I am not a good lingerer. When dinner is over, there is no picking at the cheese platter or mulling over fine port for me.

I must go home. I must be asleep.

preferably with the port.

Tags: brisbania
Current Location: the blue house - bedroom
Current Mood: reflective
Current Music: the cat mieows

It seems I have returned to prime critter season, not only fending off a huntsman easily the size of my hand upon days of arrival, only this morning seeing the shadowed approach of massive legs and cephalothorax across the opposite side of the shower glass and even rescuing a meter long grass snake from the clutches of my cat but three days ago - you'd never be expected to do anything so gauche in France.

Our stay in Paris was characterised by typically dismal weather (though the occasional splurge of bright blue across the sky kept us hoping against hope for a warm change amid the drizzle and icy wind) and a desperate attempt to see every inch of the city, again, before the fortnight was out.

Mum and I were quite the prime sight seeing machine - with Caitie too, before she sadly had to leave us earlier than planned for unexpected problems with uni, poor duck - while dad preferred to linger around cafés or a good few steps behind us, munching on a baguette or trying to keep his industry sized video camera dry. We had some grand moments. Let's see if I can sum up our entire Parisian experience in a few photos:

On the flight over from Venice, Caity and I sat with the Venetian hockey team, all of whom were (mysteriously) travelling via Easyjet.



We stayed in Montmartre on the rue l'epic, which is literally a few meters up the hill from the Moulin Rouge - a quite heavenly part of Paris, if a little naughty at times!



Further up the hill was the glorious Sacre Coeur and the first time I asked Caity to pose for this photo she tripped over the little stone step she's standing on and fell flat on her face. Poor duck!



The view across Paris from the Sacre Coeur is amazing - but I digress, this is only day one! I shall never get through Paris at this rate!!



Evidence of some blue sky that fortnight. Lasted just long enough that day to get down the Champs Elysée. En route we decided to try some typically Parisian fare so Caity and I went to McDonalds whereupon we discovered that, unlike the wide and at times extreme inclusive variety of the English, the French have no need or desire for vegetarian customers.





Then a tramp stole one of dad's gloves and the day turned grey (two totally unrelated coincidental events) so we went to the pub across the road from our apartment. Le Caffé des Deux Moulins - from Amélie fame, as chance would have it (not really chance of course, since M&D knew it was there, having stayed there before, but maybe chance once upon a time).



The next day, we found a glove, though it wasn't Dad's.





And went to the Jardin des Plantes to see les animaux (les pauvres) in their cages



Even went to the monkey house - though it was (mostly) empty


Then on to the absolutely freezing Luxembourg Gardens for an entirely (hopefully) unrepeatable experience of cold weather. Not quite comparable to the utterly glorious weather when I was last here

On Caitie's second last day we went to Sainte Chapelle, which was unbelievably (although maybe not so unbelievably, given the time of year and the weather) quite empty of tourists.



And then (for some inspired reason at the time - eminently regrettable later) Mum, Caity and I decided to climb the towers of Nôtre Dame.





Afterwards we were well knackered and had to go and eat.

Energy renewed we did what any selfrespecting tourist would do. We climbed (I say "climbed", there was an elevator involved) the Eiffel Tower.







It was foggy, so we only went to the second niveau. But it was just beautiful.

Here's a très blurry picture of Dad and Caity.


Little Caity posing in front of Moulin Rouge at Blanche mètro - our apartment was up the hill fifty meters to the right!


In the Louvre.



dad reading newspaper - in the louvre



Off to see the Monet with the scary curators (I say curators, they were more like hired muscle) who positively shouted out sans flash whenever someone went to take a photo - even though they already knew! - but who (in a moment of paranoia, worthy of the old US administration) kicked a woman of the gallery out for putting her bag down by her feet and then taking a step back from it to take a photo.



But all that besides they were beautiful.

Then on Caity's last day we went to Versailles and my camera ran out of battery (bad planning, Jessie).



But not before I got a photo of us hiding under some topiary, eating our lunch where we weren't supposed to!



That's Part One of Paris - stay tuned, or at least keep checking periodically, for Part Two and Beyond!

