Last peonies at the market

I love peonies. I love the big heavy bud as much as the flower. I thought the season was over as my flower man at the market hadn't had them for a few weeks so I pounced on these. I hope they last in this week of 30c temperatures. Maybe I should keep them in the fridge?

Chateau de Vaux-le-Vicomte

Chateau Vaux le Vicomte is one of our favourites. It is only 45min from Paris (if no traffic) and was the inspiration for Versailles.  The owner, Nicholas Fouquet, was a court financier and it is a little unclear if he was clear about court finances and his own.  Louis XIV was invited to stay after its completion and was extremely jealous of its magnificence. Fouquet was arrested and his estates were confiscated. He should never have used gold plates when Louis XIV only had silver.

Louis XIV employed the same trio for Versailles - the architect, Le Vau, the decorator, Le Brun and the landscape designer, Le Notre. The perspective of the gardens is incredible. From the end of the gardens looking back to the chateau it seems as if the two lower, side wings of the chateau are attached. They are actually stables which are behind the chateau. There are hidden basins and fountains and the chateau is surrounded by a moat.

The children love to visit as you can hire children's period costumes to wear while inside the chateau. You can also hire golf buggies to wizz around the gardens. Click here to go the Chateau le Vaux Vicomte website - there is a great clip of an aerial view over the chateau and wonderful photos.

I must admit that I have flown over the chateau in a helicopter. A long time ago we were treated to a weekend away involving a surprise helicopter trip. We were flying back to Paris (the pilot had a road map and we were following the highway) and he radioed in to get permission to swoop over. Magnificent.

http://www.vaux-le-vicomte.com/

18 Juin 1940

Today is the 70 year anniversary of General de Gaulle's speech calling the French to fight back after German occupation. The speech was made from London to the French via the BBC. You can read the speech in English here. There is more background to the speech here in the Guardian article about great speeches of the 20th century. I didn't realise that De Gaulle had literally just fled France and arrived in London one day before. 

I passed this little ceremony at Place 18 Juin 1940 (you can see the name in the centre of the photo if you have amazing eyesight) by chance this morning. The mayor of the 6th arondissement is the man wearing a sash. It was rather moving when everyone sang the national anthem, La Marseillaise. There were only about 100 people present.  I couldn't get any further back to take the photo as I was already standing on the road - but somehow I felt slightly safe as there were so many police with guns around.

It only struck me today that whoever was living in our apartment in 1940 was under Nazi occuption.

Slightly dangerous?

Note in the above photograph that there are 3 little men signalling when you can cross the street.

Note that there is a red man on the far right and a red man on the far left and man in the middle is green.

I am not sure that it is clear from the photograph but the little man that is green is actually for the part of the road that is furtherest away. The two red signals are for the two interior lanes of the road which are the BUS LANES. 

The Boulevard Montparnasse is now divided like this

Lane 1 (furtherest lane) - normal traffic flowing west (he with the green light)

Lane 2 BUS LANE travelling west (he with the red light)

Lane 3 BUS LANE travelling east (also with red light)

Lane 4 normal traffic flowing east (light must have been green as I am already standing at the bus lane bit)

Do you know how easy it is to look at the furtherest little green man and see he is green and then step out into the traffic - and then get hit by a bus?!!!!

Green Paris

I took this photo from Pont Marie when walking home after lunch in the Marais. Paris is grey for so much of the year. Even the Seine looked green last week.

How not to make a birthday cake

1. Do not make the birthday cake with eight 7 year olds, two 8 year olds and one 2 year old in the house and only one adult.

2. Do not make the birthday cake WITH the above and think you are clever by making two cakes.

3. Do not try and turn cakes out of moulds when cakes are just out of the oven and you realise at the same moment that the cake tins weren't buttered.

4. Do panic when each cake splits into three.

5. Do not assume that icing will fix everything.

6. Do not ice cake when hot.

7. Do not then throw on extra pink icing on to hot cake in hope that this will somehow fix things.

8. Do not be upset when there is only one candle will stand up.

9. Do not be upset that not one child wants a slice.

Les Lalanne or Les Lanannes

It is rare to go to an exhibition and want to take every single object home. The exhibition of the works of the married couple Claude and François-Xavier Lalanne at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs is pure joy. Ignorant Anna had never heard of them before. 

The exhibition includes a bar commissioned by Yves Saint Laurent (which sold at the Christie's YSL sale last year for US $3.5m) and a sculpted grasshopper (1.85m long and opens up to also be a bar) which is similar to the one that President Pompidou gave the The Queen after her state visit to France in 1972.

I also loved this bed. 

But would have been happy just to take home the cabbage.

 Hopefully this link here will take you to the Museum's page for more images. The exhibition is on until 4th July. I'm not sure if you say Les Lalanne or Les Lalannes as the catalogue said one thing and yet the brochure said the other.

And then the car spoke to me

I needed a car for the day. We don't have a car so I rented one from Mobizen. You book by internet, find the car in the specified car park, press your Mobizen card to the outside windscreen, press a blue button and off you go. The key is attached by magnet near the wheel.

