The Male Kestrel
Just after I published the last post, I heard the kestrel's cries and looked out the window to see her back in the high window ledge she seems to like. A few moments later her mate arrived! She flew off just as he arrived in the courtyard (I guess the honeymoon is over). I've only seen him once before - if then, since that first time he was just a flash of a second bird flying away. This time he took up the post abandoned by the female, and I got a good look at him through the binoculars.
The male kestrel has a distinctive grey head, so any remaining doubt in my mind about their species has been removed.
Around the Bois
I walked Janet to work this morning, then went for a longer than usual run around the Bois de Boulogne. I may have to start carrying a camera, because there's always something to capture. Yesterday it was a child on a pony wearing an oversize riding helmet, right out of a
Thelwell cartoon. Today it was a peloton passing below a windmill by the river.
On the final leg, I went the long way around
Roland Garros, where they're setting up for the
French Open. It doesn't officially commence until Sunday, but already, and even on a grey morning just after breakfast, there were people gathered wherever you can watch the practise courts from outside the fence.
We'll be out of town for a couple of weeks, so
entrelesmurs will be again taking a hiatus.
It's About the Bread
At the risk of being the gushing, more-French-than-the-French kind of ex-pats, we have become huge consumers of baguette. As everyone knows, there is a bakery on every block in France, and people walking down the street with a baguette are as common as people carrying knapsacks at home. We have done a fair bit of exploration of the bakeries in our neighbourhood - and there are at least half a dozen handy to our apartment.
Among just the baguettes, there are a wide variety, including
campagne, fromage, ancien graines, cereale and
nature, all slightly different at each bakery. There is at least an equal number of other kinds of loaves, plus various rolls, buns and croissants. And many places are
patisseries as well (although strictly speaking this is considered a very different craft), so it's too easy to go in for a baguette and come out with a
tarte tatin or
mille-feuilles as well.
One key thing to know - and I'm still working this out precisely - is the point in the day at which the bread is baked. There's nothing like handing over one's eighty-five centimes and receiving a warm baguette in exchange, or a melt-in-your-mouth hot buttery croissant. It seems to be around 5:00 or 5:30 at Best Croissant, since that's when the line forms outside; but of course other breads, or croissants, don't necessarily arrive at the same time, and each bakery has a different schedule.
The bakeries seem to be quite competitive, since they display their awards and competition successes on their walls and in their windows. The names of the businesses themselves are often less prominent, and consequently we have taken to referring to them by their awards. Hence Best Croissant, which is across the street, where they just about hand me a
baguette cereale (whole grain) without my asking, and Eighth Best Baguette, or simply "Eighth Best", in the nearby neighbourhood of Auteuil. Being the eighth best baguette maker (of 2004) may not sound like Olympic gold, but when you're competing with all the bakeries of Paris, it's a something to be proud of.
The kestrel is not gone altogether. She has put in a couple of appearances over the last few days. On Tuesday morning she appeared with loud cries and a mouse in her talons. This morning she was perched in one of the higher window ledges when I got up. I don't imagine she helps keep the pigeons down, since she's not much larger than they are, but she does seem to be mistress of the courtyard when she appears.
Empty Aerie
Alas, our kestrel has departed. This morning she was absent and her egg was resting on the roof two floors below her window ledge. The fact that the egg was intact perhaps attests to its non-viability. That was fun while it lasted; but too much to hope that we would be able to watch from our kitchen window kestrel chicks being hatched.
More Wine
Yesterday evening was our second Lavinia class in our introduction to wine tasting. We attempted to do a little homework beforehand, by reading the little booklet we'd been given and looking up any words we didn't understand. I can't say it helped me understand the lesson any better. With several fewer students, and perhaps feeling more at ease with the first lecture behind him, the instructor seemed to speak in a more rapid and relaxed fashion - and I still need slow and stiff or I can't keep up. It's not that I'm not learning; but some day I'll want to take the course again (in English if my French isn't much improved) to fill in the gaps. Janet did better, and even managed a little chit-chat with the fellow beside her.
The subject was red wine this week, and the ones we tasted were, like the whites last Saturday, not chosen in an attempt to present representatives of common varieties, but rather illustrate a number of aspects of the tasting process, using wines of interesting characteristics in the colour, nose, body and flavours. I think the
Rioja was my favorite this week.
This morning the kestrel was off her window ledge, permitting me to observe one brown egg in the corner. That answers that question: she's definitely nesting, even if there's no actual construction of twigs and straw. We're not sure how concerned to be about the amount of time she is not on her "nest". Perhaps she's new at this, but isn't she supposed to sit on the egg more or less constantly?
Parisian Aerie
A small bird of prey has taken up residence across the courtyard outside our kitchen window. A little searching on the net suggests that it is a Kestrel, or in French, a
Faucon crécerellette. This species is apparently
native to the area, and the female in
this picture looks quite similar to ours across the way. We are fortunate to have some very fine binoculars, acquired as a Christmas gift, so we are able to get a much closer look than the picture below implies.