Tags: and that's where i saw that in france, france, paris, world of the guilty vegetarian
Current Location: bed, brisbane
Current Mood: hungry
Current Music: weaving is a man's game. honestly, my dad weaves, my grandad...

Today I boarded a train I’d never taken before. It was taking me back to London on a Friday evening. My friends were staying out but bc I didn’t have key I had to come home. But of course the physical notion of home is utterly displaced now I have left Newport properly from home. Home is hardly my cousins’ house in London (no matter how welcoming), nor is it really my recently vacated cottage anymore (though if anyone offered it to me again I’d probably leap at the chance to move back in). once upon a time it was unequivocally the Blue House in St Loo. Am not so sure now. Probably won’t be sure till I get back (Tuesday) and find out for myself.

Tags: cottage, leaving
Current Location: london urk
Current Mood: sad
Current Music: chilver rhymes with silver

my favourite story on the BBC today

Current Location: budapest
Current Music: wishing we could be you living where you live where is that again?

I suppose it's time I updated since leaving Essex - it has been a while.

Currently in Paris - weather ghoulish but city still divine.

Leaving my cottage for good was heartbreaking - it's still my favourite place so far after the Blue House - even beating Ambleside (bc, of course, no Greggers or TBD) only tulips and lovely field. But I cleaned it up really well and even left some essentials I couldn't bring myself to throw away (like olive oil and sugar) for the next resident which the landlady said was okay and very kind of me (she's probably going to just throw them out but...). She also said my cleaning was so good she might not bother drycleaning the floors and that I didn't have to scrub off my paintings from the door and wall of the spare room. Hurrah!

So I left Newport on a sad, foggy, drizzly day - much the same spirit in which I arrived but this time with much more behind me (though still not much more surety ahead!). But we even had snow for a day two which was a great bonus - yay!






We pottered down to London which is a hideous city and shan't be sad to leave it behind - I got lost bc Dad took the map and then told me to meet him somewhere obscure which no one could ever find and which the British had signed, but which I suspect had been signed in the style of World War Two where all the signs are turned the wrong way to confuse the Germans.

We stayed with our wonderful cousins and their bub before leaving them a bit of peace for their parenting and heading Venice.

Venice is a great singular, molding, damp-so-it's-just-a-bit-whiffy, crusty labyrinth, built on wooden piles driven into the ground (wtf!?) and leaning ever so slightly and slowly to one side. It's a bulbous, richly decaying, scented cheese, swelled within the moist cloth of its canals, a poignant (pungent) timeless place, where the locals can hardly contain their fur-dressed distain of tourists, despite tourism being their only real industry.

Venice looks like this when it's sunny

piazzale de san marco

and like this sometimes too



and then the next minute like this



in venice the writing is on the wall - every wall



some leaving very thoughtufl philosophical questions for those around them to ponder


So that was venice.

Next I'll put up a picture blog of Paris since I've already posted so fervently about Paris back in August.

The bathroom sink in our tiny tiny apartment bathroom is an unhappy, leaky chappy. So dad is (was) in there 'tinkering' with it. Dad is the least tinkeringish sort of person I know. I hope he suggests we call the landlady and let her deal with it!

Now, I'm going to bed - people come and go from our apartment building at all hours (is there something dodgy going on?) the door buzzer is a real bore, BUZZ all night long to let in the lurkers. Also, a drunk person walking up this wooden staircase makes an awful lot of noise. So I am a little short on sleep.

Besides, it is très late and I have another day of touristing tomorrow.

Tags: cottage, i miss all the ivy, the cousins, this city has a lot of stuff, venice yo!
Current Location: paris, montmartre
Current Mood: sleepy
Current Music: sirens and cries of the comings and goings of rue l'epic

we're actually in paris at the moment but you'll have to wait for an update there.

meanwhile:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20126911.300-our-world-may-be-a-giant-hologram.html?full=true&print=true

we may be living in a holographic universe...

Tags: science urk
Current Location: paris - montmartre
Current Mood: coughy
Current Music: the sleeping sounds of my family sleeping

An absolutely triumphant midnight mass - the choir sang incomparably beautifully and the whole service was magic.

