, in fact two and a half times what he paid for the apartment 10 years ago! (Taking into account the change from francs to euros.) This not surprisingly put him in a very good frame of mind for the rest of the day; in fact a Good bottle of wine was opened for dinner, and different and more expensive pages of the house magazines were consulted.
After much discussion and looking at maps and the house magazines themselves, we had decided that the best areas for a new apartment were those in the west or north-west of Paris, the right side for getting to and fro from Normandy. The western suburbs around the bend in the Seine are also the most desirable and expensive; we're not sure if this is a good or a bad thing! However there seem to be a good number to choose from with 2 or 3 bedrooms, about 70 or 80 m2 of floor space, a modern kitchen and bathroom, a garage or parking underground, a balcony, cellar, storage and nearby trains and shops, in the right price bracket. (Inevitably, perhaps, we are finding lots of words and especially abbreviations which were not included in the latest edition of the Lexique, and think we should begin to note these for the next edition.) We are both excited at the thought of a new “project”; the new verandah door at LNL is the last large (expensive!) thing needed there, and there is not so much to do and think about as there was when we first arrived.
Space is important - originally N thought of taking the grand piano to LNL, and perhaps some of the vast number of books, but has now decided he wants to keep all of this together, so storage is crucial. This is also because in the apartment here at Saint-Denis there are two lits-placards - beds which fold up into cupboards - one in the library where we sleep and a spare one for guests in the music room. Ideally these would come to a new apartment, and require specialist removing. There is also a huge piece of furniture called a "gentleman's commode", which N bought in an auction in Newmarket many years ago, and which houses not only his clothes but table and kitchen linen and spare bedding.
N favoured the area of Bougival, out to the west of Paris, as a place to begin the search for an apartment, so on Thursday afternoon we set out in the car - taking the opportunity to give it an outing after its various battery problems, and to put into the boot the two stools from Habitat and the laundry from last week's guests, going back to LNL for washing. It was not a good day for a drive; heavy rain and wind and traffic jams all round the outskirts of Paris. We got out in the main street in Bougival and visited an estate agent, the same chain as the one we are dealing with in Saint-Denis; got our names and requirements on his list, and picked up lots of local brochures. We also went though Chatou and La Celle Saint Cloud; nowhere looking particularly inviting on a wet December afternoon.
Eventually we had to get back to thinking about our guests arriving the next day, so stopped at the Super U supermarket in Chatou to stock up in readiness. By the time we had crawled back along the autoroute in the rain, and I had taken all the shopping upstairs to the apartment and N had got back after parking the car, it was dinner time.
Thursday 13 December 2007
Claire, Dan and Charlotte were due to arrive early on Friday afternoon. Another thing on my list of things to do last week had been the Messiah - to sit down and listen to the two CDs while following the score, in preparation for the Sing Along on Sunday at the American Cathedral. This I sat down to do after N left to meet the family at the Gare du Nord, unable to believe that I had over an hour all to myself just to devote to Handel. It was all too good to be true however; after about 20 minutes N rang saying that there was no train listed at the time Claire had said; could I find Dan’s parents’ phone number in his address book and ask them to check?
There was no number in his book; just the address, so I spent some time vainly trying to find the number of an International Directory Enquiries (in phone books mostly dating from 1998) with the Messiah going on valiantly in the background; N phoned again and said couldn’t I use BT on the Internet, as I had done before. I couldn’t get into the Internet, and when I at last found a relevant French phone number, there was only a recorded message saying I could now find the information on the Internet! Eventually N and all the guests turned up - the train had existed all along; no-one knew why it wasn’t on the Arrivals board. And I had listened to some of the first half of Messiah.
