Une flâneuse à Paris.

How fortunate to have lovely Paris friends who have an apartment near the Arc de Triomphe!

We don't get to visit them much as we're too busy here and have a somewhat elderly greyhound who would not appreciate Paris these days, despite the many 'stories' left on the millions of Paris lampposts. I booked a 'Ouigo' train and a return, and set off to then sit at Saumur Station for sometime followed by a limping-along journey - Ouigo is very cheap but that does mean the trains often seem to get borrowed for other missions, or encounter various other problems, but hey, here to Paris for 10 euros - amazing.

                                    The wonderful cross hatch lines of the Paris rail network

When Mark goes to Paris he does the galleries and museums where as I tend to wander about (flanning) and observe the madness that is a vast city; sketch, drink tea and take in the general buzz that we don't really encounter in our small town. The first afternoon - after a complex and long train journey - was a little uninspired - me half awake and slightly aware of the dystopian part of my brain whispering stuff 'imagine what this place would be like after two days of no lorry diesel; the lack of food deliveries, the hospitals,' etc etc. The second and whole day was a proper flanning experience. Refreshed after nine hours sleep (unheard of) I walked for miles, filled half a sketchbook, ate at one of our favourite 'bouillons' (lit. soup kitchen) - the old 19th century canteens that served up basic and nourishing food to working class Parisiens - and now undergoing a bit of a revival. After that, more exploring and then a convivial evening with our friends. 

sore feet . . .

The last morning was less successful as I'd eaten too much and slept too little but I found the energy to explore further. The high point of the day, eating an ice cream in the company of a baby blackbird beneath a huge weeping beech tree who's trailing branches provided a wonderful hideaway from the dust and heat of the afternoon. 

The low point, or rather interesting bit of Paris-waiter-observation was in a café somewhere near Notre Dame. I'd been looking forward to my afternoon cup of tea, chose the café for its interesting people-drawing possibilities, and sat down to wait for the 'garçon' to notice me. Eventually a youth appeared and took my order for English breakfast tea - with milk, which is nowadays totally usual compared to a decade or so back when your request would have been met with a blank look. He appeared back sometime later with the pot of warm water and a bag of Earl Grey, and no milk. I don't - being English - like to fuss, but really! I said I'd ordered English breakfast to which he shrugged and said - c'est la même chose - to which I said it absolutely was not! he huffed, snatched up the paper incased tea bag and returned to pretty much throw it onto the table. Still no milk, so I had to ask someone else twice, by which time the tea was tepid at best . . .

The return train journey back was, of course, very delayed but I sat cocooned in the very comfortable velour seat of the Ouigo (1970s rolling stock) and drew people immersed in their phone-worlds.

Ham corridor

Probably the weirdest and most unwelcoming bit of our new house (now a year new to us) was the strange long 'corridor' on the east side of the house that the previous occupant had decided to tile with what looks like, well, bits of ham, and certainly must have been a cheap deal from a DIY shed wanting to be shot of them. 

                                                                    Re-grouted ham corridor

We got a few quotes for retiling - terrifyingly expensive; or removing them and putting gravel down, or rather us removing them and lorry of gravel turning up, but then as a builder friend said - who know's what is underneath . . . and it's true, they are solid enough, drain water away on the slight slope and it would be an interesting challenge to make their appearance less hideous. So we went for the cheap option: me and a friend re-grouting them, rounding up of baths and containers from recycling places and kind donations from next door. The plants were the more expensive bit but as we'd saved thousands on redoing the tiles a couple of hundred seemed reasonable. Mark tuned up his creative woodworking skills by making surrounds for the plastic baths and training wires along for the rampaging vines which our neighbours have kindly allowed over our wall.

It's suddenly a really great place to sit, and the ham is fading to a slight recollection of the first February day when I saw the house on a freezing grey February day when it was impossible to imagine anything growing, and sitting outside would only be for if you had locked yourself out.

Sobriety and second hand

Or, sobriété, in French, and if you happen to listen to podcasts by Jean-Marc Jancovici, which we quite often do, this word often crops up in his lectures and echoes a lot of what I've had a creeping feeling of dread about for many years - hence the dystopian (with hope) writing. His broad theory is that we have to exercise sobriety or face enforced poverty, and when one thinks about the monumental amount of wastage of everything we as humans have achieved in the last decades, well, maybe it is time stop or at least drastically reduce the overconsumption. 

As our plumber said yesterday with a gallic shrug and wry smile - 'We've partied for far too many years, especially those higher up the food chain, and now we're going to hit the wall.' He drank his coffee and went off whistling to finish fixing up our water-collecting system, which - with my future proofing hat on, and now no well or river, like in our last house - I'd decided an investment was important.

We're still doing renovations at this house - smaller ones now, so inevitably there are trips to DIY places, but we're trying to cut down the trips, or at least join them up with other tasks. One thing we were missing was a pick axe, so after checking the local vide greniers (car boot sales) I found there was one about 6 km away - our new vide grenier rule - no going to any beyond 10 km, preferably even nearer. French boot sales are great for finding old tools, and usually ones that people have taken care to do up - a new handle, the metal polished or painted.

And it was worth the trip: a sturdy old pick axe for five euros, a young tree, a dog lead with Very Important Dog written on it (and she is), old handles for the cellar door Mark is reconstructing (see later post for door in all its glory), a small engraving of a horse by someone who had possibly never seen a horse, and a pair of elegant 1920s? hands which had lost their mannequin body somewhere. I need to justify this purchase really but they were only four euros - price of the hot dog I didn't buy.

Tutored by my mother throughout my early years about waste-not, want-not and making do, I've followed her advice throughout my life and am happy to buy everything possible second hand, although both me and Mark jointly decided that pyjamas might be added to pants and pressure cookers on the might-have-to-resort-to-new list, or make them ourselves - not a bad idea as Mark's leg length always poses a trousers of any sort buying conundrum.