I love Paris in the springtime!
9:02 a.m.
I got an email from tcklyrpharsn, and now I want to go to Europe and bum around without a care in the world. The last time I was in Paris we had spent four weeks driving around France in a little car with two small children, visiting all the tourist spots (ch�teaux on the Loire, grottes in the Dordogne) and having a wonderful time, except that what I remember most vividly is the children (8 and 5) fighting constantly in the back seat. Okay, I remember other things too, like the cave paintings at Cougnac and the view from the top of Notre Dame, or suddenly seeing Carcassonne from the autoroute and being amazed at a medieval city popping out of the landscape. But traveling with children is an adventure in itself.
When we arrived in Paris, our son revealed to us the three small holes he had been chewing out of the rear door upholstery in our rented car. If ever I wanted to dump him in a city garbage can and leave him, it was then. Hubby, though, ever resourceful, solved the problem and saved me from being incarcerated for the rest of my natural life for infanticide. Next to our hotel was one of those grocery stores which sold everything, and I do mean everything. He purchased a bicycle tire repair kit, and in the dim light of the underground garage stuffed the cotton from Q-tips into the upholstery, and very carefully glued rubber patches cut to size over the holes. It was pretty darn good. When he took the car back the next day, they noted that the rear lights were scratched (we backed into a bramble bush) and that it was dirty (we had practically been living in it for a month, eating baguettes [we had vacuumed out all the crumbs though] and daughter had vomitted when we left Belv�ze, which I attempted to clean up when we arrived at St. Emilion), but no comment about the rear right passenger door, which bore three tiny blemishes not altogether visible in the dim light. Phew!
In spite of all that, I�d love to go back to France and do all the things we did over again, plus more. I want to visit all the nice people we met at the chambres d�h�tes we stayed at, and stay at that great hotel we were at the first time (sans kids) in downtown Paris. We still do keep in touch with an English couple we met at our first chambre d�h�te just outside of Chartres. We had arrived at Charles-de-Gaulle that morning, totally jet lagged, rented our little car at the airport, and drove to Chartres with absolutely no idea of where we were going to stay the night. At the tourist bureau we were told of a new g�te just opened that wasn�t in the directory yet, and the nice person behind the desk made the reservation for us. The drive to this farm was across very flat fields. If you weren�t on the road itself, you would never have know it was there.
We arrived at a farmhouse, which had once been the servants� quarters for the manoir next door and were greeted warmly by the farmer�s wife and her youngest son (then 11) who played very nicely with our two kids. The sleeping arrangements were perfect: two adjoining rooms, a double bed in one, two singles in the other. My daughter could already speak French by then, so she got on very well with the boy. I showered and changed first, and headed downstairs to see what was happening in the garden with the children. Entering the front door was an English couple, older than us, and I said hello. The man looked at my t-shirt (something my mother-in-law had given me with music notation on it) and started to hum the tune, and then explained that he was a musician. I said, �What a coincidence, I�m a musician!� Then he said he was a composer, and I said, �My husband is a composer!� and it continued like that.
Well, suffice it to say that we hit it off royally with these people. We all stayed for the table d�h�te that evening, and the conversation was sparkling and the farmer kept going back to his wine cellar to get more wine (which was extremely fine). We took a midnight walk to the end of the driveway with these wonderful people, looking across the fields to Chartres, where we could see the cathedral lit up with a golden glow. Simply enchanting. We still exchange xmas cards with them and have a standing invitation to stay with them if we ever make it across the pond to Merry Old England. Who knows? We might yet!
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