Was difficult to get up this morning after only a few hours sleep (how old we are that we're no longer able to just spring from our beds at the possibility of presents). Spoken to Mama on Skype and opened all my lovely presents from wonderful family and friends. Now have room on my little christmas shelf to put the family's gifts (which they'll get Sunday morning after the long trip to my place from Heathrow). This is the only pic I could find at the moment - I'm not incredibly unloved, this pic was taken before any presents had been put out (see the flag on the right? that's from my form along with a great parcel of "Englishness").



Now I'm heading up to help out at the church lunch up the road and then (hopefully with a nap before) to the Vicar's for Christmas dinner!

Christmas in England is very different, and despite my longing for home and all this silly chilly weather, it's actually rather charming here - all yellow light shining out into the darkened streets, fairy lights everywhere, the anticipation though of course with absolutely no likelihood) of snow. It actually makes one want to go out wassailing or some such pursuit.

It's not too cold today - not even the predicted frost this morning. Shaping up to be a chilly weekend though. And then the parentals and Caity arrive! Hurrah!

Tags: anglican hurrah!, christmas, i miss my mummy!, the strange manner of the english
Current Location: newport - cottage
Current Mood: excited
Current Music: laa laa laaaa la la it's christmas time (sufjan)

I'm a bit of a sad berk this evening - I now know what it's like to have nothing to do Christmas Eve. Am sitting around waiting for choir rehearsal to start at 10pm for midnight mass. Having exhausted the bbc iplayer, watched Kings Nine Lessons and..., "The African Queen" (cor!), prepared the service music for the choir, made a lovely thai green chicken curry and even brownies for the vicar's family tomorrow, I gave in and called Barbara (the vicar) and asked if I could pop up a good hour and a half early just so I could "prepare for the service" - really, better to be doing something than loitering about fretting over it. Anyway, I have some harmonies to check, some descants to copy and maybe even should practice conducting for once (seeing as I'm going to have to and am so useless at it generally that I'd better be as prepared as I can be).

Well, I have Sufjan on the ipod and am in an actual English Christmas - I may as well spend it out in the village!

Merry Christmas everyone!

Tags: anglican hurrah!, christmas
Current Location: newport - cottage (not for long!)
Current Mood: restless
Current Music: take a walk out in the snow and hear santa's ho ho ho la la la la la la la laaa!

"I have started to spend a little bit more money
on set honey
with thick buttery underskirts
it slathers my breakfast experience"

also

"This is a red pen...
...never fear... I have
the one, it is ferocious!
There's very little
to scare me out here
but, possibly,
this"

and some old stream of consciousness while on the tube:

"a young still unjaded temp who is building her wardrobe as she does her career - features still clean lines, rosy complexion. beside her the dogged lined and jowley professor whose thick rimmed glasses only accentuate the heavy grooves round his eyes. a persistent red spot is the only colour to his pallid moist complexion an angry looking pustule just on the edge of his hair line - chasing it into recession, it seems. the aging literary type, hair quickly thinning at the brow. Beside him, the other side, sits the thick-necked competitive sports loving lawyer who plays indolently with his mobile phone. there's no reception down here but it beats having to use his imagination to pass the time."

Did I mention it's almost Christmas?

Tags: gm food of the uk, the strange manner of the english, what i done in london town, writing
Current Location: cottage - newport
Current Mood: pottering and still hungry
Current Music: from jesse's stem hath sprung

"Right," said the man - he was balding prematurely from the strain of big business, wearing dungarees, socks under sandals and a feather fleece over his polo shirt capable of withstanding many minus degrees of coldness - "I'm heading out to the moor."

He said it with such confidence. A confidence he really felt. As he stood up the words only shook in the ears of of those sitting near; a fellow at the bar dropped his pint and the couple behind him quickly left in hushed whispers looking back at the man like at a ghost over their shoulders.

I was cleaning out the cottage and found this on my desk - not sure where it was going, but clearly I was in a State of Mind (where I have Ideas but nothing that comes of them) for on the same piece of paper were scrawled the following quotes from various sources:

"still a city of aquatint"
"lovely lady with the eye. you've only got one, but it's a good one!"
"here, at the age of 39, I began to be old"
"that low door in the wall which opened to an enchanted and enclosed garden not over looked by any window in the heart of that grey city"

I think I must have been watching or reading Brideshead at this point.

