Such style

 So, if three crafty friends arrive in Paris shortly after lunchtime and check in to their hotel in Les Halles, where is their first destination? 

No question. 

Surprisingly quiet.  So much so that for the first time ever, an assistant approached me and asked if she could help!  Altogether different from the times when the queue has been out of the door and a whole morning has been needed to make the simplest of purchases.

Anyway, it was a great way of warming ourselves up and getting our brains into French (un petit peu). Next stop Mokuba for a drool over their luscious ribbons.  Decisions were bravely taken to resist buying any of the gorgeous ribbons and braids, whether they were of the €7/m or €75/m variety.  We reminded each other of all the little packages of such things were still in drawers at home in spite of so many good intentions and satisfied ourselves that we were leaving them for someone else to enjoy.

As we walked though the streets towards Le Louvre, we found ourselves dipping into almost every other shop like excited children.  We were drawn into the Arcade Vivienne by a million twinkly lights as dusk fell, and by the time we reached Le Louvre, the brightly coloured afternoon had transformed into a deep blue and gold evening.

Aperitif time, then and a quick change before dinner.  Difficult to believe the fun had only just started.

We'd decided to get to Le Grande Halle in the Parc De la Villette early on Friday morning, and joined a long queue about fifteen minutes before the show opened.  But organisation was non existent, and shortly after the doors opened, we found ourselves in a huge scrum reminiscent of boarding a school bus.  The French woman in front of us turned to apologise "Sorry, we French don't queue like the English".

It was ridiculous really - grown women who were quite capable of seeing there was room for only two people to go through the door at one time, having queued for half an hour or more in an orderly line suddenly lost all sense and took the "every woman for herself" strategy, taking far longer to achieve their goal in the process.  There was all kinds of pushing and shoving too - this was no patient shuffle.

Oh la la.

Once inside, we were treated to a beautifully classy set of stands, the understated theme of which appeared to be red and ecru - a touch of Christmas, a traditional stitched style which was completely different from the wildly creative, riot of colour we experienced at the Ally Pally recently.

My favourites included the stand shown above, which had such a lovely range of buttons and things imaginatively used.  The Maison Sajou collection was a fascinating variety of beautifully packaged bits and pieces and the Briteafil stand was a great example of the simple technique done well. 

And of course this was one reason why we were interested in coming here.  So fascinating to see a fresh, new set of ideas, especially displayed with such style, such taste - so chic!

The room sets created from the projects in the latest edition of Marie Claire Idees were fascinating, giving a glimpse into how these articles come about.  The styling here was more adventurous, more colourful and though not always to our taste, it was lively, colourful and the exquisite items were beautifully staged.

The crowds did not always behave in a similarly impeccable fashion.  At times, we gave up and moved on, thinking we could return when there was less of a scrum.  Refreshed by a good lunch at a Brasserie across the road, we returned after lunch with renewed energy and it was almost 4pm when we decided we'd had enough and armed with a few more bags than we'd started with, we returned to our hotel for a bit of a rest before aperitifs and dinner.

Our return tickets were for the 1615 train, so we had plenty of time to spend a morning exploring Les Grands Magasins and though I was determined to keep this blog Christmas-free until December, I can't resist sharing this magnificent tree in the centre of Galeries Lafayette.

We poured ourselves onto the train after a great lunch by Gare du Nord and enjoyed a last bottle of champange as we sped under the channel.  A train full of football and rugby fans to Swindon soon brought me back to earth!

The early train

  Our plans for a late morning Eurostar were thwarted by changes to the timetable and we now leave St Pancras at 10.30 which means a very early start from home.  For once, Baby Laptop will stay home and I'll be PC-free for a couple of days.

A Bientot mes amis!

Ninety years

A couple of years ago, when the BBC focused their Remembrance coverage on the groups of young men who signed up during WW1, such as the "Hull Pals", I did a bit of research to find out if my Grandad was one of them.  Quite a surprise to find he enlisted in the East Lancashire Fusiliers, then, on the wrong side of the Pennines!

I don't know much about his war story except that he was in France and was invalided out; as a result of shrapnel wounds to his left arm, I think.  Certainly, he wore his silver war badge with pride long after it was all over.

This morning, on the 90th anniversary of the Armistice, I was in a meeting.  At 11 o'clock precisely, we stopped for two minutes along with so many others.  Outside, the sun was shining over the lovely Oxfordshire countryside and the bell in the church next door tolled.

As I drove home later this afternoon, I stopped to pick up a bit of shopping in a farm shop.  I watched as the sun went down behind the Union Jack, thinking that it seemed a rather appropriate image to take home with me tonight.

And every bear that ever there was....

Our small friends came for lunch today, which meant that the bears got to have a picnic.  Aunt Lucy's hat and shawl came in handy for dressing up though, and with a bit of determination (ok, a lot of determination and some help from a big sister) Paddington's shirt fitted as well!

They have gone home to bed now and the house is so very quiet!

Interesting week

A couple of days in Birmingham, where the benign weather made exploring the city on foot a pleasure.  We always enjoy being here and particularly like the area around the Gas Street Basin. 

 

We heard a great concert in Symphony Hall including a stunning performance of Vaughan-Williams 5th Symphony.  We'd gone to the fascinating pre-concert talk and identified a few points to listen out for  - see if you too can "hear the sun come out" in the clip Mark's uploaded.  Gorgeous!  But for the second concert in a row, some poor member of the audience sitting nearby fell ill and needed help during the most tranquil moment of the piece.  It's not an easy task to manage this situation but somehow the SH staff cope with the minimum of fuss.

The following night, we were at an awards dinner at the National Motorcycle Museum where one generous sponsor had arranged a fantastic firework display to celebrate Guy Fawkes.  We oohed and aaahed with the best and enjoyed a fun evening with great entertainment.  The thing is, we've been to this venue several times now and have yet to see a motorcycle of any kind!

I finished the week in Gloucester with a couple of meetings.  Yesterday afternoon, however, I'd booked a place with my County Council colleagues on a photography course.  Absolutely fascinating!  Like most people, I've never been taught to take a photograph but have simply picked it up as I went along.  But Leigh Preston's workshop was so useful and hopefully I'll be able to put his advice to good use.  I've been trying hard to take more thoughfully composed photographs recently, doing my best to resist the temptation to take hundreds of pictures in the hope that one will be ok.  My self-imposed rule to post only unedited photographs on my 365 blog has given me good reason to take time to think and compose and the workshop emphasised how far I've come but also how much more there is to learn.

 

We focused (!) on taking photographs of people and I hope my colleague Jane, who sat opposite me and proved an excellent model* won't mind my posting this thoughtful portrait of her here.  I took Leigh's suggestion of transforming it into black and white once I got home - the only tweak made, since I resisted Jane's request to do a bit of wrinkle removal! 

*excellent model until I tried to use the "smile detect" feature on my camera - her sudden seriousness meant that it would not work!

Update on Saturday, November 8, 2008 at 2:54PM by Gill Thomas

Whilst testing the links in the post above, I had difficulty getting the link to a clip of Vaughan Williams 5th Symphony to play and only after a bit of detective work did we discover that a recent update of Windows knocked out some file associations.  If it doesn't play for you, then perhaps you need to go into your Control Panel and reset a few - in this particular instance, assign a program to play your .mp3 and .m3u files easily.