London...to market, to market

This little piggy went oui oui oui oui oui, all the way home. And THEN off to the Portobello Market.



After breakfast it was time to bid H goodbye- she was off to her aunt's country cottage for a long weekend. A quiet one with family and some fashion coffee table books (you know, like that Chanel biography I haven't finished yet or a tome of Manolo Blahnik sketches). Sounded great to me, but the London sunshine was calling. (That is not a typo. It was positively beaming.)

So my entourage of bags and I rolled off to take in Kensington High Street on our way to the Meineger Hostel at Baden Powell House. (Practically opposite the V&A Museum, and directly opposite the Natural History Museum, pictured above.) All was going well, until I double checked the address on my confirmation text, and discovered the last word was missing. This was an issue given the prolific number of "Queen's Gate _______" in a very small area. Fortunately I came across a helpful postie who knew exactly where to send me. (I later found out the postal service was intermittently striking, so I was definitely wearing the lucky pants that day.)

Once there, I used that antiquated piece of technology, the pay phone, to touch base with my awol friend, Blondie. From her I discovered that the Circle and District lines were closed for the weekend, which meant she was on a bus still trying to get to me. So, we arranged meeting point number two, and I headed off to catch my own bus to meet her. This sort of to-ing and fro-ing continued my entire weekend. It was at times incredibly frustrating, because it often made feel in a rush to get to the next meeting point. That, or I was dragging my heels because the other person wasn’t going to arrive for sometime yet. It’s amazing how used we are to continuously tweaking our arrangements. I noticed this especially because I was in an unfamiliar city, with routes and distances that meant little to me in terms of travel time, and I was bouncing between two friends and a cousin trying to fit one of them in with each activity. But, it could have been much worse. I could have had a stroller and Little J in tow!

I got caught out by the double name-game again, this time when I jumped off my bus a few stops too early in my hunt for “Notting Hill Gate”. It seemed London was also going to be a city of brisk walks from place to place! Not that I minded. The weather was gorgeous and the road very English. It is, after all, on this surprise walk that I discovered this fantastical tavern, with its blooming façade.

Petite Nicola goes to London....

FRIDAY (DAY ONE OF FOUR)

Finally, that long weekend across the channel I’d been dreaming of. The land where people speak English, and eat baked beans. Land of my vicarious, Enid Blyton childhood.

I emerged at Piccadilly Circus Station, delighted I’d made it this far with my mini suitcase, carry bag and handbag trailing behind me. At 4.30pm, I bought a hop-on hop-off tourist bus tour ticket, thinking I could fill in my spare 90 minutes or so with a visual crash course of London.

I hoiked up the station stairs with my luggage. To at last see the flashing lights, black cabs and big red buses of “old London town” was thrilling. With difficulty, I managed to find the correct bus stop in the grey drizzle. Despite being one of only two passengers, the live tour guide ascended to her booth on the top of the bus. From there, she commenced her stream of sarcastic commentary about London’s heritage.

By 5pm, I was cold (the bus was breeeeeezey), lost (I tried to use the cartoon style map to orientate myself, but the lack of lights on the bus made that a challenge), anxious (my French mobile refused to cooperate with the English system. I’ve heard that story before…) and highly skeptical about the supposed magic of London (Big Ben was disappointingly small, and as for Marble Arch! I peered through the window at their piddly excuse for an arch. That’s not an arch! That’s just a really nice mantelpiece. I practically live on the Champs Elysees. Come to Paris, we’ll show you how to build an arch… The most interesting thing about the arch was that Queen Victoria didn’t like it so she had it removed. And brick by brick, it was deconstructed and carted away, only to be rebuilt out of her sight. I’m not sure they should have bothered.)

And my bus guide wasn’t exactly sprinkling fairy dust on the experience. “Over here we have the Ritz Hotel. You can go to high tea at the Ritz. Beware it will cost you 40 pounds. Per head. But, that is all the cucumber sandwiches you can stuff in your gob.”
Or this little gem, “Here we are at Hyde Park Corner. It’s not actually called Hyde Park Corner, but people nicknamed it that because it’s on the corner of Hyde Park.”
To be fair, however, her favourite view of London was also one of mine. Looking back at the Houses of Parliament, with their lights reflecting into the Thames, was a wow moment.

My bags and I alighted at Westminster, hoping that the iconic red phone booth on the street would help me get in touch with H, my hostess for Friday night. I opened the door, only to be assaulted by the stench. Oh the STENCH! of urine. Peeing in a phone booth is NOT more polite than peeing in the street! Tentatively, I opened the one next door. Really, it was just as bad but when a girl’s gotta call, a girl’s gotta call. So with my bags balanced on top of the mystery puddle on the concrete floor, I tried to scrounge up forty p. Not enough. What about my credit card? Not compatible. Notes? Not a chance. I shimmied my way out of the stink-booth and stood in the rain to contemplate my next move. I was now cold, lost, anxious, highly skeptical about the magic of London, AND wet and hungry. I descended into the tube station, rustled up some coins and called H. Success! A voice I hadn’t heard in nearly five years, but it was just as warm and familiar. So I tripped of into my Friday evening (ops, not West-bound Petite Nicola, East-bound!), confident it would end better than it began.