They only stayed the weekend; not long but perhaps enough with a small person in an apartment, the dark days and bad weather, and the impossibility of going anywhere in the car as there was no car seat for Charlotte. She not surprisingly had matured a lot since we last saw her, speaking very eloquently and playing on her own a lot of the time. The highlight of the weekend was a visit from the Palmers for Saturday afternoon tea; Charlotte and Daren looked at each other a bit suspiciously; apparently he didn’t know many girls, certainly not any who spoke English. I had done some baking at LNL, had bought some biscuits and Malika brought a cake, so I think all the grown-ups enjoyed it.
Afterwards we watched a video of the film Fantasia which Charlotte found quite captivating apart from saying “Where’s Mickey Mouse?” every few minutes. When she was in bed we watched Porterhouse Blue; Dan and Claire knew the story and we hadn’t seen it for some time. On the Saturday morning we had all gone for a walk to the Basilique and seen a wedding party arrive at the Hotel de Ville - and to Carrefour and a playground, and on Sunday morning Dan and Charlotte went out on their own, to fetch patîsseries for lunch and to see the market.
After Sunday lunch - roast chicken, stuffing, roast potatoes, cauliflower, broccoli & gravy, and the said patîsseries - we all set out together, me towards the American Cathedral and the others, having decided against the animated shop windows, to the Zoo at Vincennes. I was far too early, and when I came out of the metro at Georges V it was raining, so spent time looking at the Champs Elysées and in particular the Drugstore Publicis next to the Arc de Triomphe and the bookshop there.
I arrived in good time at the Cathedral, and they seemed pleased I had my own score. It was a long while since I had been in such an environment, and was amused at the overheard pieces of conversation, just like one always hears before choral events or rehearsals. Most people seemed to be either French or American, but there were a few English accents. The central aisles were divided into four sections for sopranos, altos, tenors and basses, and the few members of the “audience” were at the sides. I talked to a chatty French lady on my right, who commented on my accent and said I was “de vrai”, whether she meant for Handel and the Messiah or as opposed to all the Americans, I don’t know. On my left was a very tall, very blonde young French woman, a member of the Paris Choral Society, sponsors of the event.
It was only when I’d arrived that I saw that we were to sing just Part I of the Messiah, plus the Hallelujah Chorus. The conductor - in residence at the cathedral, and very good - took us through all the usual things to remember, in both French and English, and introduced the soloists and the organist, and also said that it was an annual event; for the fifteenth year running. Must look out for it next year. I thoroughly enjoyed the singing, although noticing that my breathing was not what it was, and that the trills needed some work. I was certainly doing much better then the lady next to me; the young woman the other side sang the notes well enough, but with a very French accent - I had forgotten this syndrome which I then remembered from the Saint-Denis chorale - trying to sing properly pronounced English words while everyone else is singing them wrongly is not easy! There were forms to fill in if one was interested in singing Parts II and III at a later date; I left my details and have since received an acknowledgment by e-mail.
We ended by singing the Hallelujah Chorus twice, also a tradition apparently, and all went out into the dark and rain. The weather was exactly the same last December when I had gone to the Carol Service; I must try and have a look at the place one day in the summer! At least I saw the Champs Elysées and the Arc de Triomphe with all their Christmas lights.
C, D and C set off for the Gare du Nord in the middle of Monday morning, accompanied by N; we exchanged Christmas presents, and wished them well for the arrival of the newest member of the family due in February. I stripped beds, tidied a little and wiped sticky door handles and when N came back we had a quiet lunch and collapsed gratefully on to the sofa. He had been as far as FNAC and bought up-to-date maps of the Paris suburbs and of the RER train system; the ones we had been consulting were about 10 years out of date; we need current ones if we are to make proper decisions. We spent the afternoon looking at the new maps and the previous house magazines in the light of the new maps.
By this time N was beginning to change his mind about both the piano and the lits placards, and thinking about Saint Germain-en-Laye as a place to look for an apartment. That evening we saw a useful house programme on TV; the, kind I have seen countless times in Britain, but never before in France. It dealt with a house that would not sell, and advised the owners to get rid of personal items and bring it up to date. I could see that might help a lot with the apartment at Saint-Denis; N was not so sure. One always thinks that if one likes certain things oneself then how could any prospective buyers not love them too?
