Tulips in spring

We bought a bag of mixed tulips when we were up in Amsterdam at Christmas. The label said there was red, orange, yellow, blue, white and purple flowers in the packet.

There’s an alley along side a canal that has shop after shop selling all sorts of bulbs. Both they and Amsterdam residents must laugh at the silly tourists who come and allow themselves to be ripped off. We bought a packet of fritillaria that contained about 30 bulbs. Two have sprouted. And a couple of calla bulbs, which are I suspect are quietly composting themselves. Not to mention a gigantic cyclamen bulb that has about as much biological activity as an abalone shell.

So back to the multi-coloured tulips… the results were not what we expected; we were hoping for a few more colours, that’s what the label said. Oh well, uniform colours are okay too in their own way…

In looking very closely at the leaves, we discovered that one bulb was in fact slightly different: it’s leaves had a faint yellow striping along the edge. Bonus!

I remember looking for a long time at a packet of agapanthus. Now I don’t feel so bad. You didn’t get all my money, you scummy retailer!

Although we did have a bunch of hyacinths that came up, with an absolutely heavenly perfume.

Douglas Kennedy, The Woman in the Fifth

Finished reading The Woman in the Fifth last week. I found it a bit disconcerting with its drift into the supernatural, but well, why not?

Kennedy paints Paris very well in the story, with neither condescension nor misplaced veneration. He captures the problem of immigration and the plight of the sans papiers with precision and at the same time without pathos.

What I liked least (or rather, what was the weakest aspect of what is otherwise a very entertaining and at times moving tale) was that the main character Harry Ricks is forced to flee the United States due to circumstances far beyond his control. And which aren’t revealed for some time in the narrative, and when you finally learn what happened it’s a bit of an anticlimax.

I hope Kennedy is exaggerating a little at how a simple fait divers can bring down a person in America, but hey, drunk Japanese finance ministers commit political hari-kiri (come to think of it, so do English members of parliament caught wearing frilly panties — or not, as the case may be), so maybe small town University professors have to, as well.

I did like the Faustian bargain aspect of the story. Kind of like winning the lottery… just so long as you spend the precise amount of winnings, each day, every day.

Walk on the wild side

Snow! It’s snowing!

Woke up this morning to find everything covered in white. It’s really quite rare for it to snow in Paris. The past couple of winters were snow free. I snapped some pictures with my telephone. The quality is about what one would expect, but it’s better than nothing. (Apart from that, the telephone is quite good at making and receiving calls).

Artic explorers on a trek to school

Le Musée des Arts et Métiers

Not a good day to be motorbikin’

Passing by Saint-Nicholas-des-Champs, under a freshly fallen silent shroud of snow, on the way to school

There’s a van under the paint under the snow

Snow falling on Vélibs. Not a good day to go ride a bike.

No-one checking in, no-one checking out

rue Turbigo, looking down past the bunker des Halles

All lined up.

Place des Victoires

Grey urban sludge

It’s raining now. The day is here and the city is warming up. It will all be gone by tonight. Still, it was fun while it lasted. It rained most of the day. If only it had been colder, we’d've been rolling in the stuff.

In a particularly enjoyable episode of schadenfreude, it was fun watching some fat slob of businessman in a late model Jaguar get into trouble. He’d hit the juice, spin the back wheels, and the back of the car slewed dangerously towards the row of parked cars. Then he’d slam on the brakes, lock up the front wheels, and slide the front closer to the edge. The other cars on the road gave him a wide berth. At one point he was driving along at about 25 degrees off centre. He did this dance about three or four times until he managed to get past the traffic lights and then I lost sight. What a loser. None of the people zipping round in smaller cars appeared to be having difficulty.