Back in France Again February 28, 2009

Well I’m back again, and although I enjoyed my week at home it absolutely sped by and I couldn’t believe it was time to leave again this morning. My flight over to Exeter last Friday didn’t go completely according to plan; although there were no hitches getting to the airport and the plane took off on time, about halfway through the flight the captain came on and told us they’d had a weather update from Exeter which informed them of some low-lying fog which might prevent us from landing there. He said they’d review the situation when we arrived but that we may have to land at Bristol instead. When we got to Exeter and started the descent, it was clear it was taking much longer than usual. About 20mins after we should have landed we got an update to say that we were just hanging around a bit longer to see if it cleared, as the fog was a bit patchy, but that a decision would be made soon. After a further 15 minutes of circling (I later found out we were stacked with 3 other flights), with visibility less than half the required distance and not improving, they made the decision to divert – but we went to Southampton instead of Bristol, along with two of the other flights. The fourth went to Birmingham. We landed at Southampton at about 10pm, and were told that onward transport would be arranged to take us to Exeter. The first coach that turned up was quickly filled with families with young children who were given priority, and it looked like it would be a while before any more coaches would arrive.  At about 11.30 I managed to get in a taxi that was drafted with a family of 3 who had flown from Aberdeen. We arrived back at Exeter (which was very foggy, along with most of the surrounding area) at about 1.30, where mum had waited for me. We finally got back home to Truro just before 3am, about four hours later that it would have been if we’d landed as scheduled at Exeter. Not an experience I would care to repeat, but it could have been worse!

I didn’t do much on my week at home; I did some gardening, got my hair cut, did a bit of shopping particularly for books and helped mum out at work a bit. On Thursday I went to see Confessions of a Shopaholic (good funny girly flick) with Emma and then we went for Pizza Express after, where after much deliberation and a bit of flirting she finally plucked up the courage to give our very fit waiter her number! I look forward to hearing the outcome of that… I managed to get some of my food fixes; Pizza Express was one of them and I also had a pasty, fish and chips and an Indian takeaway, although we never did get Chinese in the end. I feel like I’ve eated so much but really it wasn’t, it’s just that my eating habits are very different while I’m here in France so when I go home and back to normal meals it suddenly seems enormous! Much appreciated though, I do like good food.

The trip back today went without any problems really; my train from Paris Nord was delayed by about half an hour but not enough to make much of a difference. I have already booked my flights for the Easter holidays because they’ll only get more expensive if I leave it, and with the small aircraft they use on that route there would be a small risk of the flight I want getting fully booked. I have no plans to go anywhere until then at the moment, so I’m looking at the longest stretch of time I’ll have been here since before Christmas; 7 weeks. It doesn’t seem like that long but I have a horrible feeling it will drag because I’ve got used to only being here for a short period before going home, and because for the time being the strike continues so I have more free time than originally timetabled. Mum says she might grab a weekend over here to make up for the one she missed before Christmas, which would be great, but I’ll believe it when the flights are booked! If I get really bored I might see about organising a weekend trip somewhere. The one-day demonstrations and continuous strike still continue, despite the fact that the government has now assured the unions that no positions will be laid off in 2010 or 2011, just in 2009, and that the whole reform is going to be completely rewritten. The unions still aren’t happy though and want all plans for reform to be scrapped entirely and for any future reforms to be open for full discussion before they are drafted and announced – basically so they could kill the idea before it took root in future, instead of having to fight it as they are now. The government is clearly moving backwards though so perhaps this strike will end before the semester does.

One last little thing; I got thinking about the blog this last week and how I would like to continue a “daily life” blog after this year has ended. However, I clearly can’t continue it on here since this was set up specifically for this year and it wouldn’t make much sense to write about other stuff on a blog called “A Year in Amiens”! To that end, I have created a second blog, called “Life in Cornwall” (there is now a link on the right hand column), but it won’t just be about life in Cornwall, but also life at uni and travelling elsewhere. I expect I won’t post too frequently on it for the time being since this one is the current focus, but while I’m home in the holidays I probably will.