Meanwhile, only three days (two days?) to Christmas. How has this happened?

Tags: brideshead visited, christmas, writing
Current Location: cottage - newport
Current Mood: curious and a little hungry
Current Music: oh sisters two how may we do for to preserve this day

I spent most of today working - the only other things I did were:

1) walked in a lot of cold, schmizzly rain
2) made a tasty dinner (and ate it)
3) wrote part of a letter to my mother
4) did absolutely no marking (which should be discounted as something "did" except the act of not-doing it was so extreme as to warrant at least acknowledgment of some sort).

Shall be off timetable for the next three days - Yr 11 Expressive Arts exams, then Drama exams (and my course on Friday) mean I'm setting a lot of cover, but also getting time to collect my thoughts. Not that off timetable days aren't just as wearying as teaching - but at least there are less kids involved.

The ABC has taken down its daily comprehensive bulletin, for which I am well displeased. I am forced to watch SBS which has the succinct international quality, but not the local content to keep me satisfied. I'd been so used to watching a half hour broadcast every morning as I got ready for school; one without all the sensational talking-heads of the British news, with just a hint of local flavour.

PS - I miss quality fish and chips (ie. M&D I'll be needing AnB (and probably a veggie kofta) upon my return tout suite).

On the subject of meat - here's a little dogmatic something I found on my flist

Tags: adventures in food, i laugh at the english weather!, teachers united!, world of the guilty vegetarian
Current Location: newport
Current Mood: nappy-much?
Current Music: the bbc get insultingly personal - advertising in politics

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/book_extracts/article4915359.ece

Could you please just click this link http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2008/10/world_animal_day.html
Some amazing shots to remind us of the big picture after a long day.

Wrote a poem on the train home from Cambridge today - inspired by a title I thought of over dinner in London on a school theatre trip. James ordered a plate of whitebait and when this mountain of little crunchy yummy fish arrived he looked at it disgusted saying it wasn't what he expected (duh). It's rather a work in progress still.

The Meaningless Death of a Fish
- Ode to Whitebait -

At dinner, I dine on a
gross extravagance:
a plate of fried indulgence.

My arteries silently curse the delicious little fillets
as I crunch up tiny bones
heads and tails and all
and pause to ding a sharp and miniature vindictive fin
from between my teeth with a toothpick.

I hold one up to the light
and examine him:
a deep-fried pair of inches from head to tasty tail.

Do my reflections on the life of this little fellow
(impaled here upon my fork)
validate my eating? Especially compared with
the countless corpses remaining unconsidered,
waiting to be consumed,
on the plate before me.

Am I really a monster? Doesn't all
this philosophy

justify

the deaths of so many?

Tags: adventures in food, gm food of the uk, teachers united!, what i done in london town, world of the guilty vegetarian
Current Location: newport - home - glass o'wine
Current Mood: contemplative
Current Music: yet all of these bastards have taken his place he's forgotten and not yet gone

ADDIT: Old old post for starters: I started this post a long time ago - a lot of random thoughts from the past month and am not sure what pictures are in it... so here's hoping they're nothing I'm going to regret.

1. In honour of my little sister blister piglet pie's birthday today here is a photo of



Leonie and a haycorn.

2. I wore the beanie Ooaah made me right across Devon - because we had neither hair straightener nor hair clips. Now I know why people turn to dreads. Well, why some people turn to dreads.



3. Breadcrumbs make food better.

But here's is a tasty fish that didn't need'm.




4. Is it wrong that I always read it as "scientists searching for Higgs' Bison in the Large Hadon Collider?" Keep searching for them bison, fellas! They'll a-turn up one day.

