Great day for the beach - Meaux

We’d read the reports about the zoos in France have been feeding their tigers with slabs of ice to sustain them in the forty degree temperatures we have been experiencing, and very briefly entertained thoughts of trying to find jobs as zoo exhibits.  

Often in times such as these, we seek refuge in the depths of shade under trees, or in air conditioned museums or sometimes ancient cathedrals, but of course its Tuesday and the museums are closed, and the beach was closer than the cathedral, notwithstanding that we are four hundred kilometres from the nearest ocean.    

In summer, anywhere in France if there is a tub of water that is vaguely able to fit a human-sized object in it, someone will bring in a truckload of sand and an ice-cream stand and call it a beach.   In Meaux with the benefit of a clear running river the result is spectacular. No detail has been overlooked in creating a true seaside environment  Even the sand was too hot to walk on with bare feet, although perhaps the shark mesh surrounding the swimming enclosure on the river wasn’t taking things a little too far.

No matter how glamorous and inviting it all looked, our Antipodean sensibilities would  have none of this skin exposed to the elements stuff.  Instead, we sat all afternoon enjoying the wafting odours of the city in the cool shade of an ancient bridge,  and wondering what colour the skin on those basking on the beach would be by bed time.

Lunch with mayor - Lagny-sur-Marne to Meaux

There’s what promises to be a sustained a heat wave rolling over Europe, and if it had not been pre-ordained we may well have thought to find an air-conditioned restaurant off our own bat.

Since Joan and Peter were taking the trouble of finding a train to Meaux for a lunch with us in time rendezvous on their last day in France this year, we thought it only fair that we actually arrived where we said we would meet them, so there was to be no sleeping late this day.

We arrived in Meaux before the appointed hour, and even by midday as we entered the darkened air conditioned heart of our luncheon venue the heat was beginning to be of the searing kind. We had barely settled in when a gentleman dressed in an expensive-looking business suit and tie approached our table, notably without pen or pad, as if to announce the specials of the day.

“I am the Mayor of Meaux” he declared, welcoming us to his city, and then enquiring of our origins, expectations and so forth before giving us a run down on the highlights of the district.   

He wished us well, and departed as quickly as he had arrived having no doubt so overcome by being in our presence that he'd completely forgotten to ask if we’d like something to drink.   

Rolling along! - Paris to Lagny-sur-Marne

Leaving Paris is never an easy thing to do. There’s the tearing away of oneself from the place itself, then the rounds of farewells to all of one’s friends in the port, then one last trip to the bakery lest we should starve on our sea voyage of four hours or so, and finally the settling of the bill and the descent onto the river through that last lock on the Canal St Martin.    

While one of us was overheard discussing the benefits of getting away early, the other was wondering just exactly what part of ten in the morning that referred to.

But we were away, for a short while up the Seine bidding our last farewell to that same “Train of Wood” which finally arrived in Paris last night, before turning onto the Marne and bracing ourselves for the masses of recreational vessels happily if sometimes haphazardly spending their Sunday in exactly the same way we were.

We were expecting the rowers and the sailors, and shouldn’t have been surprised by the kayaks or stand up paddle boards, but really when we arrived at Lagny to discover “our” mooring consumed by kids in plastic steam roller things, it was surely a sign that the end of the world is nigh.   Surely this is the only country in the world where a town can hold a water festival, and in doing so bans actual boats from using the waterfront!   

Even the hotel barge had to vacate it’s permanent mooring to make way for the dozens of activities on offer.   Children were able to sample without cost,  every kind of water craft, learn to water ski, fish in the river or in a pool suitably stocked.  There were bands and music and odd musical instruments with which five year olds could make squarking sounds, and donkey rides and farmer’s hats and paper making.

We’d have given up our mooring for a week if they could have found a way for the magic to last beyond the evening. 

Colour - Paris

The plan was a good one.   We’d get half of what we needed to do done yesterday, leaving this morning to do the rest and this afternoon to get out and about.  The flaw in that of course is that the amount of work left to do is inversely proportional to the time left to do it, and when the time came to be finished, we weren’t.

So we washed and cleaned and generally managed to have things ship-shape by mid afternoon, well enough we were sure to give Cheryl and Ian the impression that we live as models of tidiness.  

We had been so busy that we hadn’t noticed the growing cacophony of sound generally from the direction of the Bastille where hundreds of thousands (although I would have guessed a lot more) people were taking part in some sort of parade on closed streets under clear blue skies.    

Had we known that the annual Gay Pride parade (or any other parade for that matter) would be happening in the afternoon, we may have bought bread earlier, but we hadn’t which is why when the time came to do so, I found myself peering over a sea of moving heads, with little prospect of getting from point A (where I was) to point B (where the bread was).

