Dumb Dog

On Strike Day last week (Thursday 18th) I decided to work from home. We have a rather flashy new system which allows distance training, so I can be in Paris and my student can be in Grenoble or Nepal, and it doesn't make any difference. It was a great opportunity to spend a day testing it out and things were running smoothly until I mistakenly put my foot outside my front door.

I'd been invited to a meeting not far away, so I decided to be cunning and use my own bike to get there, instead of taking a Vélib, which I'd heard would be far too in demand for anyone to be able to get their hands on one. So, I wheeled out my Décathlon powder blue bike and got it outside the cellar, locked the cellar, and then realised it had a flat tyre. No problem, I thought, I'll chance a Vélib, and still be on time.

What I hadn't factored into my timing was the dog attack.

Walking along the street near my apartment towards our local Vélib station, I was enjoying the fresh breeze and the bright sunshine when I saw an extremely mangy looking waist-high dog a few metres in the distance, held on a leash by a slightly less mangy-looking owner, but nevertheless urinating all over the pavement (the dog, not the owner, although I wouldn't have put it past him).

I continued walking along and considered that the pavement was wide enough for a grumpy old man, a scruffy dog and myself. Obviously I was mistaken because just as I passed the dog it went crazy and yelped in anger, somehow managing to engage my (fake-leather-clad) arm between its slobbery jaws.

I screamed like a little girl and yanked my arm away from the dog. Thankfully no damage was done and my jacket, limbs and circulation remained intact. I was shaken nonetheless, and quite surprised to hear the dog's owner yelling, "What do you expect if you walk like that, approaching a dog from behind...?"

Now, he may have a point that dogs shouldn't be surprised, especially when eating, but to say that his mutt's attack on me was my own fault is nothing short of ridiculous. I tried to reply intelligently through my heart palpitations and tears, but all I managed was, "I expect nothing at all, Monsieur, when I walk in the street, especially not be attacked by a dog for no reason, sob..."

Later that evening I would think of several much more effective rebuttals, but in the moment that's all I could manage.

I finally got to the Vélib station and took out a bike, only to find that it too had a flat tyre. It was this that pushed me over the edge and I called my boss in floods of tears explaining what had happened. His main reply was, "What just happened?!" and reassured me that they would wait until I could arrive.

Finally I managed to get another bike, pedal to the meeting and arrive just five minutes late. Thank goodness for the lovely promenade plantée.

A friend said to me today that I should have called the police or at least reported the dog incident, but I am not hurt, so I thought it wasn't necessary, but then she asked what if it had been a child? Of course she's right, so I'm going to report it.

Rather an eventful day all in all. I just hope the strikes are well and truly over now or I'm going to have to invest in a puncture kit.

Swing low

Swing low, sweet chariot, coming for to carry me home!
Swing low, sweet chariot, coming for to carry me home!
I looked over Jordan and what did I see,
Coming for to carry me home?
A band of angels coming after me,
Coming for to carry me home.

If you get there before I do,
Comin' for to carry me home,
Tell all my friends I'm comin' too,
Comin' for to carry me home.

Spinning Around

It's never easy trying to decide what to do when the parent wagon rolls into town, especially with grandmother in tow. Obviously walking is pretty restricted as grandmother is now 86, so in the no-no category you also have to add dancing, climbing, being in crowds, cobblestones, dark interiors (eyesight problems), so rather a large portion of improvising is required.

It is nice to spend time with family of course, and we did have a rather pleasant weekend in the sunshine. We managed to improvise with a red bus tour, a bateau mouche and another red bus tour; the highlight of which, for me, was seeing the Tongan rugby team licking ice-creams dejectedly near the Eiffel Tower the day after losing to England.

We enjoyed two rather tasty dinners at Au Chein Qui Fume and La Tourelle. The second one, being near to my apartment, I always consider as basic with nothing particularly special to offer. On Sunday evening I couldn't have been more wrong. They brought out plates of mouth-watering, melt in your mouth steak, crispy gratin dauphinois and beautifully cooked cod. The dinner at the smoking dog was good too, but for almost twice the price... but that's Châtelet as opposed to Vincennes.

I had wanted to go to the new aquarium in Trocadéro, but the interior would probably have been too dark for my gran. Fair enough, we have to consider everyone but I think my mum would have loved it. That will have to be a feature of one of G's future Parisian weekends.

