Fancy a seat at the bus stop?

I took this photograph just before Christmas. I was waiting at the bus stop and thought that someone had dumped their sofa. I was surprised as it was in quite good condition. I was suprised that someone would actually place it in the bus shelter. 

It was only when I saw that the bus stop on the other side of the street also had a sofa that I realised that it was in fact sponsored by Ikea. And no, I didn't connect the Ikea advertising on the side of the bus stop with the sofa. The sofa actually had a price tag on it.

Unfortunately it was drizzly and about -2c. The sofa felt cold.

Not in my street

2.55am  Already awake (thank you, Manon) and hear an explosion.  I assume it is a car backfiring although I am not awake enough to think that I have never heard a car backfiring from our bedroom before.

3am. Jack calls out and I find him in the hall. "Mama, I heard an explosion, I smell something burning and I can't sleep".

I ran to the window overlooking the street to see 2 firetrucks and  numerous police cars outside our building. I assume we didn't hear the sirens as they are turned off when they reach their destination. The firemen were still hosing this car. Another two vehicles were also burnt. This car and the one beside it were from the Red Cross.

It was obviously distressing to have this happen on your doorstep but I felt quite upset when I saw fireman pull blankets from the car. This was a good car. This was a car helping people on the streets by giving them blankets. The other Red Cross car was an ambulance type. It had canisters of oxygen and apparently it was very lucky that they didn't explode. The third car (tiny car with a baby seat in it) was burnt when burning fuel ran down the gutter.

The commissaire de police believed that it was a deliberate attack against the Red Cross as Red Cross vehicles had been burnt in other French cities. Car burning is somewhat of a national sport in France but it is usually associated with outer suburbs and definitely not in central Paris. There was not one mention of the cars being burnt in any French press.

The white on the car roof is a light dusting of snow. The smell of burnt rubber lingered for many days.

Roland Mouret in Paris

I have always wanted to go to a fashion show. Elizabeth's Fairy Godmother was my Fairy Godmother and took me to the Roland Mouret show in Paris. We had front row seats. We sat opposite an Italian it-girl who is often featured in the Satorialist blog and was wearing this season's Valentino shoes (so I was told). People were being snapped left right and centre as we walked in and similary as we walked out. I must admit it was a very nice feeling to sail past those who only had standing seats.

The room at the Westin Hotel was stunning. Mirror panels had been hung around all of the walls and the lighting was extremely low. The dresses were magic and I would happily wear nearly all except the green numbers. You can see all the clothes here and a video of the show here (I am sitting to the right of the guy on the right with glasses).

I was hoping to see Arrrrrna Wintour but not sure if she was there. She could have arrived and left very quickly. Sting was there and we didn't see him either. Too dark.

Fairy Godmother and I then went to Hotel Costes for breakfast (well - the show started at 10am and we had been rushing.). We sat next to two guys from the fashion world who were talking models and shoots and covers. My scrambled eggs were very good. 

"If there was a problem I would tell you"

Manon started at maternelle this September. Manon will be 3 at the end of October. Maternelle is the before-school-kindergarten type thing for for 3,4 and 5 year olds. There are 28 children in her class and there are 3 classes of 3 year olds. There is one teacher and one assistant (who is not trained in child care but is there to help clean up) for each class.

Manon only goes in the mornings from 8.30am to 11.30am four days a week (no school on Wednesdays). She could stay all day but would have a compulsory sleep from 12.30-3pm and finish the day at 4.30pm. FH drops her off in the classroom in the morning and I pick her up at 11.30am in the big hall where she is waiting with her teacher.

Manon's teacher is close to retirement. She seems kind to the children but does not want to do anything extra and that involves talking to the parents. She lives around the corner and likes to leave as quickly as she can at 11.30am and 4.30pm. She will discuss your child but at a scheduled time when you make an appointment.

I have seen other mothers talk to the teacher at pick up and thought that I had the right to at least ask about Manon after the first 3 weeks. 

My first interaction with my daughter's teacher was my question "Everything is ok"? And then I was told "If there was a problem I would tell you".

Mirabelles

One of the delights of our garden is our mirabelle tree. We arrived at the house in mid-August and the fruit was falling so quickly we couldn't pick it all up. I have never lived anywhere with a fruit tree in the garden and so felt obliged to make jam.

I felt so very proud of these mirabelles. I did notice that even though the tree borders onto our nieghbour's field there were very few fruit on the other side of the fence. I had a swift thought that perhaps our neighbour came at night to pick up our precious mirabelles. This was swiftly corrected when I saw the neighbouring cows eating said mirabelles and I learnt that our neighbour has 5 mirabelle trees out of the 40 trees in his orchard.

Our closest town, Sens, has several enormous hypermarkets and each one has all the goodies for making jam. I could have bought enormous copper pans, huge rubbish bin size pans, special burners for the rubbish bin sized pans, paraffin wax, jars, more jars, thermometers, cherry de-stoners and funnels. I came away with jars, a packet of squares of crinkly paper and elastic bands and cheating special jam sugar.

Batch 1 - I read in the lovely Jane Grigson fruit book that mirabelle stones always rise to the surface during cooking and there is no need to prepare the fruit. She is a liar. I lost most of the jam trying to take the stones out at the end and had very very sticky fingers. Two jars saved.

Batch 2 - A small child urgently needed her mother at a crucial moment and Batch 2 was burnt.

Batch 3 - FH made this batch. FH was a believer that any old fruit could be used and that stones would rise during the cooking. Several worms were seen floating at the top of his batch. Batch 3 was discarded but this was only after FH had spent 20 mins taking out the stones. FH is never making jam again.

Batch 4 - Fruit was cut and stones removed. Batch 4 seems to have been a success. Four jars made but two given away.

Batch 5 - Became rather confident with jam making process and make plum jam with neighbours plums. Four jars.

So now we have many jars of jam. The only problem is that none of us eat it.

Apple Picking

We have recently bought a house in the north-west corner of Burgundy. This is prime apple county. Starting at the end of August, you can pick apples at our local farm. They grow twelve varieties but only two were ready for picking this week. We picked Royal Gala as we like them and they were the closest trees.

I have never picked apples before. We were given a box and a wheelbarrow and told to head out into the orchard. It is remarkably easy except there were stinging nettles at the base of some trees which was a little unfortunate. We picked 8 kilos of apples but many of them are rather small due to the small hands that picked them. The apples were 1 euro per kilo and we saved a fortune considering they retail for 3.50-4.50 euros in Paris. The children want to go back this weekend - but what to do with so many small apples?!

Best Canele, Best Oysters

Seaweed butter

Our annual holiday in Cap Ferret is about to end. I have let my phone run out of batteries. It is not all relaxation on this holiday. We have to make three very difficult daily decisions - which market to go to, which beach to swim at and where shall we eat oysters.

It was shopping at the market at Piraillan that we came across the butter. I had completely forgotten about Bordier butter from Brittany. FH read about butter with seaweed through it when we were living in London about 7 years ago. The only place it was available in Paris at that time happened to be at an epicerie opposite the apartment of some friends. We took a precious pat of butter back to London, swore it was the best thing we had ever eaten and promptly forgot about it.

I think Monsier Bordier supplies many top Parisian restaurants  with his  normal butterand I did a quick look online and his butter is now available at Quatrehomme Fromagerie. I think this is rather fatal for our ateries.

It was difficult to take this photo as FH kept grabbing the butered bread to eat . We thought the butter would go well with oysters but actually it competes with the salty oysters and is far better on its own. It takes just like butter with seaweed - deliciously creamy and salty. I am embarassed to say that the two of us got through all of the butter in 5 days.

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.