Leaving the apartment at Saint-Denis on Tuesday morning was fraught as usual. The big front door was locked, but even if it had been open the car would not have got in as the pavement was blocked by Ursuline dustbins awaiting emptying; I don‘t think we have ever tried to leave at that time in the morning before. Once we were safely in the car with all our luggage, laundry, Habitat stools, the viola, Christmas presents, left-over food and butterfly net and assorted other items being relegated to LNL, N said did I fancy going via Saint Germain-en-Laye, which seemed like a great idea. Unlike the previous Thursday the weather was bright and sunny; with not much traffic on the roads.
Neither of us had been to Saint Germain-en-Laye before, although we knew it was rather expensive and “sought-after”, but we were unprepared for the magnificent château in the middle of the old town, right next to the RER station. After driving round a few times we parked deep in an underground car park and then walked around; there were lots of very nice expensive shops with well-heeled customers and I reflected that I would need an increase in my dress allowance if I was to live there. (“But you don’t have a dress allowance ….” said N; “Exactly,” I said.) We also saw a good big market, and visited a very helpful estate agent. He explained that none of the properties in the old town had parking as they were all too old, and that in any case there were never very many on the market. He advised us to look at an area called Bel Air, where the prices were lower - with parking, a bus ride away from the old town. There was also a station there linked with Saint-Lazare, which would make getting to and from La Neuve-Lyre very much easier. (This had been the case with other properties west of Paris which we had read about, and I thought was a great advantage.)
We gathered information from outside other agents and then decided it was time for lunch in a nice cosy little restaurant, and then drove over to Bel Air, very modern and seemingly a long way away. The only plus seemed to be that all the streets were named after composers! We drove back to LNL - not that far as we were on the right side of Paris - and N decide that a pied-à-terre in Paris should be just that, not another country property. I had thought this all along. His definition of “Paris” is not quite the same as mine however; I wouldn’t just limit myself to addresses within arondissements, I count anything on the metro line as Paris and would be very happy there. We did agree though, that Saint Germain-en-Laye was a wonderful new discovery which merited visiting often.
Saturday 15 December 2007
We got back to discover lots of post: a few Christmas cards, one or two parcels and lots of reading material - London Review of Books, CAM Magazine (one each) and the latest issue of Maisons Normandes, the latter very strange after looking at so many pictures of modern Paris flats. There was also the December catalogue from the frozen food company - I perused it in bed that night and they rang the next day for my order, which was delivered this morning. All very efficient. With the delivery came a free Johnny Hallyday CD; last time it was a not-very-useful recipe book. N said he hoped I would not listen to the CD while he is around; I said it was important to listen as it is French Culture! I see that in January there is a free white china cake plate with all orders; much more practical.
And the new stools are just right under the kitchen table, I’m pleased to say.
Monsieur P the carpenter arrived on Wednesday morning for the payment of his bill for the verandah door and the new little window in the second outhouse, unfortunately a lot more than either of us remembered, but we agreed again that the door was necessary and well worth it, and nothing else so large needs doing, touch wood. He kissed me on arriving and departing; I hope we will still continue to see something of him even though we have no more large projects for him.
On Thursday a whole sheaf of Christmas cards arrived together from Cambridge; I think the senders must have all done them last weekend and got them in the post on Monday!
The house took some time to warm up as for much of the time since Tuesday temperatures have been very little above freezing with thick white frosts. Yesterday morning we set off to Bernay for the car service; this was due for 9.00 so we were up early in the dark, and expected the roads to be icy, but fortunately they were dry. (The car was being serviced in Bernay as it is now a year old and the Saint- Denis garage has closed down.) We had two hours to fill in until the car was ready, so walked to the Post Office and to Petite Italie where we stocked up and then had a welcome hot chocolate in the Café de la Gare before going on to our usual supermarket. Afterwards N walked back to the garage while I waited - an hour! - with the shopping in the supermarket café with a newspaper. Amongst other interesting things, I read that this time last year the temperature was 11 degrees. Also, we now have all next week’s TV programmes, lists of Christmas markets and some unusual recipes for topinembours.
