HARRY

© warner

It’s always really nice to go to the pictures in Paris because firstly, there is much more choice (and with VO there are sub-titles to help me with my French), secondly, it’s cheaper than in England and thirdly, the seats are MUCH more comfy. So today Harry Potter and The Goblet of Fire came out! It’s a sign of how native I’ve gone when I actually found myself asking for tickets for ‘A Reporter’. As usual, I was fairly engrossed in studying the natives – some had even come especially kitted out in Hogwarts uniforms :O – and can you believe they actually clapped at the beginning and end of the film?! Anyway, verdict: the film wasn’t as scary as I’d been led to believe but it’s still eminently watchable (Ralph is fairly gorgeous even disguised as you-know-who) and the specials effects are spectacular! Go see!

THE WONDERS OF MODERN FARMING

Food shopping here is always a treat for me as I never know what I’m going to find next among the funny things with names I don’t know. But today the market surpassed itself when I spied a display of fantastic-looking melons! Making a beeline for them, imagine my surprise when I discovered they were, in fact, GRAPEFRUITS! Mais bien sûr, I had to get one! And sitting next to my prize fruit is a normal-sized satsuma …

BILAN

The pupils at my school have recently been doing their mid-term self-evaluation reports. I was quite impressed by the maturity with which even the first years approached the matter and thought I should take a leaf out of their book. I’ve definitely a lot to think about since I’ve experienced so much in the two months I’ve been here and especially as I’ve been asked if I would like to stay at the school for another year. So, homework is: “Consider lessons learned so far, improvements to be made and aspirations for the coming year.”

VENUS DE MILO

Last week, my studies in the Louvre led me to the lovely Venus de Milo. You know immediately where she is, even from a long way away, and for several minutes I was mesmerised not by her mysterious presence, but by the hoards of tourists busy snapping and filming away. I’m sure half the people were looking without really seeing what was in front of them. It occurred to me that I am in fact very lucky to have the time to really explore these treasures properly. However, I couldn’t help but feel that if Venus still had her arms, she might have been making obscene gestures at us all.

MORE RUGBY

© bbc

Yesterday, I woke up to find snow falling in Paris, it was so pretty but unfortunately it didn’t stay long and by the time the France-South Africa match kicked off later that evening, it had all disappeared. This week-end was the last of the Autumn Internationals and – yippee – all the VI Nations sides won! That is, apart from Scotland who were playing the All Blacks after all. But, yaaay, Italy beat Fiji by 23 -8 with a try by a certain Mirco Bergamasco!

AAARGH - I AM AN E-JUNKIE!

Okay, I admit it. I realise I have a serious addiction problem. This shameful obsession came to light last week when the internet connection started behaving erratically and then disappeared completely. All I can say is that thank God I'm here on my own so no one has had to witness my outrageous temper tantrums in which many foul words, unbecoming of a lady, have been uttered and a cup broken. I realise now that I need my daily fix of John Humphrys in the morning, and if I don’t get to read my emails and catch up on the news of stade.fr and Mirco, I resemble some weird, charlie-deprived craziee. Anyway, the internet has been restored, the toys are all back in the pram and peace reigns once again in my little corner of Paris. I’m sure my neighbours are pleased too.

LE BEAUJOLAIS NOUVEAU EST ARRIVÉ

The new crop of Beaujolais wine is out and apparently there is a tradition at school whereby they dish out free glasses of the new arrival at lunchtime. As you know, I'm always keen not to miss out on the action, so I duly went along to the wine-tasting! Well, take my word for it, I don't think this year is the best for Beaujolais, definitely a bit sharp on the poor palate! Give me a bottle of good old Margaux any day!

DEDICATED TO MY POOR, NEGLECTED FRIENDS

I really must apologise profusely to all my lovely friends whom I neglect on a regular basis by not responding to your emails. Although my Parisian life is very interesting, you might get the (wrong) impression that I’m having a high old time with an action-packed social life, rolling in at 4 o’clock in the morning on a regular basis. But rest assured I AM NOT and that you are NEVER very far from my thoughts. I could, of course, send you emails boring you to tears about my pupils’ little struggles in their attempt to learn English, or with amusing anecdotes about my own day-to-day interactions with the French or with – yawn – more – yawn – rugby, is that what you want? Besides, I did warn you that I wasn’t the best emailer in the world but promise I will set to work replying soon!

MARJOLAINE

There was a great organic exhibition this week-end, full of free-range, eco-friendly, hemp jumper-wearing and alfalfa-sprouting sort of people just like me. I found a great book on my favourite herb, borage, went to a talk on the dangers of all the nasty synthetic chemicals which are overloading our poor bodies (quick pass me the red clover tea) and bought some funny yellow cucumber seeds. But our favourite stand was, of course, the one selling all the different dried herbs in huge sacks. I’ll let you into a little secret though: cornflower tea might look very pretty and be very useful medicinally but it isn’t that tasty!

RUGBY

Well, the blog has rather neglected its rugby recently but this is because there was an interlude while the Top 14 had a little break. However, the Autumn Internationals have begun and last week France beat Australia. It could be said that Australia did not play so well but this would be to detract from France’s good work. Unfortunately, Wales were trounced by the All Blacks, let’s hope they bounce back in time for the VI Nations. At least they won by a whisker against Fiji yesterday, phew. The good news is that England had a GREAT game against Australia (26-16), not much fumbling at the line-out with much more dynamism and team work and Italy won against Tonga (48-0), the BEST bit being that Mirco scored TWO tries! Yaaaay! And as for Stade Français, well let’s just say you win some, you lose some …

MELANCHOLY

© galeries nationales du grand palais

There is a fantastically sombre exhibition called Melancholy which I went to see with some trepidation. However, I thoroughly enjoyed it, obviously it appealed to the morbidity buried not that deeply in my soul. It traces the history of melancholy as a malady through the ages, from its roots in the ancient origins of the word itself (black bile) and its place as one of the humours in traditional Chinese medicine, through to the planetary influence of Saturn, via medical innovations, the development of psychiatry and finishing in our manic depressive modern world. But still, it was nice to get back out into the fresh air and stroll along the Champs Elysées afterwards!

