The travels of Brammers, part 10
Dec. 17th, 2009 08:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
blamebramptonWhich was very nearly The Travails of Brammers, parts one through infinity, but all is well! The strike is called off! Mrs Justice Laura Cox is the very model of a modern major saviour and I will not be having Christmas sans Mr Brammers and the cats. It is verily a Christmas miracle!
Though on hearing the news of probable strike action on the day I am due to fly home, one very dear friend invited me to Christmas with her family and another offered me her flat and cat, which moved me very deeply in both cases. I genuinely love you two.
And I will be able to go back to London and meet tommybarbarella and vashtan and still see cats, hurrah! People are mostly wonderful.
Also, you should be aware that it is SNOWING and I have been complaining about the cold. When I return home and complain about the heat, you are all free to mock me.
The journey from London to Paris was managed with little fuss. The Eurostar is a brilliant invention, as the little man near me said, 'It's certainly better than the ferry, isn't it?'
After a good night's sleep and a hot shower, I took myself to the Cluny and pottered about the Moyen Ages for a long morning. They have a small textile exhibition on at the moment with some very beautiful lampas and embroidered fragments, which was very worth the seeing. I had to do two laps of the second floor, though, as the Lady with the Unicorn room was filled with screaming children on my first try. This was no great hardship, the museum is easily navigable and it was great fun looking at the items again as I rushed past the 'wrong' way.
I have been regularly accosted by beggars, though, whether because I look kind or simply ambulatory, I am not sure. The first one was gently sent away with what I intended to be a French apology for my pitiful language and lack of ready cash. It came out in Italian instead. I was barely past 'Mi dispiace' when the young man demurred and made a gesture that he was sorry to have bothered me.
Suddenly it occurred to me: French people are unusually unlikely to speak Italian in my experience (perhaps it is only in my peer group, but Italians who speak French are fairly common, but the reverse, not at all), since then I have been apologising in Italian rather than English as it seems a far more certain way to escape with minimal social embarrassment. I am aware that by perpetuating this fraud I am making Italians seem less organised than they generally are, but feel I make up for this with my book-centred contributions to their economy.
In joyful news, I have met up with![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
pingrid and raitala and we are even now all resting in our hotel room before second dinner (apparently, Hobbit meals are the order of the day). We trekked to the Musee des Arts Decoratifs today to see the Vionnet exhibition and muddle through their Middle Ages and Renaissance galleries.
The Vionnet was very very good indeed, though I wish the models had been padded to fit the dresses as some of them hung rather oddly. The other galleries were splendid and there will be pix when I can make my computer work (Glares at computer!)
On the way down the Left Bank, we found a little snowman on the balustrade near Pont Neuf. For some reason it was decided this was Harry.pingrid declared we must make him a Draco. Alas, as raitala pointed out, 'You've carefully sculpted a snow cock.' People walking past smiled indulgently at us, no doubt concluding that we were part of a strange giggling cult that worshipped Priapus. I have just read the above sentence out to pingrid and asked her which moment of the day I could possibly have meant.
'Any of them,' was her honest reply.raitala wants it noted that we have also discussed art and politics, with only a little cock. But we are off for a drink, so the amount of cock is certain to grow. Also, first dinner was served by Blaise Zabini: if you can find the quite nice bar on the corner of Rue des Saint Péres and Rue Jacob, you may be lucky enough to see him. Beautiful to look at and ever so pleasant to order from. Not like that, you terrible perverts ;-)
Though on hearing the news of probable strike action on the day I am due to fly home, one very dear friend invited me to Christmas with her family and another offered me her flat and cat, which moved me very deeply in both cases. I genuinely love you two.
And I will be able to go back to London and meet tommybarbarella and vashtan and still see cats, hurrah! People are mostly wonderful.
Also, you should be aware that it is SNOWING and I have been complaining about the cold. When I return home and complain about the heat, you are all free to mock me.
The journey from London to Paris was managed with little fuss. The Eurostar is a brilliant invention, as the little man near me said, 'It's certainly better than the ferry, isn't it?'
After a good night's sleep and a hot shower, I took myself to the Cluny and pottered about the Moyen Ages for a long morning. They have a small textile exhibition on at the moment with some very beautiful lampas and embroidered fragments, which was very worth the seeing. I had to do two laps of the second floor, though, as the Lady with the Unicorn room was filled with screaming children on my first try. This was no great hardship, the museum is easily navigable and it was great fun looking at the items again as I rushed past the 'wrong' way.
I have been regularly accosted by beggars, though, whether because I look kind or simply ambulatory, I am not sure. The first one was gently sent away with what I intended to be a French apology for my pitiful language and lack of ready cash. It came out in Italian instead. I was barely past 'Mi dispiace' when the young man demurred and made a gesture that he was sorry to have bothered me.
Suddenly it occurred to me: French people are unusually unlikely to speak Italian in my experience (perhaps it is only in my peer group, but Italians who speak French are fairly common, but the reverse, not at all), since then I have been apologising in Italian rather than English as it seems a far more certain way to escape with minimal social embarrassment. I am aware that by perpetuating this fraud I am making Italians seem less organised than they generally are, but feel I make up for this with my book-centred contributions to their economy.
In joyful news, I have met up with
pingrid and raitala and we are even now all resting in our hotel room before second dinner (apparently, Hobbit meals are the order of the day). We trekked to the Musee des Arts Decoratifs today to see the Vionnet exhibition and muddle through their Middle Ages and Renaissance galleries. The Vionnet was very very good indeed, though I wish the models had been padded to fit the dresses as some of them hung rather oddly. The other galleries were splendid and there will be pix when I can make my computer work (Glares at computer!)
On the way down the Left Bank, we found a little snowman on the balustrade near Pont Neuf. For some reason it was decided this was Harry.
pingrid declared we must make him a Draco. Alas, as raitala pointed out, 'You've carefully sculpted a snow cock.' People walking past smiled indulgently at us, no doubt concluding that we were part of a strange giggling cult that worshipped Priapus. I have just read the above sentence out to pingrid and asked her which moment of the day I could possibly have meant. 'Any of them,' was her honest reply.
raitala wants it noted that we have also discussed art and politics, with only a little cock. But we are off for a drink, so the amount of cock is certain to grow. Also, first dinner was served by Blaise Zabini: if you can find the quite nice bar on the corner of Rue des Saint Péres and Rue Jacob, you may be lucky enough to see him. Beautiful to look at and ever so pleasant to order from. Not like that, you terrible perverts ;-)
