Butter wouldn't melt...

How cute is this little bundle? Chloe is almost two months old now, I can't believe how quickly time is flying by. My sister assured me about two weeks ago that her offspring was smiling on command - or at least in reaction to tickles, smiles and songs - and that it was unbelievably cute. Having said that there was no photographic evidence. Now there is, and here you can see my gorgeous niece performing for her close-up.

Life in Paris is extremely busy at the moment. Tonight I just returned from a concert with Voices in Boutigny-sur-Essonne, a delightful little village with a post office, a restaurant, a bar and a church. We sang in the church which was packed to the back, and even the Mayor was there; he sat behind the alto section, so I'm not entirely sure he enjoyed the whole concert.

Yesterday we had a gig with the Mumblers, my band. This time the action was in Gif-sur-Yvette, another small place with the claim to fame of being home to the CAES, which as far as I understood is the playground of the nuclear scientists from the CRNS who spend their days working with nuclear reactors and complicated theories. The CAES seems to be an organisation which takes care of the scientists leisure time. The Mumblers are made up of several employees from the CRNS, and whenever work is mentioned it goes completely over my head.

The gig went pretty well, it was freezing cold and we had to dance like maniacs to warm up, but overall the people liked it. I was quite surprised by the way that they knew line-dancing, rock'n'roll steps and what looked suspiciously like a quick-step. It's always a great pleasure to play for an appreciative audience, and even though they were probably dancing only to keep warm, there was a great atmosphere and they seemed to be having a good time.

So now there are two more concerts to go before the end of the "year" - of course in France the year finishes in June and the new one starts in September. We have one more with Voices - in Magny en Vexin (can a place never have just one word in its name?) and one on the 21st June with Mumblers for the Fête de la Musique, as we did last year. Lovely Lola is no longer a part of Mumblers - the weekly commute from Hong Kong for rehearsals would be a real pain - and so we have to go on without her. Her replacement Angela is doing a great job, but I really miss practicing with L. A January Hong Kong trip is in the pipeline and an Asian karaoke experience is definitely in the top five of my to-do list.