Off on my holidays! February 20, 2009

Not much to report from the last couple of days, I just thought I’d briefly check in before I head home for a week. Had a couple of lectures but not many; my one remaining lecture on Wednesday was cancelled because the President of the university called a suspension of lectures for an afternoon of meetings and “reflection” on the crisis affecting the education system and the actions being taken to combat it. Then there were more small demonstrations on Thursday morning so another one of my lectures was cancelled, and I’m ashamed to say I didn’t make it to my 8am lecture this morning because I overslept, but I really didn’t sleep well last night.

After the holidays, the strike will have technically lasted one month, but because one of those weeks we wouldn’t have had lectures anyway I suppose you could say it’s still only been three weeks. However the government aren’t budging any further on the issue; the only ground they’ve given has been to appoint an intermediary to carry out a review and possibly alterations to the reform, but they still insist the reforms will in large part go ahead as planned in September, and so the teachers and many of the students are continuing to protest. Yesterday students at the Sorbonne staged a sit-in in one of the amphitheatres and between 200-300 students were forcefully removed by police in the middle of the night. Valérie Pécresse has said that the intermediary is currently drawing up a second draft of the reforms and that it will be presented to her “over the course of the coming weeks”. And of course, she will take her time looking over it before sending it back to the drawing board no doubt. I think this is going to turn into a stalemate between the government and the unions; who will cave first when it becomes apparent that this could go on indefinitely, or at least until the reforms are pushed through in September? At this point I can see the distinct possibility of this strike continuing right up to the end of semester. Political processes are rarely done in a day, and actually the rest of the semester only comes down to a few weeks now. After this week’s holiday, there will only be 7 teaching weeks left until Easter, and after Easter most modules will have their assessments almost immediately, at least in a normal situation. If it takes another 2 or 3 weeks for Pécresse to get that report, and then another 2 or 3 weeks to review and revise it….well that’s the semester gone then! There is a possibility that some of the lecturers will creep back to work, even if their unions or the faculty in general is still supporting the strike. I have certainly picked up on notes of apology or guilt in the replies of the lecturers who are on strike, when we ask them ‘how much longer? Do we bother trying to write this essay or not? Have you left us any notes this week?’

Anyway, we shall have to see. These things can drag out for weeks and weeks or they can suddenly change in a day, no one seems to know where this one’s going. I am going to deal with my final packing and tidying now and then head off to the airport. While checking online that everything was running as normal this morning I noticed that the morning flight to Exeter was delayed by about half an hour, but there’s no obvious explanation and nothing indicating mine is affected. Cornwall, cat cuddles, beaches and food here I come! I have concluded that the one and only thing I truly miss and crave while I’m in France is food. My list to satisfy this week includes; fish and chips, Chinese takeaway, Pizza Express and Lobb’s farm shop pie. I don’t know what it is but everything about food is different here, even things that to all intents and purposes should be the same.

Skating and sleep deprived February 17, 2009

The week certainly seems to be ticking by at good pace so far. I am still only just getting back on track from that all-nighter on Saturday unfortunately – must be a sign of age because I used to be able to handle it fine! I only just made it to my lecture on Monday morning. My alarm went off at 8am but I must have hit off instead of snooze. The next thing I know I roll over and open my eyes briefly, must have had just enough brainwave to realise that there was more light coming through the shutter than there should have been. Sure enough, it’s 9.30 and my lecture is at 10. I had just enough time to wash, dress and get my things together and get to the lecture, but I didn’t have any breakfast. Unfortunately this morning  was more or less the same story, except that the lecture was at 9 and I didn’t make it…

Yesterday afternoon I spent doing work for the lecture I missed today, and my Spanish lecture tomorrow which might be cancelled due to a university-wide meeting about the current strike action (still without end in sight). Today I tidied my room a bit and then went skating. I managed to get my skates sharpened, although communicating what I needed was a bit tricky! The session was more or less the same as last week, but I definitely felt an improvement in my skating although part of that will be due to sharp blades. It will be over a week now before I can go again, because of going home. Tomorrow I may have this one Spanish lecture but apart from that I need to do translation for Friday and go and get my bus card recharged. I think there may be another one-day strike for the teachers on Thursday although I don’t really see the point of that when most have been on strike for three weeks anyway… Soon after the February holiday we are going to get into the realms of asking the question “so do we sit the mid-term assessments or not?” If the lecturers are prepared to draft the papers and invigilate, in theory we could sit them but then they won’t be marked, or if they are marked the results will be withheld so it’s uncertain whether it’s really worth it.