We did manage a mother-daughter bonding moment after dinner on Saturday. With my dad and his mum safely ensconced in a taxi back to the Citadines, my mum and I headed down the rue de rivoli towards Concorde. For the first time in the weekend we walked briskly; laughing and chatting all the way to the big wheel. The view was stunning, so stunning that I was in fact a little stunned and spent the first (painfully slow) rotation with my hands glued to the central pole, praying that the tiny metal half-cage we were in would withstand the wind (or what actually was a rather pleasant evening breeze, but everything is yanked out of perspective at a height of 50m). By the second rotation I was fine, and the delighted grin on my mum's face made me relax and enjoy the rest of the trip. Sometimes it really is nice to be a tourist again.

So now it is back to the grindstone once more, with the nights drawing in and G still spending Monday to Friday in Chablis. Maybe I'll pop out again for another spin on the wheel...

Wicked!

I'm totally obsessed.

I made the huge mistake of buying the soundtrack to a musical I knew I would love, and now it's too late for second guessing, too late to go back to sleep. I'd heard all about it, I knew it was popular, but I never realised how the music from this story of two witches can cast a spell over your mind and have you dancing through life.

Wicked is a musical based on the two witches from the Wizard of Oz. The Wicked Witch of the West is the main character and it tells the story of what happened in Oz before Dorothy and Toto arrived.

The show-stopper from Wicked is Defying Gravity, which even after hearing it twenty times gives me chills and Idina Menzel's top E in the last part of the song is totally ethereal.

I haven't yet got bored of it, but it's been going around in my head every day this week and I'll either have to power through and keep listening until I'm sick of it, or force myself to go back to Stevie Wonder and book tickets for the West End show. Sad but true, my life is now revolving around musicals; that's what happens when your man goes away for weeks at a time.

Harvest

It's the time of year when all is safely gathered in, as the song would have it. The wine estates of France (and probably the rest of the Northern Hemisphere) are collecting, pressing and fermenting the fruits of the vine and turning them into what will become the fuel for drunken mistakes. On a more optimistic note, they are producing wine which will be enjoyed throughout the world for years to come. And a few bottles of plonk to be used for cooking.

Chablis is in the middle of its harvest and the weather is perfect. Blue skies and sunshine for over a week now, the work is pleasant and there is no risk of diluting the wine with the rain water that would inevitably go with the grapes into the pressing machines.

I visited Chablis very briefly on Friday and Saturday to see G and watch the harvesters at work. It was a fascinating thing to watch, above all because it only happens once a year and for a short time. Most of the grapes are picked by a machine which drives through the vineyard shaking off the grapes; but the Grands Crus (i.e. the best grapes) are picked by hand. I never actually thought to ask why that is, but I will!

It is quite a sight to see a whole trailer full of grapes being emptied and sent to the pressing machine. I took a short film but it's on its side and the quality isn't good because it came from my regular camera. Still, it gives an idea of what hundreds of grapes sliding down a metal thing looks like.

Is it going to be a good year? Apparently it is, contrary to what everyone thought during August. With little sunshine and far too much rain they thought that the wine would be acidic and tasteless, but in the last few weeks in the warm sunshine the grapes have ripened nicely and it seems that things are looking positive.

Paris Lights

On my way to work one day last week I was lucky enough to enjoy one of those rare treats: a stroll through an empty Parisian garden in the sunshine.

Normally in the Jardin des Tuileries there is little peace and no quiet, with tourists jostling for space with pushchairs and all manner of ridiculous souvenir sellers. The chalky Parisian ground stains your shoes with other people's footprints and wheel marks from the variety of skateboards, rollerblades and Vélibs which really shouldn't be there.

There are never any free reclining chairs around the pool and wherever you look some snotty child is wrestling with an ice-cream cone.

Last Wednesday it was totally different. As I stepped into the garden on my way from the Tuileries métro station to the rue de Lille, my destination, I turned my face to the sunshine
and literally began basking and appreciating this beautiful city for what it has to offer.

On my left was the Louvre museum with its glass pyramids, reflecting the sunshine coming from the east, and on my right was the grande axe, a long section of boulevard stretching from the Louvre to the financial district of La Défense. The sun lit up the Eiffel Tower and the Musée d'Orsay on the other side of river with a light that I had never seen in these gardens; mostly because I come to this area at weekends and not at 8.30am.

I may be waxing lyrical but the sight of the rising sun across Paris was truly beautiful and boosted me until lunchtime.

Mumblers on tour

On Sunday evening I rolled home in the late afternoon from a long trip back from Brittany. Our band The Mumblers had a gig in a little village just outside Vannes. It was actually really fun to take a van with the band and drive out to do a gig. Two of the band don't drink, none of us smokes and there were no groupies. Apart from that it was totally rock and roll.