5. Leo came to visit all of a sudden on Saturday (the other day). We ate marvelous things made - like roast chook and berry crumble - and then stripped the chicken and made a delicious chicken pie. We walked three and a half miles almost to Rickling - the most sumptuous country walk in my time here - among hedgerows picking blackberries, along the old 17th century london road and all the time feeling quite sensationally at risk of highway men (if only!). She went home and it stopped being holidays any more.


leo consults our "map"


jessie ignores the public footpath signs




a wee old chapel-turned-barn


jessie looking rather fat and contemplative


leo: will there be highway men?
jessie: if only!


the original london road - for ye olde horse and cart (and legs of leonie)


the church tower you can almost see in the background is newport st mary's


a haycorn


blackberries on a sunny september morning


quite the bounty of nature and all that


my garden some months ago when arriving home from france


my garden after a bit of a trim


pie before baking

Tags: adventures in food, country gardens, expats unite, i laugh at the english weather!, i miss all the ivy
Current Location: newport - in bed
Current Mood: sooooo sleepy!

it was seven o'clock this evening, and I had just finished tea, when they started the sow the new crop out the back field. very noisy it was too!

strange, since I didn't once hear the combine-harvester harvesting the thing last week.

last weekend, my neighbours offered to pull down my over-run crop of ivy - and then weeded my garden too!
now the backyard is very bare, and I have to say (I feel so ungrateful) a little bit sad and ugly too.
I did so like the overgrown fairy-garden it was before.

I hope it grow back soon!

Tags: country gardens, i miss all the ivy
Current Location: bed
Current Mood: rather exposed

when you're eating dessert, *when* does the icecream and the Angel Ddelight cancel out the blueberries - and when do the hiding brownies become bad for me and the whipped cream an extra unhealthy lifestyle choice?

Tags: adventures in food
Current Location: bed - home
Current Mood: philosophical
Current Music: the moods, the late night phone calls, the binges...

Darling Zel!

I haven't sent any sort of wonderful gift over just yet - but it will come, I promise you!

I hope you have such a *happy* birthday! Will be thinking of you and hope wet and wild is part of your fabulous plan and all sorts of other lovely things.

It's pretty much winter here - in that, they needn't really bother with all that Autumn nonsense - it gets cold whenever the sun creeps behind the clouds now.

Can't wait till I'm home next year - but every now and then I wonder if I'll miss it here.

Besides that, Happy Birthday, jelashke.

Tags: i laugh at the english weather!
Current Location: england someplace
Current Mood: missing home a tad

I made tremendous scones today!



And because this is a day of abject laziness, I'm now watching David Attenborough tell me all about cold blooded animals - what fun!

ps. That tale about the frog churning milk to butter is rubbish - it was impossible to whip cream with a fork. So what hope does a little frog have?! So there's no way he could tread fast enough to churn milk into a milkshake let alone butter. So fables are crap - it is established through thoughtful practice. And scones.

Tags: adventures in food, gm food of the uk, summertime and the livin' huh
Current Location: not just tea, but floral arrangements
Current Mood: enthralled
Current Music: i'm a chinese dancing horse - look at my hooves of cress

I came home last night and painted a panel of the spare room door with a picture of my garden


Then today (my amazing adventures included) I went to Tesco on another (urgh) £40 visit - cor! the money I spend on wistful food shopping. I battled with myself in the chicken aisle : Tesco was selling 700g of chicken for £5 but then the sad little (invisible) eyes of the unhappy, cramped and abused caged birds looked out at me and I pottered over to the happy organic and ethically treated chicken. Of course, £5 hardly even buys you seven grams of happy organic and ethically treated chicken and the poor things still have to die so you can eat them, and so in the end I bought a couple of yorkshire trout instead.

Choir rehearsal went better than I expected it to, with a good sound and (with me helping the tenors) at least some confidence in the music. I finally appreciate the frustration induced by consistent poor attendance (especially when made to sing tenor every week). This is probably what musicians call karma.

Today has been a lovely day, mostly of eating with Pride and Prejudice in the background. Vegetable stir fry, stewed applesies with yoghurt and icecream (melted - och!), camembert (bc I could) and lovely raisin toast (oh! raisin toast). One day, the English will manage to make raisin loaf as big as an ordinary loaf of bread and then the world will rejoice.

Tags: adventures in food, gm food of the uk, once upon a time i had savings, the oc is more glam than my life, world of the guilty vegetarian
Current Location: front room, dining table, united kingdom
Current Mood: full of buttered bagel
Current Music: we're changing the bus timetables but not telling you when!

I sat here, talking to the parentals, rugle and caity for a good ten minutes, thinking I had the kettle boiling but it wasn't even plugged in.

Foiled! by my eco-friendly hosts.