Where did that week go? February 15, 2009

I can’t believe it was Tuesday when I last posted! The rest of this week has just vanished, I really don’t know where the time went! It’s bizarre because I was so tired by Friday, and I have been feeling like I don’t have time to do the little work I have – and yet half my timetable is still cancelled due to the strike and skating was the most active thing I did this week, so it makes no sense! I did in fact mean to go skating on Friday afternoon but in the end I was so sick of rushing around and backwards and forwards from lectures I decided to stay and chill out with some reading instead. There will be plenty more time for skating – I’ll go again on Tuesday definitely. I’ve finished les Fleurs du Mal, next will be Horace’s Oeuvres I think. Apart from that there’s just a few pieces of Spanish work to do and some other notes to read. I have the second Approche Litteraire du Picard lecture tomorrow, and then another week off because of the February holiday!

I went shopping yesterday but didn’t find much really, the sales have finished now and it’s down to one rail of random items at the back of the shop that no one really wants. I bought a few bits from Sephora and a new pair of shoes from my favourite shoe shop, but no more clothes finds. Of course yesterday was le jour du St. Valentin, so there were quite a number of couple walking arm in arm with single roses or bouquets, and also I noted quite a few holding shopping bags from lingerie shops! I spent the evening with the Cardiff girls and a friend they’ve made from Bristol uni who is on an assistantship. We watched the England vs. Wales 6 Nations match at My Goodness and then stocked up on junk food from MarchéPlus, went back to Alice’s and watched Mamma Mia! Unfortunately I didn’t pay attention to the time and missed the last bus, but oh well. We then moved on to the Mamma Mia! singalong parts and decided that since Katie and Alice were going to have to get up at 6.30am to walk Vicky to the station (she’s going home for the holiday a week early), it would be better to avoid going to sleep altogether. So we pulled an all-nighter and spent the rest of it exhausting youtube’s supply of disney singalongs, and then when that was done we sat and chatted about music, art, talent and language. We all got a bit of a second wind after 4am and were quite perky walking Vicky to the station. I got a bus back at 7.30 and slept from 8 until 2pm, which was in hindsight a mistake because I felt rough when I got up. Never mind, I will try for an early night tonight and hope the balance is regained by tomorrow morning.

I fully expect this week to whizz by like the last did, since I have plenty of things to fill my time. Tomorrow, Tuesday and Wednesday will include lectures, work and skating; Thursday lectures, laundry and packing and then Friday I’ll have 4 hours of lectures in the morning, lunch and a final tidy up and head for the station at about 4pm. I’m getting the TGV again so I don’t have to leave so early, otherwise I’d have to get the 15.08 slow train and since my lectures don’t finish til 1pm, that would be a bit tight. Actually technically my lectures shouldn’t finish til 2.30pm but the last one is one of those on strike, and I expect that will still be the case this week. There is no word or sign of the strike letting up; there have been fewer meetings and less activism than there was at the beginning, instead it has become the norm not to have these lectures! In some ways I’m not looking forward to it ending because it will be a nasty shock; having now got used to that extra time in the week it’ll seem like I have none at all if we go back to a normal timetable!

Skating up a storm February 10, 2009

It’s been a slow start to the week again what with no lectures yesterday and only one this morning, but I’ve got some work out of the way. Even though half my lectures are cancelled there is plenty of reading material; at the moment I’m working through the Spleen et Idéal section of Baudelaire’s les Fleurs du Mal, and there are of course handouts to read that have been left by the lecturers on strike. There was a demonstration in Paris today for this education sector strike, with some discrepancy between the numbers of attendees; some say 50,000; the police say 17,000 – a large movement either way. Yesterday evening the Education Minister Valérie Pécresse announced that the proposed legislation would be “reworked” in light of the unrest it has caused, but reiterated that reforms would still be made in September 2009, at the beginning of the next academic year. The teachers still aren’t happy with that though, and see the government’s back-pedalling as evidence that they can win their case and have the whole thing thrown out, so it isn’t going to stop the strike just yet.

