Paris, aaahhh Paris

It's been a while since my last post. Exhaustion and lack of inspiration. And then we went to Paris for two nights (just me and Tom). Bliss. We walked too much, but then how else to see one of the most beautiful cities in the world. We ate too much, of course. We drank too much, yippee no middle of the night wake-up with Charlotte.

What is it about the French and food? They just know what they're doing. Woman in perfectly ordinary bakery "is that pain levain freshly made today?". Restaurant (Allard in Latin Quartier) serving sauteed ceps as a starter, simple and delicious. Waiter in a cafe near Place des Vosges recommending the lamb gigot and the chocolate cake to us - not a posh cafe, not expensive - but the meat was lovely and the cake was fabulous. And lastly, the market at Place Monge. Small - probably not more than 20 stalls, but at least three really wonderful fish stalls, two cheese stalls, lovely fruit and veg and a man selling fleur de sel. Apparently the Paris city authority has "seeded" weekend and late night markets all over the city so that working people can access fresh quality food.

And then you get home and the BBC are doing programmes on people addicted to the ready-meals who have got rid of their dining table to make space for a drum kit???!!! And yesterday there was an article about how people should be shown how to cope with scary food by supermarkets - scary food apparently is fresh fruit and veg. Even if we had a government, local or otherwise, that was enlightened enough to seed markets through the country, apparently the British wouldn't actually know what to do with it....

We are nuts.