N is now looking at properties in the Sèvres, Boulogne-Billancourt, Asnières, Courbevoie, Epinay and Enghien areas, and has decided after all to bring the grand piano to LNL, about which I am very pleased. He has also brought the viola and wooden music stand down to the salon and decided it will become the “music” room straight away because of the acoustics. I will clear a shelf in the large built-in cupboard next to the fireplace for all the music which will come from Paris with the piano. (But not before Christmas ….) The cupboard must be one of the very oldest parts of the house, and is currently filled with all the things that used to be in my loft - Christmas decorations, old photos - framed and in albums - LPs and pieces of china not wanted at present.
This afternoon while I was sitting here at the computer there was a ring at the garden gate and Robert Urset was there; especially welcome as when it rang yesterday afternoon it was only the local firemen selling calendars (a French tradition!) He was lucky as we had just decided to eat our panettone cake bought yesterday at Petite Italie, and not save it till Christmas. N also not surprisingly picked his brains about buying and selling properties in the Paris area and I told him we had been to Bon Marché again. He said he would call us in January and invite us to dinner. Perhaps after all we are getting somewhere with making new friends?
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
Thursday 6 December 2007
Over breakfast last Wednesday morning, before setting off to drive to Saint-Denis we fell, as always, to discussing the inconvenience of the main gate, and whether or not it would be locked and the difficulties of having to go and park the car and walk back from the car park afterwards. N also mentioned again, as he often does, the very high service charges he pays for the apartment at Saint-Denis, because of its being a historical monument in need of repair, and somehow we arrived at the conclusion that perhaps the time had come to sell the apartment and buy something a little more modern, with lower charges and an integral parking space.
We continued the discussion on our car journey - the gate was unlocked but there was a car parked in front of it, and a van trying to gain access too. After lunch we walked round to the car park again, and drove to the big supermarket Auchan to stock up ready for the first of our three lots of guests, due the next day. We unloaded the shopping in three instalments, and I took it all in and up the stairs, and N took the car back to the car park again. By this time we were quite sure we wanted to start looking for something more convenient, and when he got home he had several house magazines for perusal plus an appointment with an agent to come and value the apartment at 2.00 the next day!
This meant that the cleaning and tidying I had planned before Madeleine's and Caroline's arrival on Thursday evening became even more thorough and necessary; I had done so much pre-house-viewing cleaning at Ainsworth Street that it still came very naturally to me, and I remembered the importance of flowers and made a special trip to the florist.
By the time our agent arrived - a nice efficient young woman called Audrey, who reminded N of Madeleine - all was clear and tidy; just as well as she took a good number of photographs. We remembered to give her a copy of our Lexique of English/French house-buying terms and N encouraged her to show all her colleagues! I said good bye as N took her down to show her the cellar; and said she would be in contact with a valuation in a few days.
Madeleine and Caroline were due at the gare du Nord just before 7.00, so we laid the table for supper before we left to meet them by car - yet another inconvenient trip to the car park!
On Friday morning M, C and I set off for the first item on their list - the decorated and animated Christmas shop windows at the Grands Magasins at Haussmann. (Ever since their first visit here two years ago these have become a firm annual favourite.) The windows were excellent this year; all white and silver and snowy with a Scandinavian theme, and I hoped that three-year-old Charlotte would be able to see them the week after. Afterwards we went into Printemps itself, also to C & A, Lafayette Maison and Casa, stopping for a traditional lunch on the first floor of a nearby café. We then went on to somewhere new for a change; a short walk to the Place de la Madeleine to visit the various departments of the wonderful food shop Fauchon, and the nearby Maille mustard shop. We were all fascinated by what Caroline called "draught mustard"; pots filled with different mustards the way mugs are filled with beer, and Madeleine said she would take the opportunity to bring her empty pot back for filling next time. We took a few photos of our Madeleine next to various signs with her name on, in both the street and the metro and then made our way home, stopping en route at the Carrefour supermarket in Saint-Denis.