It might work, I thought if I slipped sideways into the parade, and sort of crab-walked across it to the other side.  The getting in part went well enough, and I soon found myself in the glare of the world’s press, walking between someone dressed as a North American First Nations Person (it was so much easier to type when they were called Red Indians), and a muscle bound chap dressed as a construction worker.

I can’t say that I “get” these iconic gay stereotypes, but I can say that if the next costume symbolising personal freedom turn out to be an older bloke in a Panama hat carrying a baguette, we all know how that came to be.

Half Day - Paris

A small flotilla of motor yachts from a somewhat elite Yachting Squadron, arrived in port a few days ago, and it’s quite clear that the cut of their cloth is of a different cut to that of the majority of we boat dwellers.    If it wasn’t for the splendid outfits they wore both ashore and aboard and perhaps how seriously they took themselves, it would be the notable fact that the staff were in uniform which really set them apart from the rest of us.

There’s no escaping that there is a distinct absence “staff” aboard our little ship to take care of the things that we’d rather not do ourselves, and with one more sleep until Cheryl and Ian arrive, there was no time like the present to sort out a couple of loads of washing, change the engine oil, clean the shower filters and attend to all that is distinctly not glamorous when it comes to living on a boat.

Fortunately in with our usual mix of efficiency and procrastination, we managed to complete most of our tasks by midday, and put off the others till tomorrow, leaving a full half-day for aimless wandering through the streets of Paris in the building heat of summer.   

Half a day of zigging and zagging down arcades and avenues, stopping occasionally to listen to the likes of the young lady singing a passable rendition of “Joline” on the steps of Monmartre, or the stringed orchestra playing classics in the Metro station at Bastille.  Half a day of window shopping in boutiques and antique shops and watching auctions in progress at poster shops and simply enjoying being there.  Half a day of Paris in summer is more than enough to leave one pleasantly footsore and weary at days end, although perhaps the morning’s work contributed to that, but importantly to leave things unseen to explore another day.

Actually, had we had staff aboard, we may well have been tempted to stay out all day, arriving home over-tired and grumpy, without any desire to go out again.   We are thankful for small mercies such as these!

Crash Landing. - Paris

Anyone with a Jules Verne bent could do worse than spend a few hours wandering the Museum of “Arts et Métiers”, broadly the industry and technology museum.  

A visit should be compulsory for devotees of Steampunk, the modern movement that engages itself in “Victorian” re-engineering of modern objects, for here one can find examples of pretty much everything that ever was good, or not so good as machinery and technology evolved.    

The aeroplane that made the first ever flight is there, and no that didn’t happen at Kittyhawk, as is the gloriously steam powered creation with the feather propellers that is perfectly intact no doubt because it never crash landed.  To have done so would have implied a take-off.

What about the first every powered vehicle?  It is a monstrous steam powered ox cart, famous for demolishing a barn on it’s first run, sending its inventor off madly in search of pencil and slide rule to begin development of the “stop” button, and “brakes”.

Then we turn a corner and are  brought back to earth with the same sort of thud that no doubt Mr “of course my steam powered bird will work” experienced.  

We arrive in the last century, (the twentieth one for those who have lost count) among objects which we have owned, yet hold complete fascination for the groups of high school children.  It is the same fascination that we have for the things describe above.  They stand in awe as they are shown a telephone with wires connecting it to the wall, my first digital camera (a Canon Ixus), and a television set with rounded corners that only received pictures in black and white.

We moved hastily on, lest the guide should mistake us for part of the exhibit, artefacts from a century gone. 

Selfish. - Paris

We sat in The Orangerie this morning (the Musée de l'Orangerie if I must spell it out), in a state that drifted between wonder and bemusement, having fortuitously arrived in an interval between the departure madding crowds and the arrival of even maddinger ones, trying to absorb as much as we could of Monet’s wonderful waterlilies through a sea of selfie-artists and others apparently intent on capturing a piece of the magic.   

Having only seen these things in print before, we can assure those who were trying so earnestly to capture the moment, that they cannot.   But we sit in silence, feeling so vastly superior to these mere tourists and their selfies and their monster cameras and lenses, as though we have some sort of ownership of this space.  We wonder as they stand with their backs to the paintings absorbed in their own images why they just can’t rely on their memory.  Surely the very presence of the place is enough, the image can only devalue what they were actually feeling. 

And then, to my own horror, suddenly there are only two between us and the wall.  Two perfectly intruders dressed entirely in sympathy with the paintings.  I take out my camera and click.  It’s too late to take back that one thoughtless action.

I am one of them after all.