Beautiful Moorhaven, Devon, England

My parents in law live in a remote but beautiful part of England in Devon, between Exeter and Plymouth. Their house belongs to a former psychiatric hospital estate, although it was not referred to in such terms at the time, but it was remote enough and is now considered valuable estate in crowded England. The surrounding countryside is breathtaking all year round and the people are 'just laid back enough' - like I saw yesterday a woman yelling at the postman at 12pm, she was still in her nightgown - mind you, what do you do when it is so cold outside and it is a public holiday!

These are some of my favourite photos :

Sledging on a Tea Tray in England

As we arrived in the UK, the snow situation got more serious: it was not 10 cm, but 40 cm we were talking about. The radio was talking of the coldest winter in record since 1889 (or so).

As we arrived from the airport in my father in law's rental car (to fit us all in and drive up to London later this week), we found ourselves stranded one kilometre down the hill from their house, and we had to walk with our moon boots (snow boots) up the hill with our luggages before we could finally and deservedly enjoy the pleasure of a heated home.

Then, we had a nice leek and potatoes soup, as you do !

Everything seemed normal until the following day when we set ourselves up for a walk in the snow. As we embarked on the walk, my mother in law was holding a tea tray - I did not ask questions. But soon enough the connexion was established: the tea tray was to enact as a sledge for Oscar to go down the snowy hill ! I told Paul that was a good idea, but Paul looked at me puzzled - it was not a 'new' idea, it was how 'it is done'.
Okay ...

Here is a mini-movie that Paul took of this peculiar event :

First Glimpses of England

22 Decembre 2010 - After much delays due to the snow, we finally embarked on our 9 euros Flybe Flight from CDG to Exeter. These are our first glimpses of England where we are about to spend Christmas with Paul's parents and brother.

Ice Skating in Paris, Ice Sculptures & Citroen Cars in Champs Elysés

Today, we went ice skating with Oscar on the parvis of The Paris City Hall where a temporary ice skating ring had been set up. Oscar would not want to stop !
He just loved it.

After that, we watched the kids from the suburbs, taking speed contest, doing rap-pirouettes and very imaginative figures, expressing their masculinity on the ice ring. It was quite poignant, and so much in contrast with the usual feminity expressed in Ice Skating mainstream TV shows.
I just loved it !

Ice Sculptures on the champs Elysé

Citroen latest cars displayed - Champs Elysés Citroen

Opera Garnier & Theatre de la Madeleine

We treated ourselves with two formal outings :

The first one was at Opera Garnier.

We got the last four tickets to see three short modern performances :

• George Balanchine's lyrically abstract and evocative Apollon,
• O złozony/O composite by Trisha Brown  where post modern dance conjugates with classical vocabulary
• Pina Bausch’s legendary Rite of Spring (Le Sacre du Printemps) with its profoundly theatrical dance.

Then, we went to see 'The Three Musqueters' at Theatre de la Madeleine, including lots of sword fighting and very expressive personages. We all loved it.

  

My relationship with Paris & Le Louvre visit

Paris is my city; it is where I was born and I love the fact that 'I can get lost' in Paris without any worry. I can walk without thinking were I am going for a while, and I will always find a familiar metro station when the time comes to reconnect to my reality, and get back home easily.

Yet, as my French friends point out, it can be a stressing place to live.

I am going to illustrate the ambivalent feeling by a personal experience when I went to visit my friend Gilles, one evening by metro. I was travelling alone, it was 7pm, and when we reached the metro station called Chateau Rouge, the train stopped, the lights went out in the wagon and the engine turned off. This was unusual. I thought someone had pulled the alarm in a wagon to stop the train. All passengers were silent. 

Then, I understood what was going on. Some policemen were chasing two men on the opposite platform and I suppose they stopped the train so that they could not escape. The station was full of rough looking guys, and the woman sitting next to me said to me: it is always like that at Chateau Rouge station, it is a Mali Ghetto full of desperate guys who make cash on drug dealing.

I thought I may have underestimated how safe it was to travel in the Metro, which in my mind, had always been an very safe way to travel in Paris. 

Then I stopped at Marcadet-Poissonniere, and as I was walking in the corridor, I heard the most beautiful voice raising from the corridors, a middle-aged black guy singing 'My Way'. As I passed him, I looked at him, giving him a respectful smile of appreciation. He returned it happily, and I felt full of hapiness.

Then, I pondered : only 5 mns had passed by between Chateau Rouge and Marcadet Poissonière, between the worse and the best, and I thought: this is Paris, take it or leave it !

I take it.

Pyramide du Louvre, Venus de Milo et La Joconde (Monalisa).