The place where we played was a tiny Breton village called Le Gorvello, where a charming American couple run a café with a bed and breakfast. We did our gig outside the café, with the accompaniment of a rather grouchy neighbour who complained about the noise during our sound check (a rather gentle Beatles number). With that brief glitch we started off a little tentatively, but went on to do quite a good show.

The lovely American guy took a hat round the audience and we managed to gather up a rather sizable collection of coins. Of course we don't do our gigs to make profits, it would be hard if we did, but it's always nice to have a bit of brass to line the pockets.

Back to work Monday and I'm already in the train-train of city life. Looking forward to a weekend in England on Friday.

Back Down to Earth

After a hectic holiday, here I find myself back to Paris, alone in my flat waiting for Monday morning and my return to work.

G has been invited by a client from the wine business to the opera in Glynebourne. Apparently this opera is extremely famous, but despite being very much a classical music fan I've never heard of it. G's family's wine is on the list for the restaurant at the opera, so he's going in a professional capacity, but I'm sure the four course picnic will be well worth it, let alone the world-class singing.
He was more worried about having to wear black tie, but that's him!

Egypt was amazing. We dived everyday except the first and the last, and saw some amazing things. The Red Sea coral reef is incredible, stretching along miles of coastline and going deeper than any scuba diver can hope to go. We did a PADI Open Water certificate, and had to do all manner of exercises like taking off our masks and putting them on again, emptying them and continuing (my personal worst). A lot of practice with balance and breathing and how to float properly in the water.

The feeling you get from literally swim-flying over pink, orange and purple coral gardens surrounded by tiny and huge fish is just like nothing you can feel on the ground. The fish are so colourful and all such different shapes it is stunning how nature manages to create such differences. I didn't have an underwater camera, but you can find typical red sea fish here. We saw most if not all of the fish photographed on that site.

So, now I am totally addicted to scuba diving, and am on the look out for our next diving trip.

Sharm El Sheikh

So, I'm off to Egypt today! In about an hour or so we're leaving for Roissy airport to fly to Sharm El Sheikh. I have to admit now to being a little nervous about the flight, since it's been several years since I've taken a charter flight. I suppose the budget airlines I regularly use between Paris and East Midlands are no better than a charter company, but it just feels more risky somehow.

We should arrive at our hotel at 11pm this evening, and currently the temperature in the resort is 40°C. I'm looking forward to escaping this cold weather - in Paris at the moment it's about 15°C.

Our diving course starts on Monday morning, so we have all day tomorrow to acclimatise, discover the surrounding area and perhaps go on a snorkelling trip. I think it's a good idea to get used to the idea of being underwater - I usually take half an hour or so to relax with the feeling of being underwater. If it's anything like Cuba I just can't wait to get going!

Brits at the Beach

Today I'm on Day Four of my family visit to Yorkshire. As it was lovely and sunny in the last few days my dad suggested a trip to the seaside. Great, I thought; a chance to re-sample mushy peas just to see if I can't stomach them without vomiting (I still can't, but the fish and chips were delicious). In fact it was quite nice to drive over to the seaside, it gave me a chance to catch up with Harry and his friends on the journey - the seventh book is proving just as exciting as the other six.

Seriously, the beach was lovely and wide with plenty of space for everyone, so the feeling of being squished in like sardines that so often prevails on Saturday beach visits was definitely absent. We didn't spend time sitting on the beach, fortunately, because there was a rather bracing wind blowing around hair, clothes and sand. Ensconced in my polo-neck sweater the temperature was quite manageable.

The thing which amused me the most about our day in Filey was the other people there. I have never seen so many mullets in such a small space of time; also bleached hair and fat hanging out of beige shorts. I'm trying not to judge, obviously, and there is nothing wrong with bleached hair when done tastefully, it's just when taste nips out the door for a while that you wonder if these people are not extras from Little Britain.

Another thing that I noticed today was that Brits at the beach are constantly surrounded by their entire collection of wind-breaks, picnic baskets, spades, buckets, plastic chairs... the list goes on. One set-up we saw would rival Everest base-camp for organisation and availability of provisions.

What intrigued me most was that it wasn't even warm enough to swim - so all the towels are useless, there are restaurants only 10m further up the beach and, well, all that stuff is just ridiculous.

On Monday we're taking Chloe (see my facebook page for a photographic update) swimming for the second time in her little life. I can't wait to see those smiles and hear her little giggles as she splashes around!