I shall work through my Saturday in reverse:
Last night Leo, Sammers and I walked up to Blackheath (which was divinely terror-making in the dark and actually where Boudica hungout with her crew of hardcoreness) and across to the Princess of Wales pub - which raised the unanswerable question, who's the current Princess of Wales which seemed interesting-at-the-time. Really, I dare you to google it.

Before this Leo made a phenomenal dish called an AUBERGINE CHARLOTTE (for some reason auto-check tries to replace Aubergine with Aborigine) which sounds rather like how gangsters might exact revenge on other in the 1920s but which was delicious (and nutritious).

I arrived home to her making this extraordinary dish of gangster despair (but also vegetable fabulousness) after spending the afternoon with my absolutely brilliant cousins and their BABY who is too heavenly. Such a duck!

(obviously back in Newport photos will be added to illustate all this)

a plethora of photos to follow!






not quite what you think


my hosts get cosy in a telephone box


Leo made yum yum yum food for us all


view across the heath at night


a poor unfortunate - just an ordinary dog


walking to church


st michael's


the beautiful bub and his happy mum!




such a happy boy!


the little duck and his dad

Tags: adventures in food, expats unite, tea heals all wounds, the cousins, what i done in london town
Current Location: the house of my friends and land of fox and fat birds
Current Mood: missing brisbane
Current Music: have you got a rabbit bc i don't want onions you horrible man

Posting from their home in Lewisham.

It's almost 2.30pm and I really must be leaving to see Stu and Sach's little bub - but Leo and I have spent all morning hiking around the Lewisham High Street (I bought a dustpan-and-brush, fitted sheet for the bed and some art supplies - all highly necessary for life) and I'm utterly exhausted!

Still, must be off - babies await.
And I have bought flowers!

ADDIT: Meanwhile, I drank three cups of tea over a breakfast of fried wonderfulness, washed down with a coffee and the weather's beautiful!

Tags: expats unite, i laugh at the english weather!, tea heals all wounds, the cousins, too many stairs in london town!, what i done in london town
Current Location: lewisham - parental's place
Current Mood: weak (but BABIES!)
Current Music: only solution to leaving carbon footprint on the carpet - give up travel

I tried to convince myself I wouldn't take Yorrick to London with me this weekend.

But then, I thought, perhaps I could use the trip there and back to write my long-overdue scheme of work on Cloud Nine? That could potentially add up to an hour of solid work each way!

I am so convincing when I try.

Tags: what i done in london town, why i'm glad i went to school in austral
Current Location: newport
Current Mood: a small bee with teeth
Current Music: I would go out tonight but I haven't got a stitch to wear!

I made veggie chow mein with what I thought, perhaps, were too many noodles.

Turns out you can never have too many noodles.

I am too zen for you, grasshopper.


In other news: the people next door are laughing. This is the first time I have heard any noise from them since I moved in last January. I hate to think how loud the shenanigans in my cottage sound. Or possibly they just laugh very loudly.

Possibly they are also very zen.

Tags: adventures in food, gm food of the uk, world of the guilty vegetarian
Current Location: front room - cottage - newport
Current Mood: bah!
Current Music: pay up or we'll break your legs

On Friday I watched the first episode of SeaChange, which I hadn't seen for a good ten years - do you remember that show? Sigrid Thornton (SPLC Alumna) and David Wenham's debut as an Aussie sex-icon. I couldn't find the rest of the season online - which was a shame - I remembered just how much I liked its terribly bittersweet comic-drama of a Saturday (Friday? Sunday?) night. Even looked up buying the series on amazon, ebay and at the online ABC shop but despite time and the inevitably dwindling popularity of a good decade no complete box set was being sold for less than $100.

But it has marked itself (strangely?) as one of those shows that - as an expat - resonate with a little silly bit of australian nostalgia. Like old episodes of The Games ("John is an aphid"), or any Clarke and Dawe skit shown on the online 7.30Report Friday nights.

Or, of course, Round the Twist



Recently it's been raining incredibly all of a sudden, and then stopping with Brilliant sun and blue skies and then heavy cloud and it pours again - whoosh!. Doubtless it'll last all Summer.

Cor! There was even some thunder there!

This evening for tea I made a Roasty Toasty Vegetable Tart of such deliciousness I ate half before resigning myself to an early night.

