Chez M. le Président

Two weeks ago, we went on a visit to the president's house.

Admittedly, so did 20 000 other people, but it was still pretty cool.

It was the Journées du patrimoine, when important buildings all over France are open to the public. We had a friend of UFM's who had come all the way from Canada staying, which helped to motivate us to actually get out and do something. In previous years, we had visited the Assemblée Nationale and the Senate and survived the queues and the crowds (tip - visit at lunch time), so this time we decided to swing by the most popular building of all, the Elysée palace and see if we could face the experience.

We arrived at 10am and happily came across the priority queue for disabled people, pregnant women and people with small children. It didn't look too horrific, so we decided to take advantage of having SCB with us and make the effort.

Observing the crowds, a surprising number of heavily pregnant women seemed to have decided that seeing the president's official residence was an essential item on their "to do" list in the final weeks before the birth, along with the elderly and infirm and families like ours who were prepared to be optimistic about their toddlers' capacity for waiting patiently, and even in the "priority" queue, it took us two hours to reach the entrance to the garden.

Nevertheless, SCB was happy enough toddling up and down and smiling at elderly ladies, and we were pretty pleased with how things were gone as we passed through the final security check.

The view from the queue

...Only to discover that there was a further queue inside the garden where only those with actual medical needs were considered to be priority and escorted past the waiting hoards by the fire service. People like us who were only carrying 11 kilos of wriggly toddler on our backs (you had to leave buggies at the entrance, but I had luckily thought to pack the baby carrier ) had to wait patiently like everybody else.

That said, apart from one woman who kept harassing the poor junior fire service volunteers because she hadn't been allowed to skip ahead, everyone really was quite patient and the atmosphere was much nicer than you would expect among a bunch of Parisians who had been standing around for several hours.






Eventually, we shuffled our way in the door and the visit really began.

The first room was not at all what I was expecting:

Next to the giant swans, under a ceiling covered in what looked like geometric perspex icicles, was a beautifully set dining table. I can only imagine M. Macron eating here with a deeply ironic smile on his face, perhaps glancing across the table at Brigitte as if to say, "We've really made it now, haven't we, chérie?" 

The rest of the palace was more in keeping with my expectations, although it was interesting in many of the rooms to see modern art and furnishings juxtaposed with much older décor.

There were a lot of chandeliers.

 One of the fun parts was an exhibition of all the gifts Macron has received since becoming president:

 I also liked the section with all the place settings and cutlery used for presidential dinners.  UFM and I are quite proud of the cutlery set we received as a wedding present which has two different sizes of knives and forks, but we're still missing elements such as the grape scissors:

We all agreed afterwards that we were glad we had made the effort to do the visit ... and also very glad that it's ticked off the list and we will never have to stand in the 3 hour queue again!

August

I thought I would write lots about what we did in August, because, unlike in July, we actually did plenty of interesting things. But it's now September, la rentrée has come around and I think I may have to resort to a quick summary of the highlights:

Grandparents Galore
My parents came to visit, then we went out to Brittany to see mamie and papy. SCB loved being pushed on the swings, going paddling, building sandcastles and generally being showered with attention, but unfortunately chose the only week in the year when we had unlimited babysitting on tap to become ridiculously clingy, howling and grabbing our legs whenever UFM or I tried to leave her alone with any of our parents. So there was no "us" time for us, but it was lovely to have everyone together. My mum impressed us all once again with her French conversational skills and papy taught everyone how to play palets, a Breton game where you throw round metal discs on to a board and aim to hit the target.

Beautiful Beaches
As usual, we tested the waters in both the north and the south of Brittany. We went to Carnac, which was beautiful but windy, and Saint Enogat, where, after a picnic and sandcastle-building with granny, SCB suddenly dashed off across the sand to the far-distant sea (the tide was very, very low) and had a wonderful time splashing about in the shallows.

Making a break for the sea

Magnificent Mountains
After Brittany, we spent two weeks in the Alps. Despite only having learned to walk eight weeks before, SCB took to scrambling up mountain paths with gusto. She didn't go very far ( a few hundred metres at a time) but she was happy to be carried by us the rest of the time, so although we were limited a bit by how far we were fit enough to carry her, we managed to do some proper mountain walks for the first time in almost two years.

Mini-Hiker

Our second week in the Alps was spent in Beaufort, the town north east of Albertville famous for one of the most delicious (and expensive!) cheeses in France. The whole area is ridiculously charming. Even the ski industry hasn't spoiled the little villages of delightful wooden chalets, all with flowers in window boxes on the balconies. Even the cows whose milk is used to make Beaufort cheese are more charming than other cows. When Understanding Frenchman told me that the illustrators of Heidi visited the area for inspiration instead of going to Switzerland, I wasn't at all surprised. In practical terms, it was also a good place for us to be, as you can drive fairly high up into the mountains and there are plenty of accessible walks. On the days when we didn't have the energy to hike, we also appreciated the outdoor swimming pool and enjoyed wandering around the village eating artisanal ice cream.

Beaufort

Faithful Friends
After all that fun, we might have been a bit sad to come back to la région parisienne, but luckily two very good friends came to stay for the last couple of days of the holidays.We've always liked having visitors, but since travel has become more complicated for us since the arrival of SCB, we appreciate people coming to see us even more. Having guests was also a good motivation to head into Paris and generally make the most of our last few days of freedom. I was sorry to see them go, but the gourmet delicacies that they brought from their home town of Birmingham (i.e. an enormous bag of Cadbury's chocolate) has been helping to lessen the pain of the rentrée and has been much appreciated!