I went for a walk this weekend and discovered le Bois de Vincennes. It has a big lake which I walked round and over onto the two islands in the middle.
This was the bridge to the islands. I tried playing pooh sticks with a pine cone and a stick and though they disappeared beneath, they didn't reappear out the other side!
I found this mini pavillion poking out from the pine trees atop a little cliff
With some caves underneath!
The more ornithological amongst you will probably be able to tell me what these ducks are:
This island was especially designed by someone in the 1800s I think, to specifically be a place of quiet and rest and beauty. There are peacocks and expanses of shady grass which I imagine will be delicious in the summer!
There were a couple of spanish/latino musicians playing the guitar and bongos and their music came floating across to the island. They stopped when I tried to take this sneaky photo though!
I found my first flowers of winter!
Boats for rowing in the summer (Mummy!)
These berries were a beautiful colour:
I loved the bark on these trees, in was so multicoloured and textured and stripey and beautiful!
The clouds were also doing beautiful things:
Sunday I went ice-skating outside l'Hôtel de Ville with Andrea, a girl from the foyer. Alas, I still haven't the hang of it and am as unbalanced and uncoordinated as ever which resulted in a rather spectacular fall, landing flat on my back halfway through! Andrea did try to help me but all she kept saying was "Bend your knees, glide! Glide!" which, though excellent advice, did not help me as I appeared to be incapable of doing either!
Coming home on the metro though I was WELL balanced! Even on jerky line 1! No need to hold on to poles to support me!
When we got back, Kathryn laid on galette des rois (which is an almond-based paste tart thing they eat for epiphany here) for the girls in the foyer. Not being the world's greatest fan of almonds, my ears did prick up when she said "Now in case any of you don't like almonds..." but regrettably that sentence ended "I also have an apple pie, which I know Sophie won't like!"
Curses.
Tradition dictates the youngest person present goes under the table with a list of all names of everyone there and calls out each name at random and they receive the next slice until everyone has been served. This is an ingenious way to avoid any cheating on anyone's part and usually it's a very young child who does this but the youngest amongst us was 18 so we were content to let her stand in the corner facing the wall!
So, I went with this galette des rois (which incidentally was better when heated up) for a very important reason. Like in christmas pudding, there is a little lucky charm (un fève) and whoever finds it is king or queen (and traditionally there is one king and one queen) and there were four tarts all cut into four and each tart had one of these fèves in so the odds of winning were very good indeed! Alas, having eaten my entire slice, there was none to be found! But our four queens were gracious enough to send their crowns round and let everyone have a go!
Finally, those of you who know me best will understand my excitement at eleven minutes past eleven this morning (11:11 11/11/11) and better still, this day is exactly nine months away from 11:11 11/11/11!!! What an exciting year!
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