M & C went out for dinner on Friday evening to meet up with some friends of Caroline's who were also visiting Paris, so on Saturday we got up a little later with the intention of visiting first of all an exhibition at the Louvre. N came with us on the RER as far as Châtelet and went on to the stamp album shop, and we took the metro on to the Louvre, stopping on the way to look at the platforms at Tuileries metro station.
The platforms of the Tuileries station were decorated with large posters in the year 2000 to celebrate 100 years of the metro, and are divided into decades with pictures, photos and writing of memorable people, events, transport, history, and music of each decade. I have looked at them from time to time while passing through, but never all at once. It took a while to see it all though, and we arrived at the Louvre somewhat later than planned. It was not long since I had been there last time - in September to see Souvenir de Mortefontaine - but Caroline had never been and was very impressed, especially with the great glass Pyramid and the huge area underneath, even better with sunlight shining through it.
Museum visiting made me feel as though I was back in Vienna again, getting tickets, leaving coats; especially as the exhibition we came to see consisted of Biedermeier furniture from Vienna and Prague; one I had heard advertised on the radio. It was a small exhibition - of furniture, textiles, porcelain and pictures, and was worth going to simply because I was able to find out yet more about the origin of Biedermeier! Apparently he was character in a Munich newspaper who liked living at home very quietly with no interest in politics or society, hence the homely cosy connotation. I wished I could have told the young man in the furniture depot museum in Vienna.
Caroline said, quite rightly, that having arrived at the Louvre and paid to get in we shouldn't leave it without having seen a few other things, particularly the Mona Lisa. This was easy to find, and displayed far more carefully and prominently than when I had first seen it on a school trip many years ago. We walked through a lot more Leonardo da Vinci and a lot of other Italian Renaissance paintings, and past the Winged Victory of Samothrace, and could have happily seen a lot more, but it was already 2.15 and we hadn't had lunch, and wanted to visit several other things in Paris. I said they should come and visit the Louvre again on another visit, but meanwhile told Caroline that she could find plenty more Italian Renaissance in the V & A in London.
We went next door to the shopping centre, the Galeries du Louvre, where Madeleine wanted to see the shop where I had bought her birthday present, Fragonard. First of all though we had lunch in a large gallery of restaurants where I hadn't been before; a central area of tables with little kiosks all round serving food of different nationalities. M & C ate Mexican, and I had French, where there was no queue! After visiting the afore-mentioned Fragonard, and a large Sephora, a big hobbies shop and the two Louvre museum shops, we caught a bus outside in the road going though the Louvre gardens and went on to the Bon Marché store in the south of Paris. We had hoped for a sit-down and some nice views on the bus, but it was very crowded with steamed-up windows.
Once at Bon Marché we all three bought Christmas cards in the basement, which required a lot of queuing in the over-heated store. After looking at toys and haberdashery - in the haberdashery I found myself queuing up behind the same family as in the basement, like some bad dream - we went to the Grande Epicerie next door, where Caroline spent a lot of time shopping and M and I sat down and had tea, joining in briefly with the shopping at the end. Finally at about 6.00 we phoned N and told him we were on our way home by metro from Sèvres-Babylone, a fairly direct journey.
He had prepared foie gras, confit de canard (out of a tin, delicious) and potatoes, and at M's request added a jar of peas and carrots, plus fruit tarts from the freezer. This was all very welcome after our long day. After dinner M, C and I played Scrabble - a luxury French set of N's, but we played in English. M won fairly decisively; I decided the only way I am going to get better at Scrabble is to play often, but with better luck I hope; I had first of all a Q, then a Z and an X, followed by a whole "hand" of vowels!