We're not sure that she's nesting, since there doesn't seem to be an actual nest, and I'm not sure I've ever seen a male come by. On the other hand, she is sitting there constantly at the moment.
Professional Development
As a member of the
Paris chapter of the
Project Management Institute (PMI), I get invited to occasional evening lectures and similar events. Yesterday evening I went to hear about
La Conduite du Changement, which means "The Conduct of Change" but would probably translate into English biz-speak as "Managing Change". The presentation was held in the university area, at the
Maison des Mines.
I was delighted to find that not only could I understand enough to follow the speaker, but the material was familiar but not well-known to me, so that I was actually learning something too. The slides helped, but by listening actively I could absorb as much or more than if I had been listening passively to the same presentation in English.
A further bonus was the drinks and nibbles afterwards; no surprise that the French do these things well. Not lavish, but fine: toasted almonds where we'd expect peanuts, wine where we'd expect coffee, delicate seeded pastry sticks where we'd get carrot sticks.
I engaged a fellow attendee in conversation; but he turned out to be from San Diego, so we quickly lapsed into English. It feels odd to talk to another English speaker in French. In a final effort to speak some French I thanked the speaker, but he was involved in another conversation and only nodded and smiled at me.
TV Shoot
I thought we'd left them behind in Toronto, but it seems you can't escape the white trucks.
A film crew has set up on our block for a couple of days. They're shooting something called
R.I.S. Police Scientifique, a homegrown version of CSI, for TF1. They had the courtesy to post a note by the mailboxes in our building so people knew what to expect. Fortunately, it's an interior set so they're only messing up the parking on the street. The sidewalk is only partly obstructed and road traffic is unhindered.
Out and About
We spent Saturday afternoon downtown, around the 1st and 2nd
arrondissements. The area around the department stores had been blocked to traffic for a demonstration - this one to do with new immigration laws - and it made it much easier to get around. One has to appreciate the French respect for political demonstrations. This one, or what we saw of it, seemed quite large, but even so the area of the downtown core that had been barred to traffic was so ample that many blocks became effectively pedestrian boulevards, for the shoppers and tourists to enjoy. The police seemed to be handling it smoothly, with traffic efficiently re-routed and, contrary to our experience from the news and around our sports stadium, no over-bearing show of force to remind people to behave.
Passing from the main shopping area on Haussmann down to the Boulevard des Capucines, we discovered that the cow sculpture mania has made it to Europe. In Toronto it manifested mostly as life-size moose. Here we found some unusual cows posed on the Opera plaza.
We were downtown shopping, of course, but we have also signed up for an introductory wine appreciation course at
Lavinia, a large wine merchant oriented to the serious
caviste rather than the casual tippler (It turns out there are many of the latter in France. One has the perception that all of the French have sophisticated tastes for wine and food, but we have learned, from our observations in the supermarket, cat-sitters leave-behinds and other sources, that the French are just like North Americans, and in large numbers opt for convenience over quality). The course is two hours on Saturday evening for three weeks. The subject was white wine this week, and included tastings of three wines that were each a little unusual. The other participants were couples and single young men of the well-groomed sort.
Get a Chambre
The
Bois de Boulogne is widely known to be the site of a remarkable variety of adult activities after sundown. There's even a scene in the Da Vinci Code (or "
Ce maudit roman" as it's now referred to in Paris) that makes much of the park's reputation. But I didn't expect on a midday run to come across a couple rounding third base.
The ground was damp so I was watching for mud or I might have seen them sooner and been able to discreetly alter course; instead I couldn't avoid passing within ten feet of the pair,
in flagrante delicto on a park bench right beside the path. I'm not making some puerile inference about a couple I saw in a clinch; she had her head back and skirt up so there was no mistaking their activity.
Perhaps even this wouldn't be unheard of in a city park at home; but what made it unusual and somehow
très French is that the two were easily my parents' age.
Home Again
We were greeted in Paris by grey skies and rain, having left sunhine and clear skies in Vancouver - it must be that global warming. We're a little jet-lagged, but only Emma is truly out of sorts; she is running in and out, begging for affection then hissing when she gets it.
First Anniversary
Last night we celebrated our first wedding anniversary with Janet's family. Her father arranged dinner at a local restaurant, where we were driven by one of their neighbours so we could all enjoy the wine. There was a card and a rose on the table when we arrived, and our wedding CD (with my sister's voice and best friend A's keyboard) was playing on the restaurant's sound system.
Janet and her dad
Just after I published the last post, I heard the kestrel's cries and looked out the window to see her back in the high window ledge she seems to like. A few moments later her mate arrived! She flew off just as he arrived in the courtyard (I guess the honeymoon is over). I've only seen him once before - if then, since that first time he was just a flash of a second bird flying away. This time he took up the post abandoned by the female, and I got a good look at him through the binoculars. The male kestrel has a distinctive grey head, so any remaining doubt in my mind about their species has been removed.