I came back from France thinner (I do use this term rather lightly) than I've been for a long time since my gluttonous lethargic life as a teacher in the rural uk. I'm not sure how long it's going to last.

I eat it because I love it. That is the nature of true love. And true gluttony.

and for a bit of medieval lolering.

Tags: adventures in food, i grew up in brisbane in the nineties, i laugh at the english weather!, the french eat decadence for lunch, world of the guilty vegetarian
Current Location: just close your sad rag and clear! we're doing minimalist!
Current Music: far more suitable as a friend than poor sad old patsy

so you try to do your bit - both for the ground and the little cows too.

and then the organic milk goes off after only a couple of days!

cor!

Found some great net curtains for the two front rooms, but nothing yet to fit the spare room. However, the charity shops in Saffron Walden are terribly fabulous so I'm sure something will come up.

It is alternating sudden rain with gloomy cloudy days. Making it even more tempting to stay indoors.

To pass the time, I have been practising watercolours - with varying success.
I'm also painting a scene on the wall above my bath.

Well - I am drawing a scene which may, one day, be painted above my bath. Colour rather escapes me. It's rather Aubrey Beardlsey-ish, the pic of a lady drinking from a cup (like what which mum drew on my 22nd birthday card) and a fountain of fabulousness.

I have endless plans for the spare room which never quite come to fruition. Still, maybe one day they will be realised.

I think more raisin toast is required.

Tags: domestically divine, gm food of the uk, i laugh at the english weather!, saffron walden is ridiculously quaint, world of the guilty vegetarian
Current Location: newport - front room
Current Mood: prooooductive?
Current Music: men, men, men! alright basses. now tenors - splendid. now remember! diaphragms!

My trip home was an absolute beast.

British rail is tremendously signed - far more decisively signed than the French who just assume you know where you're going - but the signs are always wrong.

It took me three hours to get from London to Newport - that's the distance it took me from France!

Once home, I set about doing the washing and other such useful household chores, like cleaning the bath and drinking some fine south african wine.

I was met at the door with a host of mail - all bills from various energy and telephone providers - with the exception of a letter from my little blister and an article from the Australian Magazine mama thought I might like to read (darling mum).

This morning looks to be one of delightful domestic chores - Saffron Walden for the shopping (which I could order online but perhaps I'll be more restrained if I buy it in persons) and then Cambridge, for other bits and pieces.

I need to buy some herbs, for the garden (which I hope to get into this afternoon) and I want to do some better sort of curtains for my bedroom to keep out the sun in the morning.

What a picture of domesticity I am when I try!

oh - btw - my awesome shoes


two days later:

meanwhile - in between buying curtains and cooking (such cooking! tonight I made a potato, avocado, zucchini, chicken breast, clove of garlic, half a capsicum and a shallot into a wondering dinner!) - I have been watching the tragi-comic adventures of Kevin and Winnie's true-love-to-be in endless wonderful episodes of The Wonder Years.

I can't believe those kids are so young! They seemed so grown up when I was a kid!

Tags: country gardens, domestically divine, saffron walden is ridiculously quaint
Current Location: newport - home
Current Mood: delivered by ninjas
Current Music: uh kevin, what's that on your face?

best way to describe sainte chapelle is in pictures, so sorry to those of you using dialup
( Sainte Chapelle divides the classes with Extreme Decadence )

Then I went to ( the Conciergerie (which is very difficult to stop spelling) )

And finally, proof that french men actually wear berets - though their function is utterly beyond me


Finally, Françoise took me to ( Ladurée on the Champs-Elysée for afternoon tea )

probably my last update in france - unless i update again : D

Love to you all! see you again in England!

Tags: and that's where i saw that in france, france, paris
Current Location: montparnasse
Current Mood: celebrated!

I just ate the most unethical meal ever.

Jean-Claude treated Françoise and I to dinner at Le Bofinger (it doesn't sound that funny in french... actually, I lie, it's still pretty funny), near the Bastille. After the absolutely amazing meal, fois gras, veal fricassée and sorbet, we took the heavenly walk back across Paris to Montparnasse.