Along with parts of the UK, most of the north-west of France has been hit by a big Atlantic storm over the last 24hrs. The wind and rain built up all through Monday until it was really howling; last night and this morning there was rubbish and debris blowing everywhere and the wind snatched the

Vendée Globe pavilion damage

breath right out of my nose! It had mostly blown out by lunchtime though and with the exception of a few sudden downpours this afternoon, it is now eerily quiet; the calm after the storm! The Vendée Globe headquarters, on the coast at les Sables d’Olonne, was badly hit with their main pavilion and some equipment being damaged and wind speeds of up to 140km/h were recorded.

I did brave the weather today to go skating again, and I’m glad I did. As expected, it was much quieter than at the weekend, and to add to that it was on the big rink (the same one as in the pictures from the hockey match) rather than the smaller one which I’ve been on previously. To begin with however this didn’t seem like much of an advantage, because we were coned into 1/4 of the rink while the rest was taken up with kid’s hockey training. There were about 10-15 of us skating round in this little patch of ice and I was less than impressed, but then after about 45mins the kiddies packed up, they took away the cones and we had the whole rink. Ahhhhh the space! It was brilliant, suddenly it seemed like there were about 4 of us on the rink, not the same number as before. I worked hard on that rink; apart from working on circles, switching from forward to backward and general blade control, I spent 15 mins just skating round, concentrating on maintaining a good upright posture and strengthening core muscles. And I felt it; towards the end and afterwards my core muscles and thighs were aching splendidly, but this is good because it shows I’ve worked at something.

To cap off this post, I am happy to report that the accommodation staff have come to their senses and finally the kitchen is accessible with just our swipe cards, and we no longer have to faff with going down to reception to exchange a key for our student card. I don’t know what’s prompted the change – probably they just got sick of constantly exchanging and keeping track of the key – but I found out when I went down to get the key last night and was told “new system – the kitchens are open”. Whatever the reason, I’m glad as it should make things much simpler. I have touched base back at Keele this week with my accommodation application for 2009/10 being sent off; after finding out last week that they would email us forms (because obviously we can’t be at Keele to come in person as would normally be the case), we finally got them through today – and they want them back by tomorrow! Good job my internet is working at the moment eh?! Honestly sometimes I wonder if these people engage brain at all sometimes. Natalie – another Keele French student who is one of the group I’ll be living with next year – sent them an email last week to ask about our application, and the reply she got was “please come to the Darwin building to discuss this with a member of staff”. Err….didn’t really grasp the context of the email there did they?! Anyway despite some rather worrying moments like that everything seems to be sorted in that department and we should have a nice little flat for our final year.

Ticking along, still the strike goes on February 9, 2009

I’ve been a bit remiss in the frequency of my blog posts this week, but to be honest there’s not been much new to write about. I was going to blog over the weekend but time slipped by and I didn’t get round to it. I woke up on Saturday morning all set to hit the sales with a major mission, opened my shutter…….and stared in dismay at the sheeting rain outside. After the blue sky and sunshine of Friday, which was also forecast for the weekend, I was not impressed that it should dare to rain on the day I’d chosen to go out shopping! Anyway I left it for a bit while I had breakfast, and then it started to snow lightly rather than rain, so I went down to the supermarket to get my week’s food and it wasn’t so bad out, so I decided that after lunch I would go to town after all. In fact it had stopped snowing as well by the time I left (it didn’t stick), and I found a couple of bargain tops in the sale although the wind had gone out of my sails a bit. I might have another go later in the week.

Yesterday I went skating in the afternoon, although it was busy and I didn’t do much. There’s too many of either extreme; wobbly people who are apt to fall over in front of you or make sudden unexpected changes of direction, and too-big-for-their-skates teenagers who are very good but reckless, and fly round the rink diving at each other and showing off, but with no regard for anyone else. And of course the ones with hockey skates love to carve up the ice with their flamboyant stops. So while I might continue to go on some sundays when I haven’t got much work to do (like this week), I have decided that I’m going to go on Tuesday afternoons instead because I figure the idiots will be in school and I stand half a chance of actually being able to work on things. After skating (which was by myself again) I dropped round to the Cardiff group’s residence to see if anyone was in and if they wanted to go for a coffee. I knocked on Joe’s window but he wasn’t in, and since I didn’t want to put credit on my phone (there’s a time limit to use it or lose it) I was just about to go and get the bus when he walked round the corner, and told me that the girls were in a bar (Au Bureau – “At the Office”, ironic for a bar, no?) watching the football. I went to find them for a bit of a social even though I’m not really interested in football, and found them polishing off some pints and chips. We ordered some more food and drinks and must have sat there for hours! In the end they switched the tv channels so poor Katie only got to see about 30 minutes of the UK football match she had come for; they switched it to a French match. We tried bargaining with the waiter – “we’ll buy another round if you’ll switch the channels!” – but he said too many people had already asked for the one it was on. He was a bit of a flirt but funny and ended up swapping numbers with Alice when we paid the bill!

