I am still here in Paris, but I recently took a brief return to England to see my niece for the first time and to celebrate her first birthday. Although my life in Paris has only amounted to little over two years, it was still a strange experience to observe English traditions and behaviour having spent some time away.
When Mme. Grenouille used to come and visit I was living in Greater Manchester (close to Stalybridge) at the time. I remember trips to Liverpool and Manchester where her jaw would gape, watching in wonderment at the carefree fashion of the British. Back in her native pocket of Paris, the majority of people dress the same with a very chic/classic look, rarely in anything colourful or attention grabbing, and certainly nothing that reveals long thighs or exposed belly buttons. Even baby clothes are non-adventurous here, and bébé Tétard attracted some bemused looks in Paris, when we dressed him in an English Halloween skeleton babygro last year. She was also dumbfounded (and impressed) by the British queue-forming etiquette. I hadn’t fully understood her amazement until we popped into Leicester, where outside the pound shop (incidentally you’d never find the equivalent of the pound shop in France!), a colossal queue composed of all ethnicities had sprouted into a perfect, patient line. I’d almost forgotten such bus queues ever existed. In Paris you could be eight months pregnant and knocked out the way whilst getting through the door, because some young fit person wants to find a seat.
During the week, we drove down to Suffolk, Bury Saint Edmunds way to visit ‘Donkey Nanny’. When I was a young nipper one set of grandparents lived on a large orchard with donkeys, and the other in a council estate in Norwich (the city where I was born). The latter had a cuckoo clock and became ‘Cockoo Nanny’ and the other ‘Donkey Nanny’. Donkey Nan is getting on in years, but has spent her whole life working long hours outdoors and is still very active, healthy and with a sharp mind. She also has a wonderful Suffolk country accent, and does all the stereotypical country Nan things, like making cakes and delicious crumbles, and tending to a flowery garden. She took us on a tour of her village whilst walking the dog, pointing out some of the nice country houses and churches built from flint.
We took her out to the National Trust’s Ickworth House, just visiting the gardens so missing out on their silverfish collection in the museum room, which I assume are aquatic, as I had an interesting picture of a taxidermy insect thing going on in my head. The weather was grand, the gardens well groomed (the park was created by Capability Brown) and the neoclassical architecture, resplendent. In the evening I met with cousins I have not seen in twenty plus years, and enjoyed a family barbecue with chilli burgers and fragrant sausages (I’m drooling on my keyboard as I type).
Most of the week was spent in Leicestershire’s Ashby-de-la-Zouch, with my folks, where in the course of another barbecue, a hawk descended into their small town garden, and sat on their baby blackbird before flying off with it.
My niece’s first birthday was at Chester Zoo, and we very much enjoyed the day out despite my ambivalence to these places. The bats (one of my favourite animals) had a great enclosure, but it wasn’t the same for some of the larger creatures. The bustle of tourists racing from pen to pen, with cameras and videos is also annoying, though I did take just a couple of photos in a somewhat sombre, anthropomorphical fashion. Bébé Tétard was completely indifferent to his first zoo experience and sulked in his pushchair for most of the day.
When it came time to return, we arrived at East Midlands airport with at least two hours in hand. Despite we were near the front of the queue, BMIBaby were insistent that everybody squeeze their hand luggage into their metal measuring contraption. This caught out a significant number of people who had to cough up, and I thought I would fall victim with my trouble-free, well air-travelled rucksack which was plenty short enough, but a bit podgy for all the things I’d stuffed inside. I resolved the problem by taking out my camera and handing it over to my mum, and then putting it back in the rucksack afterwards. It took some time before we got through, so I said my farewells and went through security where a large queue had already formed. As we piled our belongings into the plastic tubs, security pulled out all four of our items. We were made to drink some of the emergency cartons of baby milk (I left that treat to Mme. Grenouille) and empty the rest into bottles. They searched the baby’s case (which was only clothes and soft toys) and were baffled because their machine apparently showed something else was in there, and as they worked their way through (with the baby crying) we were stuck for a long, long time whilst crowds of people piled past us. The security chap looked a little embarrassed when he eventually picked up Mme. Grenouille’s handbag and said ‘I don’t suppose this is yours too?’ and apologised saying it had just been flagged for a random check, as he removed the camera and checked it for traces of semtex. By the time we got through to the boarding gate, the queue was boarding the plane, and this was despite we’d arrived two hours in advance! Incidentally BMIBaby do not offer priority boarding for babies or pregnant women. Even as we boarded they were checking the size of luggage to squeeze out the last few remaining pounds from as many passengers wallets and purses as possible; with my hands full and carrying a baby they didn’t trouble me fortunately. I was also a little peeved on the flight out from Charles de Gaulle Paris when the lady at the check-in desk tried to insist we all pay check-in tax! Fortunately we found a print-out that showed we had already paid which was met with a minor apology. They also send an email two days prior to flying, saying if you don’t confirm your passport and identity online you will be charged for that too. I thought it a hoax until I googled it, but it turned out to be genuine and fortunately I’d avoided more fees. The perils of budget airlines! Even bébé Tétard’s seat (who was 10 months old) was the same price as us adults. This video “cheap flights” is quite amusing and holds many truths.
