S'installer - to settle in

I've decided that we could all benefit from some French lessons and so I'll try to get the French translation for the title of each posting - now that'll give you something to look forward to!

We've now been here almost two weeks and we're already quite settled.  Our house in Edinburgh is also officially sold - thank goodness!  As you can see, Max is totally relaxed in his new cot.  He actually goes over to sleep quite well, thanks to the musical seahorse beside him, but still wakens for a feed two or three times a night.  I'm not at all bothered about that for now, but I'm hoping it'll stop when he takes more solids rather than take after his big cousin, Kate.

"First you tell me that my dad constructed this thing, then you expect me to SLEEP in it?!"

We had a busy weekend, what with the Pope coming to visit, a 'meet the neighbours' dinner and Robbie from Glasgow visiting too!  The Pope heard we had moved and so came to say Mass in Paris en route to Lourdes for the anniversary year.  There was an open-air Mass on Saturday morning down at the Esplanade des Invalides, about 40 minutes' walk from here.  It was absolutely packed, and a bit chaotic with the pram, but it brought back magic memories for me of the World Youth Day in Paris in 1997 with Geraldine.

On Saturday night, there was a soiree here in the Recollets building to which all tenants were invited.  It was a 'picque nique' (picnic, in case you hadn't guessed) held in the common room and you were to bring some booze, together with nibbles representative of your home country. What do you do when you're Scottish?  In the end, I managed to track down a few boxes of Walkers shortbread in one of the supermarkets and we pitched up with that.  The Recollets building is linked to universities and some art places so most of the other tenants are mature students or involved in the arts in some way.  The turnout wasn't great (this was Saturday night remember) but we did meet some friendly and interesting folk, as well as some real characters!  English became the dominant language of the evening (thankfully), but I was sitting near a Spanish family with no English and tried out some of my Spanish with them whilst enjoying their chorizo and tortilla.  Max doesn't sleep when there's a party on and sat up on my knee happily till after 10.  It was one of those really awkward evenings that you dread but which turn out to be hilarious.  I was sitting beside a pilot who flies private jets for the rich and famous and who had just dropped Chris de Burgh off to play a private gig in Paris while Paul got chatting away to a Mexican biologist who studies the nervous systems of worms!

Saturday night at the Recollets Pique-Nique!

We also met up with Robbie Edmonstone, a pal from Glasgow who was over for the weekend.  We went out for dinner to l'atmosphere, a bar/bistro at the end of our street which is on Canal St Martin.  The food was great and it was a good laugh catching up with Robbie.  We then went for hot chocolates (which due to our poor French turned out to be strong coffees!) to a bar further down the canal, but I decided to call it a night with Max when Robbie and Paul started ordering strong liqueurs.  They had noticed the guitar player inside the bar and so it didn't take many more drinks for the guitar to be handed over to the shameless Scots.  I'm glad I escaped when I did!

Paul and Robbie on Canal St Martin 

Paul cycled to work today on one of the Paris bikes - you pay an annual fee of around 30 euros and you just take a bike from one of the many ranks dotted around the city and return it to another rank.  It's a fantastic system but it helps if you know where you're going - Paul's completely knackered now after getting lost and cycling around the east of Paris trying to find his way home!  

Max sitting comfortably on his 'Bumbo' chair

Max is now waiting patiently on news from the Smithies - he's looking forward to becoming a BIG cousin! xx