Mary Fleming's Blog, page 12

When Dreams Really Do Come True

Friday, 3 May

I grew up on the ninth floor of an apartment building in Chicago. But in my dreams I lived in the countryside surrounded by nothing but nature. My fantasy world was filled with it. I would, for example, turn my desk chair over and pretend it was my horse. Off we would gallop through field and forest to save people and animals in danger. I put water in the bathtub and sloshed around in my Wellington boots, forging my way across a river on the way to other humanitarian rescue missions.

When I was about 10 my parents decided to buy an old farm in Libertyville, an hour and a half outside Chicago, where we could spend weekends and summers. Even at that tender age I worried that the plan was too good to be true and so it was. At the last minute, following a nasty histoire de famille involving my grandparents, my parents called off the purchase. Paradise was snatched from my grasp.

The hankering never went away. Though as an adult I have experienced two country houses—one with my first husband Charles and the other with my second David—neither quite fit the bill because both were in villages, surrounded by other houses.

Last July, evicted from the apartment so the floors could be sanded during our Paris renovation project, we headed to a country hotel 90 minutes outside the city. For two days we walked in the woods with Tasha, breathed fresh air and gazed at the stars, woke to birdsong and dewy grass and were reminded what an elixir the countryside is to both of us—or, I should say, to all three of us.

Lyons-la-Forêt

During August, stuck in a dusty worksite and a sweltering city and unable to work, I began consulting property sites, the virtual equivalent of eating chocolates or peanuts. Weekends we’d benefit from the fruits of my labour by visiting some of those houses and getting the lay of the land within a two-hour radius of Paris.

One area that I was particularly keen to explore was Le Perche, a bucolic section of southern Normandy. One house, a 16th century seigneurie (house of a local noble) at the end of a track, nestled in field and forest, had particularly caught my interest. It was the first place we saw. By then, however, my children had heard about the search and said, in unison, to David: “Don’t let Mum latch on to the first house she sees on the internet like she did with that dog (aka Tasha)!”

photo from the property listing

So when we visited it, my eyes were as good as closed. I was determined to let David take the lead. As we were leaving he said: “It’s nice. But we'd have to do up the barn. And we’re not doing any more renovation work.”

“You're absolutely right,” I said. “After Berlin and Paris, no more work.”

We kept looking. Every place we saw had something wrong. The house was too close to a big road and noisy; there were too many outbuildings (usually in shambles); the property was agreeable but the surroundings were over-developed. They did share one quality: the need for renovation work.

Sometimes seeing what you don’t like leads you back to what you want.

“Maybe we should visit that first place in the Perche again,” David said.

Eyes now wide open, this house surrounded by nature was clearly It.



We signed on April 12th, my birthday, and what a present: the thick walls of honeyed Perche stone...



...the old bread oven...



...the fireplace that could house a family of four...



...the complete peace and quiet...



...and the good vibes left by the previous owners, Corinne and Frédéric B.



Needless to say, the purchase has excited the interest of one member of the family particularly. With deer, hares and pheasants right at her doorstep, Tasha (aka La Princesse) appears to believe that her new domain extends well beyond its actual borders. She has been on long hunting expeditions that make the jaunt after a deer with Mme P that I recently described look like a walk in the park.

A solution to the this latest challenge in The Tasha Project must be found but for the moment I’m just relishing a dream come true. As is she.



David's pretty happy too.

Or Else

Friday, 19 April

Much ink, both real and virtual, has already been spilled and I begin this blog uneasily. What more can I possibly add to the outpour? On the other hand how can I write about anything else?

I am referring of course to the fire that ravaged the cathedral of Notre-Dame de Paris on Monday the 15th of April. “It breaks the heart,” I kept thinking and writing to friends. The hearts of us humans who have lived here for decades and even those who have just visited as tourists but also the heart of Paris herself. Because when I close my eyes and imagine Paris I see a graceful, finely-clad lady. The lady is Notre Dame, the city her abundant, richly layered skirts.