Once the Roissy bus took us from Charles de Gaulle to Opera Paris, we were soon reminded that Paris is not baby friendly. You can either suffer the misery of a cantankerous Parisian taxi driver or risk the metro. Dragging hand luggage, a large suitcase and baby down the obligatory steps is challenge enough, but then you have to find an attendant and ask them to open the larger gates (if possible) or face the obstacle challenge of squeezing everything, over or under the normal turnstyle barriers trying to avoid not getting trapped in the mechanism yourself. There’s usually another set of steps to negotiate, and then the subsequent struggle to squeeze yourself onto the train without crushing feet or becoming a barricade to those who want to exit at following stations. Thankfully the apartment is on a direct line from Opera and the metro exit a mere half minute walk from where we live.
This is another local park where I can walk with Bébé Têtard. It sits on the edge of Bois de Boulogne and just up the road from the local Carrefour supermarket. The garden was originally created under order of Louis XV in 1761, and was later transformed between 1895 and 1898 by Jean-Camille Formigé to include the impressive greenhouses, the largest of which measures around 100 metres long and 12 metres wide.
Although it runs alongside the Paris périphérique it’s still a tranquil retreat, and is not frequented by many tourists. Most of the locals who come to enjoy the sunshine in the neighbouring small park are parents with babies and young children. In the botanical gardens themselves (which are free incidentally), the locals sit on benches with their laptops often taking advantage of the free wifi (pronounced ‘whiffy’ in French, much to my adolescent amusement).
I first came to Jardin des Serres in May 2007 when I used to fly over to see Mme. Grenouille. I remember whilst inside one of the smaller greenhouses, she’d let out a yelp and jumped backwards: a seed pod had alarmed her with its hostile alien exterior!
You can read more on this page – Jardin des Serres d’Auteuil
Yesterday saw a ravenous and much needed storm in Paris, lasting several hours, and soaking any tourist who hadn’t taken shelter in a museum or bistro. This past fortnight has been quite hellish. When the sun comes it takes a couple of days, but consecutively hot days superheat the pavements, streets and courtyards, which in turn warms Parisian apartments to almost unbearable levels. Even when you’re almost stark naked, there’s been days where it feels you’ve been wrapped in four layers of sheeps’ wool and placed in a sauna. I can’t remember the last time I slept with a duvet cover. Friends in the city have been experiencing the same, and frequently take to having several showers a day. We have Sicilian guests staying with us at the moment, and they don’t mind it at all.
We’d planned to go and watch the Bastille fireworks from the bridge down the road, but Bébé Têtard fell asleep and I offered to stay at home and look after him. I could certainly hear the fireworks and celebrations. From the apartment it sounded like a fierce howling wind, as they launched wave after wave of fireworks in rapid succession.
Before I finish, I must return to our Sicilian guests. I don’t know any Italian but Madame Grenouille speaks it fluently. We were in the kitchen the other day when Giuseppe started looking at the electric kettle with fascination. I thought I’d misunderstood when Madame Grenouille told me he’d never seen an electric kettle before. His girlfriend has a sister who has one though, but it seems the majority of people still heat the water on a pan (which is no bad thing), and prefer to keep doing so… These differences in culture remind me that I must one day write about Mme. Grenouille’s father and grandfather who used to live in a cave (a troglodyte home) in the Loire Valley. Fifty years ago, it was quite common for many poor French families to still live in caves, and my father-in-law showed me around his former home (which he now uses for storage now) a couple of months ago.
I finished working yesterday lunchtime, and took a lazy afternoon in Edmond de Rothschild park in Boulogne-Billancourt (same suburb as the Albert Khan park I wrote about previously). I wanted to rendez-vous with my old friends the coypu, and within minutes of arriving Papa Coypu jumped out of the pond to say hello… Well, hello and do you have any food for me? It’s hard to befriend a coypu without some nutritious snack lurking upon your person (raw carrot being a particular favourite), though M. Coypu made do with my stale bread.