Next day the plan was to go the the Marché aux Puces (Flea Market) at Saint-Ouen, but the weather forecast for Sunday had not been looking good for several days. We set off for the bus in the rain, and spent the first half an hour or so looking at damp stalls and trying to keep dry. N went ahead and booked a table for lunch at the only restaurant in the market, where he had taken me years ago, and where the entertainment consists of a (fairly good) singer of Edith Piaf songs. The same singer was still there, although now looking considerably older than her picture outside the restaurant (don't we all?) and M was pleased as she had recently seen the new film of Piaf's life - I am still trying to catch up with it - and has subsequently bought several CDs.
The food was warm and filling, and was served quickly, and the place soon filled up. C said if you described it to friends at home they would not believe it, and M said she had never before been in a restaurant where the staff shouted at each other so much. We managed to string out our stay by having desserts and tea and coffee and by the time we left the place was packed and another singer had taken over, whom M, N and I thought looked very like Marie-Antoinette, our neighbour in Normandy.
Eventually we had to go out again into the wind and the rain, but managed to find parts of the market under cover, and spent some time looking at buttons, jewellery, cinema memorabilia, old clothes and books. Both C and I bought a book each in English and M bought some cinema postcards. N tried to persuade me to buy a book containing amongst other things writings by Proust not contained in A la recherche du Temps Perdu, called La Jalousie and dealing with the same characters, but it was 60 euros, which I though was too much.
By the time we got back to Saint-Denis the wind was very strong and the rain very wet, and after taking a detour to find a boulangerie still open we were very pleased to get home and stay home for the rest of the day. Over tea we all took it in turns to read one of the short stories from my new book; an English translation of The Necklace by Guy de Maupassant, a story I first read many years ago, with a clever twist at the end. (This was a sort of continuation of our Sunday afternoon reading; we had finished The Wind in the Willows the week before, and are waiting to start N's next choice when we get back next week.)
M & C's train back to London was due to leave early on Monday afternoon, so we spent the morning in Saint-Denis; including the Virgin Megastore, where they loved the toys and the stationery, the local C & A and some last minute shopping in Carrefour. After a speedy lunch, and saying goodbye to N, I went with them to the Gare du Nord, and waved them off.
It seemed a waste of time and a train ticket to go straight back home again, so I went one station further on to the Forum des Halles shopping centre, to Habitat where I bought two red plastic Tam-Tam stools to go under the kitchen table at LNL. I have been looking at these for some time, and wondering how to get them to LNL; but they weren't that difficult to carry in a very large plastic bag, awkward, but not heavy. It was a good opportunity as I wasn't carrying anything else, and after having been 10 euros each whenever I have looked before, they had gone up to 12 euros.
Over breakfast last Wednesday morning, before setting off to drive to Saint-Denis we fell, as always, to discussing the inconvenience of the main gate, and whether or not it would be locked and the difficulties of having to go and park the car and walk back from the car park afterwards. N also mentioned again, as he often does, the very high service charges he pays for the apartment at Saint-Denis, because of its being a historical monument in need of repair, and somehow we arrived at the conclusion that perhaps the time had come to sell the apartment and buy something a little more modern, with lower charges and an integral parking space.
We continued the discussion on our car journey - the gate was unlocked but there was a car parked in front of it, and a van trying to gain access too. After lunch we walked round to the car park again, and drove to the big supermarket Auchan to stock up ready for the first of our three lots of guests, due the next day. We unloaded the shopping in three instalments, and I took it all in and up the stairs, and N took the car back to the car park again. By this time we were quite sure we wanted to start looking for something more convenient, and when he got home he had several house magazines for perusal plus an appointment with an agent to come and value the apartment at 2.00 the next day!
This meant that the cleaning and tidying I had planned before Madeleine's and Caroline's arrival on Thursday evening became even more thorough and necessary; I had done so much pre-house-viewing cleaning at Ainsworth Street that it still came very naturally to me, and I remembered the importance of flowers and made a special trip to the florist.