The fire was one of those events that is both personal—linked to one’s own memories and psyche—and public: the 850-year edifice of extraordinary beauty has survived wars and revolutions and belongs to a collective history that, given the outpouring of sympathy from all around the world, now feels global. Tourist or Parisian, you will always remember where you were and who told you that Notre Dame was burning. I got the news about my oldest architectural friend in Paris from Tala, my oldest human friend here.

From the roof of our building there is a very good view of the cathedral.



To the constant sound of sirens, I watched, dumbfounded and teary.



My heart pounded as flames leapt and I feared the worst: that one or both of the twin towers would suddenly crumble before my eyes. The smoke, which at moments engulfed the entire edifice,



travelled right across the sky, clouding the setting sun by the Eiffel Tower on the other side of the city.



Eventually I went outside, down to the pont de Solférino, where a small crowd had gathered. Some people looked deeply moved;



others only mildly interested. Tourists continued to buy love locks and below on the quayside, skateboarders continued to skate, joggers to jog.



Indignation, almost anger, rose up at their seeming indifference. A dear friend, our city's soul, is at death's door, I wanted to shout. How can you smile or carry on as if this were just any Monday evening?

We went to sleep that night with smell of Notre Dame's burning wood and lead wafting through the open window, into our noses.



The next day I rode over to the cathedral on my bike. Close up I felt shocked and desolate all over again at this diminished, charred beauty.

Where yesterday a spire stood

It didn’t take long in these heated times for the polemics to begin. The American president got the ball rolling with a tweet while the fire was still blazing: “Perhaps flying water tankers could be used to put it out. Must act quickly!” As if the French pompiers were taking their time, finishing up some charcuterie and wine, before moseying over to the church to have a look at what action might be required. Fire fighters are using all means, the French civil security agency promptly tweeted back, except flying tankers because the weight of so much water would cause the cathedral to collapse.



In France people quickly pointed fingers: It’s the French state’s fault for skimping on security! Fire still burning, business tycoons promised money for restoration. If François-Henri Pinault was going to give €100m, then his old rival Bernard Arnault would give €200m. Many corporations jumped on the band wagon and by the next morning €700 had already been raised.



Quickly the money itself caused a furor. Why are the rich ready to help a building while so many humans, even right here in France (think gilets jaunes), suffer?

The latest flare-up is over how the cathedral should be renovated and it too is hotly political. The Macron government has suggested that the cathedral, already much modified over the centuries (the spire that so dramatically toppled over in the flames, for example, was added by 19th century architect Viollet-le-Duc), might be rebuilt with a contemporary touch. The right wing, extreme and otherwise, insists on an exact reproduction. #TOUCHEPASNOTREDAME, screamed Marine Le Pen in capital letters on Twitter.

All this cacophony confounds me, makes me want to put my hands over my ears. Maybe the state has skimped or at least been lackdaisical with the country's cultural heritage. Or maybe not. It is wonderful that individuals offer funds to resurrect the cathedral but was the cash one-upmanship, before the fire was even extinguished, a bit crass, especially given the spiritual nature of their target? And isn't it true that Notre Dame is just a building, albeit one with "a powerful emotional hold over people," as my friend Eileen said. Shouldn't the titans of inudstry be competing to alleviate human misfortune first? And at this early stage is it really the place of politicians to be grandstanding as aesthetes? Or, looking closer to home, who am I to feel anger at the way other people do or don't react to a fire?

Who's to know what's right or wrong anymore?



People have always had varied reactions, diverging opinions. The difference now is that there are so many ways to share or blare them. It can almost feel like an obligation. Here I am, for example, throwing my own tiny twigs on the blaze with this blog, with the two photos I posted on Instagram and Facebook.

The cause of this apocalyptic fire is unknown. It may remain a mystery forever. I wouldn’t be surprised if Notre Dame, the sublime embodiment of what we human beings are capable of creating, weren't sending us a message: look where all this heat is getting you. Cool down. Or else.