All was fine until I came back to the car park in Paris. The car park is tiny and only has room for one car to pass at the entrance. There were two cars waiting to be parked so the attendant said that he would park the car for me. I pressed the blue button again to sign off my use of the car. The attendant asked me to wait while he checked that his Mobizen card would allow him to start the car. It didn't. I used my card to unlock the car but then my card wouldn't let me start the car as I had already pressed the blue button.

I was sitting in the car trying again to start it again and I heard a faint ringing sound. I ignored it but then nearly jumped out of the seat when I heard a voice say "Madame, hello it is Pierre from Mobizen. I see that you have not left the car in the specified car park. Could you please explain what is happening as I can see that the attendant tried to use his card too."

Very big brother.

Sologne

Thursday was the third of the four public holidays that we have this May. Thursday was Jeudi de l'Ascension. I didn't know that 40 days after Easter is Ascension. We have another holiday next Monday for Lundi de Pentecote. I didn't know that Pentecost was 50 days after Easter.  

Schools were closed on Friday to "faire le pont" - make the bridge from the Thursday holiday to the weekend. Isn't it convenient that there is no school on Wednesday? The Friday was just shifted to Wednesday.

We were invited to stay with friends in their family house in Sologne and went for big long walks in the surrounding forest.

Truly amazing photo of Paris

http://www.paris-26-gigapixels.com/

This photograph is truly incredible. You can practically zoom right in through apartment windows! Unfortunately our building is not in it as the photograph was taken from the top of the tower at St Sulpice.

The children spent ages zooming in and out and finding flower pots and cracks on the walls all over Paris.

First day of Spring!

Today is 20th March and officially the first day of Spring. Unfortunately no one told the weather as it is currently raining and Spring is all about bright blue skies.

I was completely surprised to discover in my twenties that the first day of Spring in Europe was 20th March and not 1st March. As an Australian, I had always understood that the seasons changed with the first day of each quarter.

I took this photo of a chestnut tree in the Jardin du Luxembourg last week, desperately searching for signs of green shoots.

Boats in the Luxembourg

Paris is rather short on outdoor activities for children but lazily pushing a wooden boat around the octagonal Grand Bassin in the Jardin du Luxembourg is a wonderful way to pass half an hour or so. The princely sum for this entertainment is 2 euros for 30 mins or 3 euros for an hour. There are 14 boats for rent.  Each child is given a long stick to push their boat from the side of the pond. Unfortunately the only way to lauch the boat is for an adult to get down on their knees and lean over the edge. Mama was not happy that her clean dark jeans were scuffed with Luxembourg gravel.

We were there on a Wednesday morning and while all boats were sailing it was still quiet. Saturday and Sunday afternoons are to be avoided.  There are too many people crowded around the edge to watch the boats and it is very easy to lose sight of your child as they are racing around the perimeter of the lake/pond/pool. The only danger with this sport are the small children weilding long sticks while watching their boats. 

Note the man painting the sculpture in the middle. I wondered how he got to the middle and looked around for a little boat.  He was wearing waders.

This is what I really want.

It is 4.06am. Manon and I have been awake for two hours with jetlag. We got back from Sydney on Saturday night.  I want this coffee from Harry's Espresso Bar at Bondi. I want to walk over the road to the beach.

But how can I complain when I live in Paris?

Another day, another demonstration

 

This demonstration on Saturday was demanding more psychologists to work in schools to help school leavers decide on their next step.  It was organised by the communist Trade Union (CGT) and the left-wing school teachers union. People had travelled from all over France to attend with several thousand participating. There was even a band or two on floats to provide the music.

FH was busy describing the importance of the right to demonstrate in a democracy to Jack. Elizabeth just said, "These people are nuts."

Moving on up!

It may seem rather odd to someone who doesn't live in Paris but we are moving to the apartment upstairs. It is exactly the same layout but it is on the 4th floor and substantially brighter. We will have an extra hour of so of direct sunlight in our apartment every day and we won't need the lights on in the entrance in the middle of summer. We'll be able to see the colour of the sky from the living room instead of having to walk to the window in the dining room.

The slight downer about all of this is that we have to buy and install a new kitchen and paint three bedrooms - within the next 2.5 weeks. We are not too worried about the kitchen as we bought our current kitchen 5 years ago and had it installed in about 4 days.

Unfurnished Paris apartments are rented without kitchens. This may also seem rather odd but the lease term is a standard three years. The tenants upstairs have been in the building for 15 years and the other tenants on our floor have been here for 24 years. There has never been the same obsession with buying property in France as other countries largely because banks used to require about a 40% deposit and the conditions for renting in France are so agreeable for the tenant. Rent is indexed to a government index and can only be adjusted annually in accordance with this. You can only be evicted if the owner or his immediate family want to move back in. If the building is sold, then you as the tenant stay with the building. And if you don't pay your rent you can only be evicted in summer - never in winter and it is a mighty struggle for the landlord.

This is my current patch of sky which will become much BIGGER!