Mardi Gras - Fat Tuesday!

What a tosser! Max admires his dad's pancake-tossing technique.  Note the drawers - they don't quite shut now after Paul 'babyproofed' them with latches!

We all enjoyed some delicious crepes on Tuesday night.  Max has developed an independent streak when it comes to eating and wants to try to feed himself so he loved gorging on his banana crepes.  John Mumma joined us for dinner before going to see the footie with Paul and brought great cakes so we're fattened up and ready for some self-denial!

It may be Lent, but I've had TWO evening social events this week!  It was great to see that life continues in Paris after 7pm!  There was a launch night for a new exhibition in the Louvre on Wednesday evening and all of the movers and shakers in the Parisian art world were there so of course I had to show face.  Rachel had been given tickets through her work (she's a freelance graphic designer for museums) so we had a good evening out once the babies were in bed.  Last night I joined a few girls I've met through the babygroup (Louise, Stephanie and Olivia) for dinner in a Thai restaurant in the next arrondisement so I made use of the 'velib bikes' for the first time to get there.  Despite the fact that the area that we stay in is 'a wee bit dodgy', it still feels quite safe and there were loads of people still cycling to their destinations on my way home at midnight.  There're also over 100 'Friday night rollerbladers' who meet at 10pm at Bastille and rollerblade at high speed around Paris until 1am with a police escort at the start and end of the skaters.  It's a fantastic sight and a real thunderous sound when they pass our flat.  You have to be quite an experienced roller-blader to participate - I don't think my hours of rollerskating on the Esplanade have brought me to the required level! 

Paul has been really busy with work this week and gave a talk again yesterday.  He's working from home a lot rather than going to the library.  Max and I are out and about for most of the day but when we're at home it's great to have Paul there as it frees me up when Max has his naps.  I've started informal French lessons with two of the other mums in the building - Einat and Vasso and I time Max's morning nap on Tuesdays and Thursdays to coincide with the hour that we spend trying to speak in French.  Our teacher, Violaine, has a 5-month old girl, so inevitably, our vocabulary in baby matters is now tres bon.  It's interesting to discover that there's such a cultural difference from the UK in relation to maternity.  Violaine's daughter started going to nursery at 1 month!  The norm here is for women to return to work after 2 or 3 months' leave.  I'd wondered why Violaine was looking at me strangely when I said that I was sad about being separated from Max when returning to work in the summer - from her reaction, I was sure I'd said something wrong in French but she was probably thinking that I'm a weirdo!  

Here's a couple of snaps of Max hanging out in the park beside our flat:

Max loves the rocking rabbit - it has a big sign on the side saying that it's for children over 2 years but that doesn't stop Max!

Wa-hey!  I'm on!

Max le conducteur - Max the driver

Here's a wee clip of Max showing off his driving skills in the hallway outside the flat.  Note - he's just wearing his vest as we were getting him ready for his bath and thought that he needed to burn off some energy!  I hope this video works.

La charme de Paris - The Romance of Paris

The weather has been beautiful here the past few days - we're getting excited at the prospect of spring in Paris!  We had a lovely time on Valentine's day - we went for a walk up to Montmartre and enjoyed a great free gig from the talented busker (below) and then went for a delicious meal at Chez Eugene in Montmartre - 3 courses for 13 euros and fantastic service.  It was a great day out!

A great way to get yourself an audience - playing sing-a-long classics on the steps leading up to the Sacre-Coeur.  It was funny to hear the Beatles and Oasis being sung with a French accent.

And now Max will show us how it's done.  Paul gets his young protege off to an early start.  

The matching outfits were not intentional!

The French and Scottish rugby teams were playing each other on Saturday (France won) and there were a lot of kilts around the city centre.  There was also some sort of Scottish festival on in Montmartre, the reason for which we couldn't establish, but we need to find out.  The French appear to have a very strange take on the Scots - there were a load of French actors in medieval kilt outfits with a grim reaper and another guy in stocks.  It was weird to say the least - I didn't really want to draw any more attention to this freakshow by taking photographs, but here's a few snaps to show you what I mean:

Eh?  What's this got to do with a rugby game?