Chez Moi

Friday, 5 April

Last Friday we once again survived the 1126km (700m) road trip from Berlin to Paris. This one clocked in at 11.5 hours, despite minimal stopping and some very fast driving on the speed limit-less German Autobahn. The trip never gets any easier. Like other ordeals—a colonoscopy, say—past knowledge increases apprehension and in no way alleviates the discomfort of the actual experience.

Despite les gilets jaunes threatening to disturb another Saturday, despite road works pretty much everywhere you look and the contingent green hoardings that really do mar the city’s beauty...



...despite the many things that irritate me about France or its people, arrival felt like coming home.

Particularly over the last year, our double life between the two cities has led me to think a lot about the notion of Home. Before moving to Berlin half-time in January 2013 I would say Paris is chez moi. I would say: since I turned 49 it is the place I have lived for over half my life. It’s where I married, had three children, married again and inherited two stepsons. It’s where most of my working life has occurred and where I base my novels. When people would ask What about the US, I’d say: no, it no longer feels like home. Paris is what seems normal to me now.

In Berlin I have tried hard to feel Zu Hause. We bought and remodelled an apartment from scratch...

Before

...and made it, in my eyes, perfect...

After

I have taken countless language lessons and met many wonderful people, lots of whom I have cajoled into conversing with me in German, despite their excellent English. And here I include the best neighbours any apartment building dweller could wish for. We have had many nice times with my stepson Nick and his Berlin family.

Victor, Nick, Maike and Fanny...with dear Elsa, in 2015

I have plodded through quite a number of German novels. With great relief and gratitude I have walked and run and biked with the Indefatigable One (aka Tasha) in the 173 hectares (427 acres) of the combined Plänterwald and Treptower Park which starts right across the street from our flat.



And the city’s dramatic history, its curious nooks and crannies, its top-notch music and contemporary art scene have opened a bottomless treasure chest of material for the Berlin part of this Diary.



But while all of the above has left its imprint on my psyche, I'm not sure how deep the impression goes because I still cannot say that Berlin feels like home.

A few years ago I wrote about the difference between vertical and horizontal memories, the vertical ones being those that go deep, that have different strata because of multiple associations, and the horizontal being those that skitter across the surface. Berlin has made me realize that it is hard to make the transition, for memories to change planes in your head. For your sense of belonging to settle in so you feel that the ground under your feet is yours, the way I do in Paris.

Our Paris staircase

What I don’t know is why that is so hard. Is it merely my age? Young Tasha has certainly adapted better to the back and forth than older Elsa did. Is it my life circumstances, the fact that I do not work in an office as I did for many years in Paris and that I have no school-age children and am therefore less integrated into daily life? Is it that in Paris I have met and made friends with fellow dog walkers, while in Berlin the daily Spaziergang remains a solitary exercise?

Statues atop the Gare du Nord

Or is it a question of temperament? Am I just by nature more comfortable in a bourgeois, feminine city than in a scarred, edgy, masculine one?

Statue atop the Charlottenburg Palace

Or does it just take a very long time and half of the last six-plus years isn't enough? I mean, when do you start feeling fused with the morning light...



...instead of merely an observer of it?



I read a study once about bilingualism, in this case French and English. The goal of the project was to discover if it’s possible for the brain to master two tongues equally. The subjects put on headphones and responded to questions in French or English by pressing a button as quickly as possible. The results showed that every single person consistently clicked one button faster than the other; there was always a dominant language.

Maybe, for me anyway, it’s the same with home.

Tasha the Tracker

Anything else out there but the rising sun?

Friday, 22 March

If we move Tasha moves, though not always in the same direction. She sometimes has her own adventures.

During our almost constant travelling these last two months, she has spent a lot of time chez Madame P, who over the years has looked after all three of our dogs in her four-star lodgings. The lucky canines in her care sleep inside this lovely house…



…and run free in the large, walled-in garden at the back. Here, in late January, while we were in dark, dreary Berlin, Tasha gambolled freely in freshly fallen snow.