By the time our agent arrived - a nice efficient young woman called Audrey, who reminded N of Madeleine - all was clear and tidy; just as well as she took a good number of photographs. We remembered to give her a copy of our Lexique of English/French house-buying terms and N encouraged her to show all her colleagues! I said good bye as N took her down to show her the cellar; and said she would be in contact with a valuation in a few days.
Madeleine and Caroline were due at the gare du Nord just before 7.00, so we laid the table for supper before we left to meet them by car - yet another inconvenient trip to the car park!
On Friday morning M, C and I set off for the first item on their list - the decorated and animated Christmas shop windows at the Grands Magasins at Haussmann. (Ever since their first visit here two years ago these have become a firm annual favourite.) The windows were excellent this year; all white and silver and snowy with a Scandinavian theme, and I hoped that three-year-old Charlotte would be able to see them the week after. Afterwards we went into Printemps itself, also to C & A, Lafayette Maison and Casa, stopping for a traditional lunch on the first floor of a nearby café. We then went on to somewhere new for a change; a short walk to the Place de la Madeleine to visit the various departments of the wonderful food shop Fauchon, and the nearby Maille mustard shop. We were all fascinated by what Caroline called "draught mustard"; pots filled with different mustards the way mugs are filled with beer, and Madeleine said she would take the opportunity to bring her empty pot back for filling next time. We took a few photos of our Madeleine next to various signs with her name on, in both the street and the metro and then made our way home, stopping en route at the Carrefour supermarket in Saint-Denis.
M & C went out for dinner on Friday evening to meet up with some friends of Caroline's who were also visiting Paris, so on Saturday we got up a little later with the intention of visiting first of all an exhibition at the Louvre. N came with us on the RER as far as Châtelet and went on to the stamp album shop, and we took the metro on to the Louvre, stopping on the way to look at the platforms at Tuileries metro station.
The platforms of the Tuileries station were decorated with large posters in the year 2000 to celebrate 100 years of the metro, and are divided into decades with pictures, photos and writing of memorable people, events, transport, history, and music of each decade. I have looked at them from time to time while passing through, but never all at once. It took a while to see it all though, and we arrived at the Louvre somewhat later than planned. It was not long since I had been there last time - in September to see Souvenir de Mortefontaine - but Caroline had never been and was very impressed, especially with the great glass Pyramid and the huge area underneath, even better with sunlight shining through it.
Museum visiting made me feel as though I was back in Vienna again, getting tickets, leaving coats; especially as the exhibition we came to see consisted of Biedermeier furniture from Vienna and Prague; one I had heard advertised on the radio. It was a small exhibition - of furniture, textiles, porcelain and pictures, and was worth going to simply because I was able to find out yet more about the origin of Biedermeier! Apparently he was character in a Munich newspaper who liked living at home very quietly with no interest in politics or society, hence the homely cosy connotation. I wished I could have told the young man in the furniture depot museum in Vienna.
Caroline said, quite rightly, that having arrived at the Louvre and paid to get in we shouldn't leave it without having seen a few other things, particularly the Mona Lisa. This was easy to find, and displayed far more carefully and prominently than when I had first seen it on a school trip many years ago. We walked through a lot more Leonardo da Vinci and a lot of other Italian Renaissance paintings, and past the Winged Victory of Samothrace, and could have happily seen a lot more, but it was already 2.15 and we hadn't had lunch, and wanted to visit several other things in Paris. I said they should come and visit the Louvre again on another visit, but meanwhile told Caroline that she could find plenty more Italian Renaissance in the V & A in London.
We went next door to the shopping centre, the Galeries du Louvre, where Madeleine wanted to see the shop where I had bought her birthday present, Fragonard. First of all though we had lunch in a large gallery of restaurants where I hadn't been before; a central area of tables with little kiosks all round serving food of different nationalities. M & C ate Mexican, and I had French, where there was no queue! After visiting the afore-mentioned Fragonard, and a large Sephora, a big hobbies shop and the two Louvre museum shops, we caught a bus outside in the road going though the Louvre gardens and went on to the Bon Marché store in the south of Paris. We had hoped for a sit-down and some nice views on the bus, but it was very crowded with steamed-up windows.