Bringing home the bacon

This week I finally decided to put my cooking skills on display, and at the same time create an activity for E on her schooless wednesday (Worst invention ever. well, ok, maybe not. It does mean I get a day that I'm not tied to the school pick up schedule. there are also lots of activities around paris for children on Wednesdays. I would like to have a trip to the doll museum planned for one wednesday soon, with a special storytelling activity. Such a shame the Barbie exhibit has just closed....)

I had tried to do all the necessary grocery shopping on the Tuesday, to avoid the joyous experience of taking E, her trotinette, and Little J in his stroller for the hour long round trip it takes to get to 'the' green grocer, followed by a supermarket stop off. But alas, I forgot the green salad ingredients, the onion, the bacon and the cheese. All of these things were annoyingly crucial to la recette. (Luckily my quiche recette is pastryless and very forgiving.)

Finding bacon proved to be my biggest challenge, having neglected to learn the french word before hand. I cruised around one butcher, trying to see it in the rows of pink flesh, but i just couldnt see it, or anything that looked like any form of bacon i had ever seen. streaky bacon, rindless bacon, long rashers, short rashers....none. So i marched my troupe off to the nice looking meat and meal providors to have a discussion with the commercants (shop keepers). In French, my description of bacon went something like this:

"I have a little problem, perhaps you can help me. im looking for a pork product, but not ham. In english the word is bacon (with my australian accent on bacon). Unfortunately i dont know the french word for it."

"So you're looking for ham?"

"Ah, no, I dont think im looking for ham, unless you call bacon ham, in which case yes im looking for ham." This comment puzzles him immensly, and that's not really surprising. I only said it because I'm aware the European definition of Jambon is broader than the Australian version.

"This?" (points to shoulder of pork)

"No..."

"This? (points to pork roll)

"No..."

"Wait, I'll get the other madame to help us.

Quick discussion ensues between them, and he gives her a speedy run down of our non-progress so far

"Bonjour madame. So you are looking for pork meat?"

"Yes...."

"What are you going to do with it?

"Put it in a quiche."

"Ahhhh. Like a quiche Lorraine?"

Me, thinking furiously about whether all quiches are alike enough to say yes...

"Yes."

"Ah, voila, then you are looking for poitrine fumée. (She holds up something that looks like it might vaguely resemble heavily smoked streaky bacon). You dice it up and fry it quickly on the stove before putting it in the quiche."

The mention of cooking it before it goes into the quiche oncerned me a little, because I never cook my bacon first, but i decided that surely an hour in the oven would cook the pointrine fumée.

"Ah yesss, that's exactly what I'm after."

She gives it to the man to slice up for me. I, stupidly, decide that it should be cut into fine slices the way I'm familiar with. So he holds up his knife to the chunk of pointrine fumée to indicate how wide I would like my slices. I'm trying to say and indicate narrower ("plus fine") and he wasn't really getting it. So I had resigned myself to fat slices until the madame took the meat and the knife from the man and said

"No no no, I understand what she wants. She wants it like this (indicates a slice the same thickness as one i had already refused) and then you will dice them up nice and small for her."

"Yes! That would be perfect!" (Poor man)

Anyway, I then entered the shop to pay (this all took place at their little street cart in front of the shop), and was looking around at all the yummy potential. Then, I discovered bacon! In its most familiar form, short rindless rashers. (uncut).

"But you've got bacon over here!"

"Of course we have bakon. You can mix the two if you like. But what you have is much better for a quiche." (What's a girl to say?)

"Ok, then I am happy."

*All translations are approximate, and what I intended to say and what I understood them to have said. Whether I actually achieved this is another matter.

8 days a week

Ok, well, I don't have to work 8 days a week. It's total Beatles-mania over here and it's a bit catching.

But I do have to work 5 days a week, starting at 9am and typically not leaving until 8pm, sometimes later. And then, as mentioned in Saturday Markets, I also have to work a couple of hours on Saturday morning once or twice a month. It's a lot of hours and a severe change in lifestyle for me, being used to either the flexible university student lifestyle or even when I worked full-time in retail I could still run errands during the day without a problem. Not anymore....