(photo by Mme P)

But beyond the walls of paradise, danger always lurks. A couple of days before the snow fell Mme P, with no other dogs in residence, decided to take Tasha for a walk in the countryside around her house. Not long into the stroll our very strong dog spotted a deer. She lunged, pulled the lead out Mme P's hand and tore off across a field and into the woods. For 20 minutes Mme P screamed TASHA! and pursued her charge. I wish I had been there. I could have told her that Tasha has done the same thing to us on more occasions than I like to recall. And often for longer than 20 minutes. She does come back but not before many dark thoughts have passed through the brain and much mud has collected on the footwear.

Madame P's boots (her photo)

In the end you have to forgive the dog. Whatever breeds were thrown into the mix that came out French Tasha, the German short-haired pointer prevails. She is a hunting dog to her very core. According to Mme P there is actually a theory that while 'working' these hounds lose their hearing. Which is certainly the way Tasha acts: when she sees or smells live prey, the rest of the world melts away. Even a very yummy fish treat is of no interest to her.



It was therefore with trepidation that a week later I let Tasha go with Koffi and the gang on an all-day excursion to the Fontainebleau Forest. This 25,000 hectare (62,000 acre) wood an hour southwest of Paris had enough game to keep French royals hunting happily for 800 years and has enough left over to satisfy today's commoners who continue the practice. It was hard to imagine that Tasha would not scent a deer or a wild boar and take off after it. In the middle of the day, Virginie posted a video on Instagram of Koffi, surrounded by dogs, walking through Fontainebleau's distinctive boulders; Tasha was nowhere in sight. I watched it three times but no sign of that white-tipped tail.

In Koffi's van

Much to my relief she did return with the other dogs. How did it go, I asked. Pas de problème, said Nathan, who accompanies the group. Still suspicious I pushed him a week later about Tasha's comportment in general: she’s always impeccable, he said.

Some one-on-one time with Nathan, les Tuileries

Koffi's magic may be partly responsible but it's also that dogs, like their lupine ancestors, are pack animals. Tasha clearly feels more secure and less distracted when surrounded by other canines.

Still I worried (it really never stops with this dog) about driving back to Berlin just days after her second stay at Mme P’s. Wouldn't so much activity, so much change, be too much for our edgy dog? Apparently not. In fact I’d say she has adjusted better than I have. At home she has been downright laid back...



...and during walks in the Treptower Park and the Plänterwald, she has been generally quite well-behaved. True, inclement weather has kept many inside, meaning fewer people to bark at. True too that with no leaves on the bushes I can more easily see what she’s up to. But there has been progress beyond favourable external conditions. When we bike, for example, she no longer acts like a husky in a sled race but trots compliantly alongside me.



At traffic lights, she sits and waits for the little man to turn green with the patience and discipline of a native German.



So I am left to conclude that with or without us, Tasha is progressing. As long as when she's going solo, those deer keep their distance.

Plänterwald

Why are you here?

The Cloisters, New York

Friday, 8 March

During my constant movement over the past six weeks (Paris to Berlin to Paris to London to Paris to the US to Paris), I have been asked repeatedly: “Why are you here?” In fact I have been asked it so many times that it is still echoing in my ears.

In London I said: clearing out the Augean stables of our garage and delivering the goods to our children. In the US I replied: because David's old law firm has an event in New York. Because I haven’t been to the US in well over a year.

These reasons are not untrue. Just incomplete.

Yes, for the first time in two years I bore witness to the visual whirlwind that is New York. And I was again astounded, even stupefied, by the continuing metamorphosis of Manhattan. The old is being razed…



or crowded out…



as the new goes up, up, up, thin and tall as a patch of asparagus. Even here by the High-Line, an old railroad transformed into space that is supposed to provide nature-deprived New Yorkers with a breath of fresh air, construction is encroaching on the oxygen.

Claustrophobics Beware

Room is running out isn't it? At some point you can’t go any denser, any higher, right?