The teachers’ strike continues this week; in total four of my lecturers are striking, all from the Faculté de Lettres and accounting for 3 modules and 9.5 hrs per week of my total 20.5 hrs, so roughly half my timetable in that respect. I found out from Marion on Friday that some of the Spanish lecturers are also striking, just none that teach me so that’s why it hadn’t affected my modules. I asked her when she thought it would end and she says it’s difficult to tell – the one last year lasted 3 months. The turning point for this one will probably be when the government votes on the legislation that is being opposed; a no vote will most likely end the strike and a yes vote will prolong it and provoke stronger action. In the event of a long strike, exams will either be written off or be extremely easy; based only on the material covered before the strike began. I asked Keele what the repercussions would be on my year’s credit if I couldn’t be assessed for some modules, and they said that when there is no mark for a module due to circumstances beyond the student’s control then they just calculate for the year with the marks you do have.

The weather continues to be changeable here; while yesterday was dry but grey, today brings lashing wind and rain/sleet. The forecast is for more rain with a lonely day of sunshine on Wednesday, with temperatures dropping through the week to snow by the weekend. Still nothing compared to what the UK has had in terms of snow, and I just hope that it starts to peter out now to give everyone a bit of a break – and not least because I don’t want any travel delays in a fortnight! It seems unlikely the airport or trains here would be affected if we had a sudden dumping of snow, but I can imagine that the flight would not be able to land at Exeter for example, or it wouldn’t be safe for mum to drive up and collect me. Hey-ho, we shall just have to see. Two weeks is a long time in weather terms I suppose and it’s difficult to predict now what the situation will be.

Post-Paris ennui, a jazz bar and toujours grève… February 5, 2009

A bit of a mixed bag for this post. After the fantastic weekend in Paris, Monday morning and back to lectures was the ultimate comedown. All through the start of this week I’ve been suffering from what I can only describe as “ennui”; not the depression of previous times but a sort of listless, aimless, disinterested boredom as I can’t help but look back at a fun and family-packed weekend and forward but down to the boring, usual weekly routine ahead. It didn’t help that this week I’ve had little work and fewer lectures than normal to occupy myself, although thankfully my one lecture on Monday morning was the first of a new module, and so more interesting than it might have been. I did manage to keep the rest of the day busy with laundry and food shopping, but it deteriorated soon after! Anyway I’m back on the up now, with the imminent arrival of the marker “two weeks to home!” tomorrow – that will come around fast if the two weeks prior to my birthday weekend are anything to go by – and an evening of drinks and socialising last night. It was a rare event in that for once all 5 of the Cardiff students came out; usually at least one or two are away or excuse themselves because of work. I also invited Sonia, who if I haven’t mentioned her before is an American student from Virginia, just arrived for this semester on the ISEP scheme which is the American equivalent of Erasmus. A few of the Cardiff group’s other friends also dropped by but I didn’t get chance to talk to them. We started off in My Goodness, the favourite haunt, and I got to appreciate their cider more than the last time when I was too full of food! Later on Sonia and I moved on to le Retroviseur, another bar in St. Leu that had a live jazz night on. We met a mixed group there; some other American students that she’s come across while here and also some French students and their ISEP mentor. The atmosphere in the bar was really good actually; the band were great and seemed to play seamlessly from one song to another, if indeed they were playing songs and not just continuously improvising. I wouldn’t mind going back there again as this jazz night is a regular event I think. I stayed there until I had to get the last bus back to campus at about 12.30.