I wanted to ask these characters what on earth they were doing mocking my nation with their medieval garb and torture equipment, but my French isn't good enough.

Out for dinner at Chez Eugene.  The meal was fantastic!  French restaurants don't tend to cater for babies or children, so this highchair device from Jonny & Lys was excellent.  I enjoyed the best tarte citron (a big lemon meringue pie) I've ever had - it definitely helped us gain any weight we'd lost from our tummy bugs!

There was more sport on Sunday (an old firm game - 0-0 draw) so we went out in search of a place for Paul to watch it.  Max wore Austin's old strip and was very cute.  Unfortunately all of the places nearby were showing other football games or rugby, so we went for a hot chocolate in a child-friendly cafe, 'Seraphim' where they have toys and cartoons every sunday for les enfants.  It was a great discovery - we'll be back there!

The bhoys chilling out before the game on Sunday.  The flat is not normally this messy!

Paul and Max in Cafe Seraphim

Il niege a Paris - It's snowing in Paris!

The courtyard at the front of our apartment - the snow was gone a couple of hours later.

Or at least, it snowed in Paris for a few hours one morning.  We've not had anything like the weather that the UK seems to have had recently, but it's definitely a lot colder than this time last year when Paul was here for a month's secondment.  Little did we know then that we'd be here for a year!

The cold weather didn't stop around 70 thousand demonstrators from marching from Place de la Bastille to Republic on 29th January in protest of the government's handling of the financial crisis.  Republic is less than 10 minutes' walk from here and I found myself in the midst of the demonstrators when out for a stroll with Max.  The crisis doesn't seem to have had quite the same immediate impact as it appears to have had at home (ie shops that have been around for years like Woolworths and MFI aren't disappearing) and the fact that such a large percentage of the population are renting may lessen anxiety.  Nonetheless, the French like to strike, and they do so impressively, with a lot of music, dancing and police ignoring protestors who climbed up dangerously high on monuments.   I was just wanting Enjolras from Les Mis to run to the front singing 'Do You Hear The People Sing?' but he never appeared.

There was another soiree here at the Recollets last Saturday (1st February) and a good crowd gathered with food from their home countries.  I'm afraid that shortbread and flapjacks were all I could think of making - but they seemed to go down well.  We've befriended a Greek couple, Vasiliki and Georgious, who have a 4 month-old boy, Nikitas and an Israeli couple, Einat and Ran, who have a 5 month-old boy, Ofer.  I got off to a great start with the Israelis with my conversation opener, "did you have a good Christmas?".  Yep, I realised what I'd done whilst I was still saying it!  It must've made me nervous around Einat because in her apartment last week, when Ofer wakened from what had been an unexpectedly long nap, I exclaimed, "oh, the Resurrection!".  I'm a schmuck!  We're still pals though, so everything's kosher.

Max is close to climbing out of the bath now - what are we going to do then?!?!

My friend Kate and her partner, Jesse, are both English musicians and have started playing gigs for children in bookshops around Paris.  They sing in English and sound very good with their guitar, banjo and violin.  They're called 'This Is the Kit'.  Rachel and I took Max and Oscar along to one of the gigs last week.

Jesse mixes with his fans after the gig

Max and Oscar cheer on the band

Rachel and I decided to go out for a few hours ourselves on Friday night.  I was really looking forward to it but on the way to meet her I began to feel really ill.  I was keen to keep going but also knew that throwing up in a bar wouldn't have been a good look - particularly when I was trying my best to look French.  I called her and headed home and was sick as a dog the whole night.  A short time later, Paul also started talking on the big white telephone and we realised that we must've developed food poisoning.  We don't know the cause, but Paul reckons a goats' cheese pizza may be to blame.  It was a real shame for Max as we spent the weekend begging each other to see to him.  He also chose this weekend to sprout his first tooth!  He's a lot of fun at the moment but also a lot of work as he loves trying to pull himself up on things so I'm constantly looking to soften all potential landings.

You can try and keep me entertained with all of those toys, but I really just want to stand up and play with daddy's computer!