Day 1 - June 29 : Paris, France

I'm one lucky girl- for the second time in two years, I was able to plan a trip to Europe. This past week I went to France with my grandmother and two of my cousins. It was a packed trip and aside from a few minor issues, it was practically perfect.

We left Boston last Tuesday at 6:20pm and arrived at our hotel in Paris the next day at 11:45 am. It was a long flight, but I did manage to sleep a little this year and of course, they have in flight entertainment, so it wasn't that bad. When we got to the airport we had to take the commuter rail, RER, to Paris and then the metro to our hotel. Considering that we were 4 people with luggage, it wasn't that bad.

View of Sacré Coeur from the street near our hotel

As we couldn't check in yet, we left our baggage at the hotel and explored Montmartre for a couple of hours. We were very close to the Sacré Coeur basilica, so we started out in that direction. We went up the funiculaire and then walked to the Place du Tertre first. It was quite busy with tourists, artists and diners. We grabbed some sandwiches and ate them at a nearby park. Luckily the weather was beautiful for a picnic.

Place du Tertre

Picnic lunch

After lunch we went over to Sacré Coeur and looked around the church and at the beautiful view of Paris that its steps afford visitors. We didn't have quite as nice a view as usual because on the steps of Sacré Coeur there was a huge ramp set up with a "Moonbounce" style pit at the bottom- somebody was going to be making a world record rollerskate long jump attempt there sometime last week. If you ask me, that guy or girl was crazy! It looked like they would bounce right out of the pit at the bottom.

Pit at the bottom of the roller skate ramp

After we went down the steps, we did a little shopping before heading back to the hotel. There are a lot of souvenir shops at the base of Sacré Coeur, plus this district is renowned for its numerous fabric shops. Mémé and I stopped in and got some cotton fabric, made by a French company, that is very reminiscent of Liberty of London florals, but at a quarter of the price. I'm looking forward to making some fun summer dresses, skirts or tops with my 4 yards.

Fabric shops

Once we got our things settled in the hotel and washed up a bit, we headed out for more sightseeing. We started at L'Orangerie, an art museum in the Jardin des Tuileries near the Place de la Concorde that houses some of Monet's famous water lily paintings. These paintings are enormous; each one took up the entire wall of the room it was in.

View of the Eiffel Tower from Place de la Concorde

Two of the four walls with Monet's huge paintings

After the museum, we walked through the Place de la Concorde over to the Madeleine church. On the way we passed by a Ladurée pastry shop and admired their macaron displays in window. After seeing the inside of the Madeleine, we headed towards the Opéra Garnier. Since Mémé needed a rest after a long day of travel ,we went into the Galeries Lafayette, where she could sit while we looked around. My cousin and I browsed the enormous shoe department, and when we came back, Mémé was sleeping! Considering that this trip was an 80th birthday trip, she did pretty well!

Display at Ladurée

La Madeleine


Standing on a balcony in Galeries Lafayette, looking across to the other side


The details of the design of the Galeries Lafayette building is amazing

Mémé couldn't make it without a nap

When we left the Galeries Lafayette, we headed over to the Champs-Elysées for a little shopping and dinner. We went into the Monoprix, where I got some Haribo candy and Orangina, and then we grabbed dinner at a Quick restaurant. I had a really good salad with a sweet chevre cheese, pickled beets and pears on top of a base of lettuce. It sounds weird, but it was really good.

Looking down the Champs-Elysées

Since we had had a long day of travel, we headed back to the hotel at this point to get a good night's sleep before day 2.

Progress

The garden has really been getting going lately. The boxes have filled in and almost everything is starting to produce. I'm looking forward to eating and preserving all of this!

The tomato, broccoli, zucchini, celery, spinach and swiss chard are filling up these boxes!

The beans, peas, lettuces, cucumber and winter squash are holding their own in the back.

Most of my 10 varieties of tomato are flowering and I have many little tomatoes!

Finally my sugar peas are flowering!

There are a lot of baby green beans starting out.


My broccoli has been sending out lots of side shoots.


The raspberries are finally ripening.

The garden is growing

Finally the weather pattern in New England shifted and we've been having beautiful weather for a week or so. It's good for the plants and great for the people!

The little plants have been getting big.

They outgrew their greenhouses.

So first we dug holes in the ground.

Then we built boxes.

And filled the boxes with dirt.

And now our plants have room to grow.

This year we have 5 boxes going. The box on the left is home to onions and carrots and sometime at the end of the month, tomatoes too. The front middle has broccoli, spinach, swiss chard, bunch onions and rosemary. The back middle will be tomatoes and maybe more carrots or something else, I'm thinking on it. The right front is full of sugar snap peas, tenderbush green beans, blue lake green beans, plus some herbs- basil, dill and thyme. The back right box has a mixture of leaf lettuces and will sport a trellis for the cucumbers and zucchini to climb in a couple of weeks. All I really need to figure out is where will the potatoes go?

I can't wait to watch my little plants and seeds get bigger!

Has spring sprung???

This April seems like it's been all showers and nothing else in between! There were a few moderately sunny days, and 2 warm days, but overall it's been cloudy and rainy. Consequently we haven't been too motivated to get things going in the yard.

We have been working on that tree that partially came down in a storm in December. What we can we'll store as firewood, some will go to the city compost but most of it will be the fuel for our backyard firepit.

Fodder for the firepit

We are planning on our vegetable garden being about 5 times bigger than it was last year, but I haven't gotten very far building the boxes. Hopefully this weekend we can take car of all that. I did get around to starting some seeds inside over vacation and those are starting to pop up, so once the boxes are done, there will be plenty to put in them.

Lettuces and gourds

Beans, onions and herbs

I just hope that May will be more sunny than April! I can't take the gloomy clouds much longer!

Kong squished into Michelley's bowl!

Our new housemate

Since Christmas vacation we have had a new housemate living with us.

Jack, one of Girly-Girl's kittens

He gets along reasonably well with Kong and Michelley, but he really worships Janda. He spends most of his time lounging at Janda's feet, or getting a ride on his back!

Getting a lift

Helping with dinner

And in case you were worried, Emma is still as cute as ever.

Wearing Auntie's boots

Wearing Auntie's hat and gloves

Clamming in winter

Well, it's been a long break since I posted anything, but things are settling down around here and the long crazy winter has ended, so maybe I'll have more things to post about.

Janda and I went clamming with our friends Julie and Beth on the last full day of winter, Saturday. It was also the evening of the supermoon- but we missed it. Janda and I were out clamming on the river on Friday night and the moon seemed big but not "super."

Despite being the end of winter, both days were lovely, especially Friday, when the temperatures in Gloucester hit the 70's! On Saturday afternoon, we headed out to the super secret surf clam spot and helped Janda dig clams.

Janda pulling those surf clams out

Digging

Digging away

Beth off in the distance

Janda with the harvest

We got a ton- it only took 45 minutes at the most to fill a bucket and a bag. Then of course, the shucking took place. 45 minutes of digging, 90 minutes of shucking. While the shuckers shucked, others of us made and ate guacamole and also some yummy cheeses and some gifted organic fruit. Finally the steamers from Friday were steamed and the surf clams were shucked, divvied up and fried. It was a pretty good feast for the clam lovers. I'm not one of them, but I did indulge in a few pieces of fried clam. They came out great. The good news for the clam lovers is that everyone still has enough left for chowder.