The sky dripped with pink and purple and all the landmarks Paris could offer stood in silhouette against the sunset. Inside buildings, lamps lit up rooms brilliant molten gold and it seeped out gloriously onto the streets. Even the colour of the light at dusk here is different: a real deep blue colour - quite unlike even England.

I made a few lovely scribbles at the Jardin des Plantes today, and even flirted with a delightful (if possibly quite dodgy) french lad by the metro map when lost (just a little bit) at Jussieu Metro.

After coming home for a short rest and heigh ho to folks back home, Françoise and I went for a long walk through St Germain, to the Royal Palais, past St Chapelle and so on and so forth all the way to the Marais - a simply heavenly district of cultural variety and spontaneity. It's also a strongly orthodox Jewish area and very open Queer district. Even better it has amazingly fabulous icecream which the vendeurs arrange on the cone in the shape of a FLOWER.

I wish wish wish I had remembered my camera bc, as chance would have it, we saw many wonderful things.

We arrived at the Bastille an hour early so F and I sat in a café waiting for Jean-Claude. They brought me peanuts with my wine.

JESSIE: *offers Françoise a nut*
FRANÇOISE: no, I do not like zem
J: what's wrong with peanuts?
F: I zink zey are for zee monkees.7°

This is my ramble done for the day. I do have plenty of pics of the macabre stuffed animals from the Jardin des Plantes, but I might put them up another day.

An early start tomorrow: Ste Chapelle, La Conciergerie, La Louvre des Antiquaires, Le Café Ladurée on Champs Elysée, then the Musée Picasso... if I'm not exhausted.

I come home on Sunday. Must remember milk and cheese. And bread. Oui?

( Jardin des Plantes - stuffed animals and MORE )

Tags: france, paris, the french eat decadence for lunch

view from my window at night (sacre coeur far away in montmartre in the background)

Today's adventure took me (finally) to the Louvre

JESSIE: *very cleverly tries to buy a ticket for the museum in French*
HANDSOME YOUNG FRENCH MAN: *in JKR phonetic dialogue* Eef you like-uh, mlle, wee can speak English.
JESSIE: *mildly put out not to have fooled the boy with my savvy foreign speak* how very kind of you, HYFM. Though I really ought to practise, I could be persuaded...
HYFM: D'accord. Zen, I not sell you tickeet unless you ask-uh in French.

I used a lot of hand signals. My mime skills have improved ten-fold since arriving here. Often I'll do little demonstrations for Jean-Claude - since he doesn't speak much English, and at times the French just escapes me, I do little pantomimes which don't often make a lot of sense, but always get a chuckle.

As for the museum itself, I was rather disappointed. Certainly there's a lot of brilliant Art in there, but it's poorly displayed, poorly lit (either too dark or too bright you can hardly make it out for the reflection on the varnish), poorly signed and full of people who'd rather see the paintings through a lens.

Now, don't get me wrong - I took photos - I have something of a collection of them on facebook, ones I really wanted to remember I saw... but at least I *looked* at them first. Which is the whole point of paying the nine euro entry fee, right? Right? Otherwise why not buy a book about it and stay home? At least the photos will be of a decent quality.

Because I went so late in the afternoon, I didn't get to do any drawings. I was knackered with all the walking around, trying to figure out where I was and shutting out the vocal middle classes anyway.

How come I so knackered? What had I done all day to warrant leaving the Louvre till 4pm in the afternoon?

Why I went shopping, of course! Meant to buy lovely gifts for the family, you know, but it didn't quite work out that way...

JESSIE: I'll just try this on. So I know what size to get Caity, of course —ooh! It fits so well!
CASH REGISTER: cha-ching!
BANK CARD: did you know I work internationally?

Between shopping and the Louvre, I had lunch at Jean-Claude's: cold meat, paté, salad and strawberries. Oh, and bread. I've never eaten so much bread.

It was even on the news tonight.

The french do love their bread.

It's hot here - 32° today. Too hot for bread, you might think?
It's never too hot for bread in France.

( potentially hypocritical snaps taken at the louvre include )

and finally:

the mad pigeon that lives outside my window - if you zoom in on the bird you can see its crazy eyes!

Tags: but i haven't got a stitch to wear, france, paris
Current Music: it's impossible to be unhappy in a poncho!