After bashing the living daylights out of my rock hard bread against the stones below, I proceeded to throw the crumbly debris into the water, whereupon the usual array of wildlife soon engulfed us. The slender black shadows of carp glided beneath the water keen to partake in the feeding frenzy; smaller catfish rose up between the multitude of ducks and geese, and pigeons were content to keep at a distance, nibbling on the deposited crumbs of the bread massacre. Those poor terrapins were once again at the mercy of all, pushed back under the water at every opportunity.
An elderly couple tried to sacrifice their granddaughter to King Coypu, dangling her little naked legs perilously close to this aquatic rodent. In actual fact, these coypu are very gentle and timid. One little girl even tried stroking one, and another man enticed it to pull circus tricks using just leaves as poorly disguised food.
Eventually two baby coypus came along with Maman Coypu.
Whilst they generally ruled the pond, and received a larger share of food than any of their neighbours, it didn’t stop the odd goose from trying to have a peck.
I know some consider coypu to be pests, but I’m rather taken by these critters. To disguise my blatant bias, I will end with a couple of moorhens and a mummy duck.
Albert Kahn is one of the prettiest parks in Paris (well technically Boulogne-Billancourt, but you can still get there by bus or metro from Paris même). Considering it’s almost on my doorstep I haven’t visited it nearly enough (only once prior, in 2008). My favourite park is still Bagatelle in Bois de Boulogne (especially when the roses are in full bloom), but Albert Kahn is a very close second, and much easier to find.
I went yesterday (the park, just like the Paris’ museums, is free on the first Sunday of the month, however the entrance fee is only something like 1,50 euros). Navigation of the park becomes a lot trickier with the addition of a pushchair. At one stage we were lifting it across a series of rocks on the path when a park attendant politely told us pushchairs won’t allowed in this part of the garden. We’d actually just worked that out for ourselves (not that it was signposted or stipulated), following our brief off-road endurance test.
The park was establish by Albert Kahn (a French banker and philanthropist), and was used as a meeting place for French and European intelligentsia until the 1930s. Albert Khan ended up bankrupt into the 1929 Wall Street Crash, after which the garden became open to the public.
Monsieur Kahn was also well known for his ambitious project to take photographic snapshots across the planet, sending photographers to every continent to record images following the new invention of colour photography. The collection became known as “The Archives of the Planet”. There’s a nice little exhibition centre at the garden entrance that was not there in 2008, featuring illuminated colours photographs from the early 20th century, and some film footage too.
As you might expect from a Japanese garden, it is meticulously cared for, and features different areas, each with their own mood and flavour. There are narrow wooded walks, a formal English garden, flat grassland and streams, hills and bridges, ponds and Zen sculptures. If you’re a tourist on a tight schedule and you like gardens, this really has something for everyone, and would be my recommended ‘must see’ park.
Why is it we do not hear the term illegal or legal expat, and is there really any difference between the terms expat and immigrant? I’ve pondered on this issue previously, but decided to take the time to think about it in a little more depth.
An expatriate comes from the Latin ex patria – ‘to be out of your native country’, and an immigrant is ‘a person who migrates to another country, usually for permanent residence’. The definitions and terms seem quite interchangeable however.
Perhaps a generalisation in the motives behind the move could explain the difference? An expat is generally moving sideways in an economical sense, trying out a country before deciding whether to remain. An immigrant often seems to be moving upwards, possibly severing their ties to their homeland to a greater degree. There are of course plenty of expats moving to better their circumstances with no intention of returning, and immigrants taking a lesser wage, who may equally be unsure as to how long they intend to remain.
Is expat just a term used amongst people (primarily British, American and Canadians) themselves; whilst the French will consider all foreigners immigrants?
Why do the words ‘immigrant’, ‘alien’ and ‘foreigner’ all evoke a sense of negativity? Can we blame the media for this connotation? Take the Polish in England. The majority only moved temporarily for work with no intention to stay, but who refers to them as expats?
Has immigrant or foreigner become synonymous with people who take the jobs of the ‘natives’, scrounge on the welfare system etc. etc. Do ‘immigrant’ and ‘foreigner’ denote tones of desperation whereas ‘expat’ speaks of lifestyle choice? The term alien seems to fare no better, although when Sting sang about a legal alien in New York it seemed quite poetic, almost quaint.
I have lots of questions about the semantics, but ultimately I think it comes down to prejudice and snobbery. I’m personally quite happy to refer to myself as an expat, immigrant or alien.