REMEMBRANCE DAY

Today is Armistice Day and, as usual, the French do things differently from us – they have a national holiday and give everybody the day off. And they have cornflowers for hope instead of poppies for peace. Appropriately, the weather was quite grey and brooding and, what with the time delay, I, in fact, observed two two-minute silences.

MONET

Downstairs from the Claudel exhibition, there is a room crammed full of Monets. Being more of a Renaissance girl/Modigliani groupie myself, I’m not a great fan of Monet’s, but what really struck me was that between 1914 -1919, he seemed to have had an obsession with painting waterlilies. WHY? And why, I wondered, wasn’t he jolly well fighting in the WAR? Until I realised that he was born in 1840 and, anyway, might have been a conscientious-objector.

CAMILLE CLAUDEL

There is a lovely little exhibition devoted to Camille Claudel at the moment. Wandering around, I felt touched by the passion and longing in her works, no doubt a reflection of her life with Rodin. I’m no feminist (in fact, I love being wined and dined and having doors opened for me), but watching the (very French) accompanying video, I wondered why she is still defined in terms of Rodin. Arguably he is a great, great sculptor (and, of course, they were lurvers) but in my opinion CC’s work seems quite capable of being appraised in its own right. Then again, maybe it’s because after Rodin and Claudel split, she (tortured soul) was committed to an asylum never to sculpt again and so her work was forever frozen in his shadow. Anyway, in case you get the wrong idea, the exhibition is actually very bright and airy with lots of naked bodies (Sakountala) and movement (The Waltz) and beautifully-sculpted heads (Young Roman) and fun (Les Causeuses).

PONT MIRABEAU: NAVIGATION

NIGHT-TIME BIKE RIDES

I love cycling around Paris at night-time. It’s a truly wonderful experience, especially when going over a bridge across the Seine, you have the Eiffel Tower twinkling on one side and the moon and Venus on the other. Magique!

p.s. I was DELIBERATELY going for the Impressionist-Pointillist effect - honest ;-p!

BONFIRE NIGHT

The 5th of November is Bonfire Night and this year is the 400th anniversary of when Guy Fawkes and his pesky Catholic cohorts tried to blow up the Houses of Parliament. Personally, if today’s MPs and Peers are anything to judge by, it wouldn’t have been such a bad thing if they’d succeeded. However, each autumn before the Queen comes to open the new session of Parliament, the Yeomen of the Guards still check the cellars underneath the Chamber just in case. There are usually great Bonfire Night celebrations in Lewes but this year, I will have to give them a miss. Mind you, there seem to be more than enough fires in the Paris suburbs at the moment, but that’s another ethnic matter. Plus ça change!

LA LA LA

It appears that I live in quite a musical building. During my first week, I was serenaded by the sound of an opera singer warming up across the courtyard. Now, my near neighbours have moved out (just hope it wasn’t something I said, although maybe it was my tuneful warblings along to James Blunt and KT Tunstall that did it) and have been replaced by a clarinet player. Aaah, if you closed your eyes, you could almost imagine yourself at the Festival Hall or the Opera House in Covent Garden.

THERE IS MORE TO THE LOUVRE THAN JUST THE MONA LISA

© louvre

My weekly visits to the Louvre are fabulous, I get to skip all the crowds and I’m beginning to feel as if le passage Richelieu is my very own private entrance! I’m now armed with a proper guide (thought I’d better if I’m to explore this maze properly) and today was spent in the French sculpture courts studying ‘Perseus rescuing Andromeda’ and ‘Vertumnus’ who disguised himself as an old lady in an attempt to win Pomona’s hand (it worked, by the way). The sun was shining through the glass ceiling and making the marble twinkle and it was so peaceful you could even hear the air conditioning in the background. Something I would just like to point out to all the saddos who huddle round the Mona Lisa – mysterious though it is – there are actually lots of other lovely things to see at the Louvre …

VIVE LA DIFFERENCE!

Among the many things that I am noticing on my wanderings around my neighbourhood are the signs that still remain from the war: things like bullet damage to buildings, plaques to various fallen heroes, official notices from de Gaulle. I’m sure we don’t have such things in London from Winston Churchill.

Another thing - they really love their mothers and children here, there is even a seat on the bus especially reserved for ‘mothers who look like they need to have a sit down’! One day, I even saw a special paediatric ambulance called ‘le nounours bleu’ (the blue teddy bear) dedicated purely to picking up poorly children!

And what’s astonishing in a place that’s legendary for its rudeness is that almost everyone is quite polite here: you are absolutely obliged to say good morning/afternoon/evening to everyone with whom you are involved in a transaction, at the end of which, you then have to wish the other person a nice day/ afternoon/ evening/rest of the week/week-end.

And surprisingly some kind chappie even helped me TWICE up the stairs with my HEAVY suitcase when I returned from holiday the other day. It’s surprising when you’re used to London etiquette!

I secretly have to admit that these little things make me feel that Paris is going to be blog heaven!