Needless to say, due to the late night I found it hard to motivate myself to get up for my 9am Spanish grammar lecture, which is interminably boring and during which I never learn anything. I decided that a couple more hours of sleep would be far more beneficial to my education in the long run! I did however go to my Spanish oral & comprehension class at 11, which I’m finding easier and more interesting this semester as each week at least one person in the class gives an oral presentation on a Spanish-speaking region. This is one of our forms of assessment for this semester and it will be my turn on April 2nd, on the subject of the Basque Country. My final lecture of the day should have been Litterature Comparée at 1pm, but I went expecting the lecturer to be among those on strike this week, and sure enough he was.

I’ve been reading and understanding a bit more about this strike in recent days, in an attempt to get my head around what’s happening and the possible consequences, because when our lecturers do talk to us about it they assume everyone already knows the basics of it. In essence, with effect from Monday 2nd February, many members of staff in the education sector are on strike for an unlimited period of time until they see the government acting in their favour with regard to reforms I’ve mentioned before; they are fighting changes to the position of teacher-researchers, changes to the structure of teacher-training courses, the loss of 900 jobs in 2009 and changes to the financing of universities to favour those with the best students and grades. So far, only 3 of my 8 modules are affected by this strike. This is because, although the whole university, including the student body, is being mobilised in this strike, not all faculties are actually on strike. The Spanish lecturers have not mentioned it at all and are continuing as normal, and so far I haven’t heard of it affecting the Science department, although my first science lecture is tomorrow morning so I won’t find out for sure until then. The entire law department has gone on strike and there are even barricades across the doors so you can’t get in the building, so the Cardiff group have had no lectures all this week. Up at campus, it seems to be mostly the Faculté de Lettres which is affected, so that means my French-based modules. Two of the modules I take are continuing as normal, unless of course they start barricading up here as well. Two others are completely suspended, and a third is at least partially suspended; again I won’t find out fully until tomorrow. One of my lecturers, who conducted her lecture yesterday but is suspending from next week, explained an important point none of the others had cared to mention. So far, the lecturers who are on strike have said that the situation is; “no lectures for an unlimited period of time, but we will either distribute material via email for the duration, and/or reschedule and catch up lectures at the end of the strike, whenever that may be.” Clearly, this has the potential for disaster. Apart from the fact that there is no leeway in the semester to catch up  on more than 1 week’s work, the exam dates can’t be pushed back without heading into June and July. I haven’t spoken to Keele about this yet but that’s not something I’m willing to do! Anyway, this one lecturer explained that she disagrees with the others’ method; she is of a more radical stance and says to get the changes they want, they need to not only suspend lectures, but refuse to catch up or give assessments and basically threaten to write off the entire semester. However, there is a catch, which is the reason the general consensus is to plan catch-ups; if they refuse to catch-up the work at the end of the strike, they have to forego their salaries for the duration of the strike, whereas if they plan to catch up, they can keep being paid even when they’re not working. So, one way or another if this strike continues more than a few weeks, the upshot could be a lack of assessments or no way that I can be assessed before I have to leave, because while the French students might be willing to give up their summer to complete the semester, there’s no way I am just because I happened to be here when they decided to strike! It could turn out to be an interesting second semester; last year a similar thing happened and they were on strike for about 2 months if I remember correctly. This time are they going to break it earlier or take more drastic action and continue it longer? I might go to the next Assemblée Generale, (open meetings to discuss the action being taken) which is on Monday afternoon, just to see if I can glean anything more.

Birthday weekend in Paris February 2, 2009

I am happy to report that the weekend in Paris for my 21st birthday was a great success! I arrived by train from Amiens, mum and Alan flew from Exeter and dad from East Midlands, and we all managed to convene within a couple of hours of each other in a café next to our Hotel near the Luxembourg gardens. The café and the hotel are both directly over the RER line B; the nearest station is less than 20 yards away and so with every passing train there is a great rumble and, as we discovered, the cupboards rattle even on the first floor! We checked in and left our bags in the hotel and went out to spend the day in the city, starting with a walk down Boulevard St Michel to the river, and then down to Notre Dame. There were no queues so we went inside, which was a first visit for everyone except me, and pretty much new to me too since the last time I went in was about 11 years ago, on my first trip to Paris. After this we went to les Halles shopping centre, built on the site of the old produce and cattle market which was moved out of the city when the authorities decided it was too disease-ridden to remain where it was. The new centre is built in glass and metal reflecting the style of the old Halles, and much of the old structure (without it’s glass) has been left.

