May Flowers

May 1st is Labour Day in France, a public holiday that’s taken very seriously with almost everything closed and I felt for the poor tourists I saw wandering from place to place looking confused and despondent. With nothing to do and nowhere to go it’s a great day to put the to-do list aside and we spent most of the day in the park bumping into friends and chasing small children around.

It’s also customary to give a tiny bunches of muguet (lily of the valley) to bring good luck, which apparently dates back to medieval times and became an official tradition in 1561 when King Charles IX offered some to every lady in his court. Sellers pop up on every street corner for the day and the delicate scent wafts through the air as people carry their little bundles about.

I was hesitant to buy these enormous strawberries at the market, eavesdropping on the woman ahead of me who was giving the farmer a hard time about size vs sweetness, but he presented such a good case that both she and I took two punnets and they may be the best I’ve had so far. The children delighted in the novelty and my only regret was their white pyjamas, now forever stained.

In between tours of the Marais I popped into Araku with

Sonja Bajic

for a quick coffee but no sooner had we said hello our conversation was monopolised by our neighbour, who wound her opinions from one sentence onto the next so skilfully that we didn’t stand a chance to politely thank her and return to our own conversation. With no end in sight we cut our losses and left, catching up in the rain instead, each rushing out as many words as possible and lamenting the hijacked catch-up.

Hydrangeas are out in full force at the Marché aux Fleurs Reine Elizabeth II and I couldn’t resist getting a pot for our coffee table, dragging it closer to the window to at least give them a fighting chance. It was a full circle “remember that once you dreamed of being where you are now” moment as I used to wander through here when I was a teenager and dream about buying plants for an imaginary balcony and now (although the balcony is still imaginary) I live just around the corner with my little French family.

I skirted with the law in Paris this week by wearing active-wear out of the house, my black leggings mostly hidden under my pink coat but my trainers giving the game away. I’ve committed to a new gym program to get this 40 year old body in shape for the next 40 years and was feeling quite proud of myself until I had to ask a stranger in the street to open my bottle of water, which he did effortlessly as my ego fell back to earth.

My husband took the children to his parents on Saturday (I had to stay in town for work) and I relished in the thought of 24 hours to myself, planning and replanning how I would spend them, mostly imagining being a flâneuse for an afternoon followed by a night of reading and a long sleep in. But one little sock out of place led me down a spring cleaning rabbit hole and it was only at 2am I looked up and realised I’d done nothing but move things around for hours, an enormous pile for the recycling bin threatening to tumble and pin me down forever. When they returned the house looked exactly the same but I felt a bit lighter so I guess it’s a win.

Have a great week,

- Emily

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Cheese we’re eating this week:

• Tomme à la Truffe - a Swiss cheese made with raw cow's milk that is soft and creamy with a ribbon of black truffles running through the centre giving it a warm aroma. 

• Crottin de Chavignol - a goat’s cheese from the Loire valley. My daughter prefers a very dry version.

• Saint-Nectaire - a creamy cow's milk cheese made in the micro-region of Mont Dore. 

All three cheeses were bought at Fromagerie Jouannault.

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Real Life Paris Photo

If the oven is on you know where to find Nosiette.

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Claudia in Guatemala