Once at Bon Marché we all three bought Christmas cards in the basement, which required a lot of queuing in the over-heated store. After looking at toys and haberdashery - in the haberdashery I found myself queuing up behind the same family as in the basement, like some bad dream - we went to the Grande Epicerie next door, where Caroline spent a lot of time shopping and M and I sat down and had tea, joining in briefly with the shopping at the end. Finally at about 6.00 we phoned N and told him we were on our way home by metro from Sèvres-Babylone, a fairly direct journey.
He had prepared foie gras, confit de canard (out of a tin, delicious) and potatoes, and at M's request added a jar of peas and carrots, plus fruit tarts from the freezer. This was all very welcome after our long day. After dinner M, C and I played Scrabble - a luxury French set of N's, but we played in English. M won fairly decisively; I decided the only way I am going to get better at Scrabble is to play often, but with better luck I hope; I had first of all a Q, then a Z and an X, followed by a whole "hand" of vowels!
Next day the plan was to go the the Marché aux Puces (Flea Market) at Saint-Ouen, but the weather forecast for Sunday had not been looking good for several days. We set off for the bus in the rain, and spent the first half an hour or so looking at damp stalls and trying to keep dry. N went ahead and booked a table for lunch at the only restaurant in the market, where he had taken me years ago, and where the entertainment consists of a (fairly good) singer of Edith Piaf songs. The same singer was still there, although now looking considerably older than her picture outside the restaurant (don't we all?) and M was pleased as she had recently seen the new film of Piaf's life - I am still trying to catch up with it - and has subsequently bought several CDs.
The food was warm and filling, and was served quickly, and the place soon filled up. C said if you described it to friends at home they would not believe it, and M said she had never before been in a restaurant where the staff shouted at each other so much. We managed to string out our stay by having desserts and tea and coffee and by the time we left the place was packed and another singer had taken over, whom M, N and I thought looked very like Marie-Antoinette, our neighbour in Normandy.
Eventually we had to go out again into the wind and the rain, but managed to find parts of the market under cover, and spent some time looking at buttons, jewellery, cinema memorabilia, old clothes and books. Both C and I bought a book each in English and M bought some cinema postcards. N tried to persuade me to buy a book containing amongst other things writings by Proust not contained in A la recherche du Temps Perdu, called La Jalousie and dealing with the same characters, but it was 60 euros, which I though was too much.
By the time we got back to Saint-Denis the wind was very strong and the rain very wet, and after taking a detour to find a boulangerie still open we were very pleased to get home and stay home for the rest of the day. Over tea we all took it in turns to read one of the short stories from my new book; an English translation of The Necklace by Guy de Maupassant, a story I first read many years ago, with a clever twist at the end. (This was a sort of continuation of our Sunday afternoon reading; we had finished The Wind in the Willows the week before, and are waiting to start N's next choice when we get back next week.)
M & C's train back to London was due to leave early on Monday afternoon, so we spent the morning in Saint-Denis; including the Virgin Megastore, where they loved the toys and the stationery, the local C & A and some last minute shopping in Carrefour. After a speedy lunch, and saying goodbye to N, I went with them to the Gare du Nord, and waved them off.
It seemed a waste of time and a train ticket to go straight back home again, so I went one station further on to the Forum des Halles shopping centre, to Habitat where I bought two red plastic Tam-Tam stools to go under the kitchen table at LNL. I have been looking at these for some time, and wondering how to get them to LNL; but they weren't that difficult to carry in a very large plastic bag, awkward, but not heavy. It was a good opportunity as I wasn't carrying anything else, and after having been 10 euros each whenever I have looked before, they had gone up to 12 euros.
