Bonjour de Paris

But we are here. It is almost 8am Paris time, it is raining which has cooled the air, it has been extremely hot the last few weeks so it has brought some good relief.

We arrived yesterday morning at 9am, absolutely exhausted.  My boys are real troopers, I expected the worst for the flight and after 25 hours of flying with 3 hour layovers they weren't too bad.  They stayed awake until 9pm last night and L slept until 6this morning and J is still asleep as I write.

We're staying with friends who live in a suburb of Paris called Croissy (about 30 minutes from the centre).  For those who live in Sydney, it is like the Double Bay or Vaucluse of Paris. Nice spot to stay. We had thought about stying in Montparnase, at another friend's place, but Croissy offers 3 kids to entertain the boys and a large backyard which is the best option for the boys to get over jetlag.  It seems to be working.

F and I went to the local Sunday markets yesterday with our friends and while took photos, I still can't load them on to the iPad, so I can't share what we saw. If you have seen all those photos of French markets with the produce beautifully laid out, then you get an idea of what  thy looked like.

F and I will shortly head into the Marais for brunch with an old friend of his and then we'll do a little bit of shopping and site seeing. Hopefully the rain which has become stronger, will stop in time for our wander.

Until the next post, hopefully with some photos.

Have a happy day.

Image via Elsa May

A Bit of Winter Colour

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And look at what I saw outside my living room this afternoon.

I hope you are having a happy weekend.

What's For Dinner

Wet and cold. That was our weekend and we spent most of the weekend in our "winter" room in front of the open fireplace staying warm, building Lego planes, reading and "gasp"... eating on our "nice" couches.  J had a birthday party, but other than that we stayed in that room all weekend.

So this week for dinner, I thought I would make a few meals that would warm me inside out.

Monday - White bean and vegetable soup

Tuesday - I'm out to dinner so F will have a soup from the freezer

Wednesday - Spaghetti meatballs

Thursday - F is out so I'll have soup from the freezer

Friday - Beef strogonoff and jasmine rice

Saturday - Fish and potato pie

Sunday - Roast chicken and crispy potatoes with tomato salsa

Now, something I need to confess about these menus. I have had a few comments about how lucky my family is to benefit from these delicious menus.  Let me clear that misconception, only F and I eat these meals.  My boys hate food. I plan to do a separate post/s about this issue, but I am trying to gather up some courage as it is a sad state here when it comes to my boys and food.  Anyway, just getting tense thinking about dinner tonight for them, so I'll stop right here for today.

Bon appetite and have a happy day.

Image: Cuisine.com.au

Spending Hiatus - Week Nine

Good morning I hope your day is as bright and sunny where you read from as mine is today. If you are a Sydney reader you probably noticed that it was quite cool this morning when you awoke. According to my weather gage it was a nippy 16C (60F), so maybe Autumn is due shortly after all, just in time for Easter.


Well, so this week is the first of my extension on the spending hiatus. How did I go? I am happy to report that all I bought this week were the groceries and chocolate eggs for teachers gifts and of course the Easter egg hunt on Sunday morning. Very pleased with myself indeed.


I am even more pleased with the little activity I began the other day when L and I had to change our outdoor activities for indoor ones because of the rain. L helped me do some rearranging of things around the house, including some furniture and just that exercise has given a real sense of newness to our home.



There are a few more rooms that need some refreshing so I'm looking forward to continuing this over the coming weeks.


This will be the last post for this week as we are off on a little break for a few days, I'll be taking with me the books shown above which have all been borrowed form the library and friends, how good am I?

So happy Easter to all my blog friends around Australia and the world and I'll see you next Tuesday.

Images courtesy of The Book Depository and Amazon