Three weeks back, I returned from a visit to the UK and started seeing those stereotypical ‘Onion Johnny’ blue striped tops. Initially I thought the tourists were flooding in, but then the more I ventured around Paris, the more I saw, and those wearing them were actually French. Over the past three weeks this latest vogue is gathering in momentum. I imagine it won’t be long until the beret and French cravat make a come back!
Photo by Penningtron.
That’s just reminded me of an incident on the metro last year, when Madame Grenouille started moaning about how all the youth of the district now had ‘black berets’. I scratched my head, and retorted, ‘but I haven’t seen anybody in a black beret’. It then dawned on me that she had actually said ‘blackberries’.
Whilst Madame Grenouille took care of Bébé Têtard yesterday, I visited the Pompidou Centre in Paris with her opera singer friend, to see Lucian Freud’s painting exhibition. Now aged 88 and described as a living master; I’d seen one or two paintings by Sigmund Freud’s grandson in the UK, but never so many of his works congregated beneath one roof. At 12 euros a ticket, the entrance isn’t cheap (although you could use it to visit the other exhibitions inside the Pompidou Centre), but I was eager to visit, especially having missed J M W Turner’s art exhibition at the Grand Palais the other month.
Copyright, Lucian Freud
“They” describe Lucian Freud as one of the most (if not the most) important living masters, but I’m not sure who “they” are supposed to be. I can think of a number of living artists who are arguable better in technique, skill and draftsmanship than Freud, but then the subjective nature of art is a fickle thing. I think where Freud succeeds is in his distinct, intense and personal interpretations of his subjects. Some of the earlier draftsmanship and academic technique of his youth gave way to a different thick impasto style of painting. Some of the first paintings I saw had inaccurate distortions in perspective, but Freud made it work. Rather than a painting that was mechanically correct, the size of the paintings (which can’t be appreciated via a book or on the Internet) sucked you in with their warped perspective of everyday items be it a sofa or a plant pot. Some of the anatomy was also out, but give me impasto skin tones over a new breed of artist who meticulously copies all aspects of a photograph, any day of the week.
Copyright, Lucian Freud
Lucian Freud himself comes across as bashful and very reticent in actual life, though his paintings certainly do not, and whilst not controversial in an Egon Schiele erotic sense, Freud is in no way conventional. Certainly a worthwhile visit. The exhibition closes on the 19th July.
Copyright, Lucian Freud
Looking out of the window of the Alsace restaurant, where I sampled my first proper Choucroute Garnie, lies Paris’ oldest kitchen shop – ‘E.Dehillerin’, now 190 years old. On my full belly of fermented cabbage, Mme. Grenouille (who once upon a time went to catering school, and also worked in one of the Eiffel Tower’s pricier restaurants) said we should take a look as the shop is very interesting though a little on the pricey side.
E.Dehillerin: 51, rue Jean- Jacques Rousseau – 75001 PARIS
View on Google Street Maps
I should have probably picked up on the fact that the majority of people inside the shop were tourists; coupled with the lack of price tags on any of the items. As you step inside, they have those wonderful copper cooking pots, that you can picture hanging in a stone country kitchen near a roaring fireplace. We did enquire on the price of a particular knife, and the salesman seemed to just pluck a magic figure out of the air, to which I grimaced and whispered ‘keep walking’… I daresay you’d receive more attention if you are a professional chef and not a tourist or clueless amateur. The products are of a very high quality though, and if you venture downstairs, it feels like you’ve wandered into somebody’s old storage cellar, unchanged for the past 190 years. We bumped into an American couple down there who started talking to us when they overheard Mme. Genouille telling me I really should see Julie & Julia with Meryl Streep, and then the conversation changed to the correct way to cook a boeuf bourguignon!
Photo Credit: Travelingmcmahans
Choucroute comes from Alsace – that little elongated, squashed up blob on the right of France, squeezed up tightly against Germany and poked from behind a little by Switzerland. I’d tried a little sauerkraut from the market, but was taken to an Alsacian restaurant in Paris for the full experience. Of all the foods I would normally wish to try, shredded cabbage, left to ferment by various lactic acid bacteria, wasn’t my first choice. Sometimes French experiences must be tried first hand (with the exception of eating snails).
The French have had this dish since around 1648, and it doesn’t follow a fixed recipe which means your fermented cabbage can be served with all manner of meat and usually a couple of boiled tatties. Our huge dish came with an assortment of sausages, potatoes and ham, far in excess of what two people could finish.
So… What did I think about the Choucroute Garnie experience? Comme Ci, Comme Ça seems an apt way to put it. Filling; not bad; worth trying, but forgettable too… I was assured this wasn’t the best choucroute dish Parisian Alsacian restaurants had to offer.