When my ship sank ...

When my ship sank, all I could see were "les copains à bord".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yR9KYD9OW2c&feature=fvw

First our flight was delayed by three days, then we had the snow storm in Paris, and we lost the 'Christmas presents bag' in CDG Airport - they are still looking for it as we speak and today is the 23/12 around midnight :) but this was nothing compared to the family issues we had to face in Paris.

In the midst of all that, I still felt still privileged, I still got the support of the members of my extended family who showed me all the warmth family can give you. This, to me, demonstrates the value of not narrowing your family to just a few members but to see it as a whole.

I am not of these people who go around to celebrate family sanctity, but I can say that when one is lucky with family, it can be the best thing in the world, 'when' ... I insist 'when' ...

Basically, it has been hellish for me this time, all the more hellish that I knew perfectly that as they are getting old, it could be the last time I would see my parents.

My friends as well carried me; they supported me, and I got through.

I did not take pictures of my friends, I can not even see them, I only see their heart, that is all I care about, and this does not show on a picture, not much anyway.

I only took a picture of Fabienne's tribe the last night in Paris, as Paul has insisted I should - I am also for marriage compromise :) We had the most amazing evening at her place: we left our 5 kids do the cooking and entertain us. They cooked 'Pates aux jambon' (pasta with ham)- what they like !

We just got served, amazing !

I must have done something wrong in my children education, I would have never imagined my kids could handle a dinner for 10 people at 'no notice' in a 'friend of a friend' 6 bedroom Parisian apartment, which was lent to Fabienne (who lives in Aix en Provence) for the occasion.

Everything is possible!

This was great but the most magical was meeting again Jojo & Corinne, their two long term husbands (the lawyer, the heart surgeon) and their 6 children ! They were my BEST high school friends and we had lost touch for over 20 years. Corinne, being a chemist now, said she tried to access my social security number in order to find me, but since I was not in France, she did not find anything. They both had adventurous lives. Jojo promoted breast-feeding in Africa, had triplets while Corinne was raising up 3 boys in Odeon. They did not spend their whole life in France; they had extended stays in the USA, in Argentina, Israel, and finally Paris. I am not sure that these developments are so much in line with what our Traditional Girl High School in Paris (Charles Peguy) was preparing us for (boasting a 97% success rate for the Baccalaureate at the time).

Jojo prepared a sumptuous meal with Lemon Beef and our husbands all got along fine. Jean-Paul (Jojo's husband) had an incredible English upper class accent, it was a pleasure just to listen to him. It was like he was a different person in EN and in FR. Corinne's husband talked more politics. My friends and I sat next to each other, the connexion was instantly re-enacted, the kind of connexion between people when you simply 'feel good' when they are there. The kids were all playing happily together, we did not see them much, and Oscar did not want to leave when it was time to go.

The following day, Corinne showed me her house in Odeon area and I met her oldest son, who studies medicine (+3400 students and only 320 will pass the exam to be admitted in year 2 - but it is FREE!). I explained to Corinne I had to leave in an hour in order to go to the hairdresser to prepare for my parents' 50th wedding anniversary tonight. She immediately rang her hairdresser (Biguine), got me booked and decided to come with me so that we could spend more time together. She had her hair blow dried. Rudi, her favourite hairdresser, said he had at all times moisturizing cream in his jacket that he applied every 2 hours - A bon entendant! Then Jojo came at the hairdresser as well to meet us both up, every second counted, and they took me back by car to my hotel.

So much warmth, it was 'magic'.

I also saw Gilles a few times, once with Evelyne, once with Sandrine that he invited at his home in Montmartre area. Our evening chats would take us until the early first hours of the following day, I had forgotten how I used to live... but got back into it quite quickly :)

Gilles said he may come for a few weeks in Australia and try his talents perhaps on the local French Community Radio during his stay, I'll have to send him a link.

Well, the hardest as usual was to say goodbye, but let's not forget that in 2010, our minds can still be connected thanks to the electronic social networks and facilities, this is unprecedented in the history of human relationships !

Versaillles Aujourd'hui

Juste pour vos yeux !

Beside the chance to see Versailles' exuberant splendour under the snow, we were lucky to attend a guided tour which took us to the impressive 'all wood & curves' Versailles Built-In Opera.

It is still today considered a marvellous technical achievement and three times a month, you can be one of the few privileged people who come to listen to Baroque Music there 'if you are able to appreciate what the wood & curves can do for you'...

In the next few days, we have scheduled family visits in Paris and East of France, and I hear that the train maintenance depots are being stressed right now with all the damage caused by the snow, so many trains are being canx.

One day at a time ...

Not much blogging then.