I bought a Mango t-shirt and a dress but overall the sales shopping didn’t produce the bargain finds I’d hoped for. My presents more than made up for this though; I recieved books from Mum and Nan, other assorted presents from Nan included a CD of music from 1988, a mini iced fruit cake, cat playing cards and a bookmark, whilst I got jewellery from both Mum and Dad; a matching necklace, bracelet and earring set of beaten pewter spirals from St. Justin jewellery and a three-gold (yellow, white and rose) link bracelet from the Birmingham jewellery quarter respectively. Sophie from Keele also sent me a lovely pair of Pilgrim flower design earrings which I wore to dinner on Saturday night.

Dinner at les Deux Magots was wonderful; the restaurant was cosy but not crowded, traditional but not old, and the service was professional but not clingy. Overall it felt special and not at all stuffy or pretentious. I had millefeuille of goat’s cheese and tomato to start, followed by veal stew in white sauce with rice for main and crème brûlée for pudding. This was of course washed down with wine and some bubbly to toast the occasion. While we were eating we all noticed that the place was constantly busy; when we arrived, and the whole time we were there and when we left. It was a complete mix of people there as well; old and young, couples, groups, friends, and solitary figures with notebooks and papers. Some had full meals like us, others just a drink or a salad, some sat there all evening and hardly ordered a thing. Some people seemed to have come especially for dinner but many others just seemed to have dropped in after a day’s shopping for a coffee and a chat. I was glad that it has not lost its original ethos of a casual meeting place for friends and strangers alike, and has not become self-important as a result of its significant history. At the end of the evening I picked a single white rose from the huge bouquet in the middle of the restaurant to press as a memento of the occasion.

Sunday brought not much of a lie-in because we all wanted to have plenty of time in the Louvre before Dad left in the afternoon for his return flight. We had breakfast in a café on the riverside corner of Boulevard St. Michel and then walked down to the Louvre. Although it’s out of season, it’s free (as are most museums in France) on the first sunday of the month, so it was busy. We started off by heading for the Mona Lisa and Venus de Milo by way of the Winged Victory (my personal favourite) and then explored the Greek and Egyptian galleries, along with the Medieval remains of the old fortress. We left to have lunch off Rue de Rivoli and then saw Dad off to the airport. For most of the rest of the afternoon Mum, Alan and I went to the Eiffel tower, and indeed up it, as far as the 2nd floor. This was quite an achievement for Mum as she is scared of heights! She did manage a walk around the platform although on the inside edge and with Alan between her and the fence! Again this wasn’t a first for me but it has been 11 years since I last went up and the view of Paris was better than I remembered. En route to the Tower on the RER line C, we noticed a man sat in the carriage we were in who had a tabby kitten on a lead! The kitten seemed quite happy, although curious and unsure of the noise every time the doors opened, but not trying to wander off. Most of the time he sat on the man’s knee, wobbling around with the train’s movement trying to stay balanced! I would have taken a picture it was such an unusual sight, but I think that may have been a bit rude!

Finally we capped off the day with a quick dash back to the Louvre before it closed in order to see the Crown jewels, whose room had been closed off earlier in the day. We just had time to see it all and take some photos before the stewards started ushering people out. Dinner was traditional French cuisine in one of the side streets off Boulevard St Michel but all too soon it was time for me to collect my suitcase and head back to Amiens. I really enjoyed the weekend, not just because it was my birthday but because I really enjoyed the family time, and it’s made me look forward to my week at home in 3 week’s time even more. Although it was cold all weekend, it was sunny. This morning however we woke up to snow in both Amiens and Paris, and mum and Alan experienced a couple of hours delay in their flight departure. When they did eventually get back to Exeter there was no snow there as they’d expected, and it has all melted here after this afternoon’s rain. Temperatures look to be rising slightly over the next week so hopefully a bit more sunshine than snow will be the order of the day! Here’s a few pictures to sum up the weekend:

Old les Halles overlooking the new structure

Graffiti seen from my hotel room window

The two statues of les Deux Magots

The Pyramid entrance to the Louvre

Looking up the Eiffel Tower from the 2nd floor

Looking west from the Eiffel Tower

The full albums from the weekend can be seen here and here. I’m waiting for some photos from mum’s and dad’s cameras and will probably post some more later on.