A typical day runs thus:
Arrive 9am, baby handover from Mr
10am, Little J has nap
11.45am, Little J wakes up. Get him dressed if he wasn't when I arrived.
noon, feed Little J
12.30, Mr and Mrs come home from the office for lunch cooked by Mr (Normally a simple style of meal, I'm lucky if I see so much as a vegetable shaving, although at least one bottle of wine is typically drunk.)
2pm, Little J down for arvo nap
2pm/ 2.30pm Mr and Mrs return to the office
3.45pm, get Little J up, ready for school pick-up and play in the park
4pm/ 4.15pm leave home for school pick up
4.30pm school's out. Battle my way through the throngs of parents, grandparents, au pairs and other children through to the narrow gate, down the narrow path to the tiny courtyard where I have to wait for E to wave at me from her Juliet balcony. She then points me out to her teacher, who I have to acknowledge and wave my little blue security card at (it's got E's photo on it).
4.35pm, give E her afternoon gouter (snack) that I brought with me, she then runs off onto the lawn to play with her friends. French schools typically don't have much space to run around at lunch time, so it's their first chance to run off some steam.



I now have to entertain Little J, give him a gouter, stop him from crawling onto other people's rugs or taking their balls or eating mysterious ground-matter. Spending time in the park has become much nicer now that I've made friends with an American nanny. I'll call her Beth. Beth has a 3yr old and a 7yr old. They're more independent, so she doesn't have to supervise too closely at the park. But they're also quite rude, so I think I prefer my high-maintenance but cutie-pie 1 yr old.

5pm, leave Parc Monceau, walk home with E. If she's lucky I've brought her little razor scooter so she can trip home on that, otherwise she has to walk (which she doesn't like much at all. I tell her sport's good for her, and that she's just being lazy.)

5.25pm, back home. Try and convince E to play with her brother, because he loves it so much and laughs like crazy around her.


5.45pm Little J has last nap of the day. Give E something else to eat, do her homework, play with her, tidy her room

6.30pm bathe Little J, make sure E is also showering or bathing.

6.45pm, put the wriggle machine into his pyjamas, and into his high chair for dinner. Dinner takes a minimum of 25 minutes. Which never really ceases to amaze me, that even if he's on his best behaviour it still takes that long. It would definitely go quicker if I could feed him through his ears. I spend so much time looking at his ears while he scopes the room for the object he most wants to bang around his tray table for all of about 30 seconds to max 2 minutes. Then it's back to scoping for the next object.

7.15pm, playing with Little J, making sure E's room is tidy, listening to her piano practice

Between 7.30-8pm Mr arrives home, Little J can go to bed, I can do the baby-baton change and head home.

Variations on a theme:
Sometimes, like today, I get a phonecall around noon saying Mr and Mrs are too busy to come home for lunch, so I'll have to cook something myself. I would like this more, I think, if their pantry came stocked with my choice of food. However, I still like it because it means I get to eat lunch earlier (today it was a pan-seared chicken fillet with tabole and tsatsiki) and then after lunch I take Little J for a walk to my fave bakery and we grab an espresso and something sugary, like a strawberry tart, berry danish or today's choice, escargot. He also gets to eat my complimentary meringue, which is fab cos it gives me a head start eating the sweet-yumminess that I ordered.


Or I might get a call around 7pm saying I have to cook dinner for E. That call's not as much fun.

La rentree (the return to school)

I still have E home with me for the morning because school doesn't start until the afternoon, but she’s in and out with her Dad getting last minute school supplies. Yesterday I had to cover all her text books (we’re talking about a seven-year-old, remember) in plastic. Not sticky contact, as in loose plastic and sticky tape. Contact as I know it is apparently a French rarity. Who the hell knows how they missed out on that? I had been worried about my covering job not being up to scratch for E’s exclusive private school (the school of French celebrities). And then, genius!, E popped up with a pair of tiny scissors wanting to help me. Well, I wasn’t going to turn that offer down. So, together, we cut and she, to the very best of her seven-year-old abilities, sticky-taped away. Bless.

Zebra Crossings

We trundled off for an afternoon promenade dans la pousette. I was confused by all the zebra crossings, which appear with helpful regularity, yet most unhelpfully cars ignore any pedestrians and zoom through them. What’s the point of the crossing? And then, having taken the wrong street and wanting to perform an immediate street-crossing, I realized. When people say the French touch-park, they mean it. It’s impossible enough to squeeze myself through the kissing bumpers, let alone la pousette. French zebra crossings are like that school matron at 1950’s dances, making sure there’s thirty centimeters of decency between dancers.

While out on this late afternoon stroll I received a very strange phone call from Mrs. She prefaced it by saying, “What I’m about to tell you I don’t want E to know.” Her discretion was somewhat foiled by the constant and loud traffic on the street, but I managed to convince her I wouldn’t give anything away. Without, of course, actually saying that. (This entire exchange felt more like a scene from Borne Supremacy than The Nanny Diaries.) Her aunt was in the hospital in a serious condition, she might die in the next few hours. Don’t tell E anything, but we won’t be home until late. You’ll have to cook dinner and feed the children.

(I knew this would be upsetting for the family, the aunt was particularly beloved. She had been a very close part of their family life, looking after the children weekly.)