Seeing Manhattan’s crazed approach to space, I could understand why Queens has recently resisted the arrival of Amazon's second headquarters (HQ2). It’s not necessarily a question of right or wrong, a good or a bad decision, just a different vision of the future.

Foreground, Queens; Background, Manhattan

A better answer to "Why are you here?", however, would have been: to see my dear family (London) and to reconnect with a lot of friends (US). While in New York I saw many and time with them was a gratifying counterpoint, a note of stability in the midst of all that urban tumult.

Georgia and Catherine

I then went to Boston to meet my very old friend Megan, who has just been through a difficult year. Except for an arctic gale that hit your face like a swarm of angry bees, it was a relief to be in a city that to the outside observer anyway doesn’t change much. It remains comfortably horizontal and peaceful corners are easy to find. Since we were sharing a room, we didn't stop talking for almost three days straight. And we could have kept going.

Megan going up the stairs at the Boston Public Library

Headless pondering, Isabella Gardner Museum

Then it was on to see more friends for 24 hours in Washington and finally, to spend a night in Virginia with Trevor (whom I have known my whole life) and Dana in their earthly paradise.



For me family and friends go a long way in answering the "Why are your here?" not just on this trip but also in the larger picture. They provide joy and reassurance, the weft and the warp in the fabric of my life.

But still the question clangs existentially around in my head. All this movement pulling me hither and thither makes whatever other purpose I might ascribe to my time on this earth elusive. I feel as frantic as Manhattan and in need of some Queens, as mindless as the headless statue at the Gardner.

And tomorrow we drive to Berlin!

Something has to give. Wouldn't you agree?

A City on Steroids

Friday, 15 February

We’d been talking about the trip for some time. Ever since our children finally got their belongings out of our cupboards and culled into a heap in our garage and it became clear that if we did not take the mountain to Mohammed, the mountain would be staying right there, perhaps forever, with each contributing member making the same claim: “Most of it’s not mine.”

Last weekend, with Brexit and possible no-deal border chaos right around the corner (29 March), we took advantage of David’s three days of meetings in London and piled the still tariff-free goods in the back of the car. The trip would also be a good occasion, I thought, to take the pre-Brexit pulse.



I can now report that London's heart is beating surprisingly, even worryingly, fast. The city in fact appears to be on steroids. Thanks to David’s meetings we were staying at a hotel smack in the centre, near Piccadilly Circus, and what an apt designation for the near mayhem on show there, day and night. Friday and Saturdays people pack the bars to bursting and spend money as they must once have done in Sodom and Gomorrah. It is hard to believe that Karl Marx lived for a time in neighbouring Soho.



But not so surprising that the tour sparks limited interest.



In the broader London landscape, the new rubs shoulders with the old everywhere you look.



In very little time the skyline seems to have been transformed entirely.

View from Hampstead Heath

“What’s that one?” I asked my son Christopher about this particular tower that's popped up behind the old law chambers:



“The Vase,” he said. “It looks as if the Shard and the Gurken had a baby, no?”

View from hotel room

Judging by the cranes everywhere you look, there’s no plan to ratchet down construction once Great Britain reclaims its Independence, even with the business and finance sectors that feed it already beginning to make good on their threat to move elsewhere.

You have to wonder if drinking and building at such a fevered pitch aren’t symptoms of a self-delusional disorder.

On the other hand, it is hard to believe that this globally-minded city is about to retreat into itself. With every shop, restaurant, hotel and museum almost exclusively employing continental Europeans, you could easily forget that much of Brexit is about keeping out foreigners. Climate change is taken more seriously here than in many other capitals. There is a congestion tax on carbon spewing vehicles in the city centre. My ex-sister-in-law-still-friend Alison M. stopped using all plastics for a year, even making her own toothpaste and soap (with goggles, in case the lye exploded). My daughter Georgina works for a consultancy that undertakes only environmentally sustainable projects. As a route to curbing our unecological eating habits, veganism is being transformed from a marginal phenomenon into a mainstream movement, with some adherents taking it to the level of crusade. My soon-to-be daughter-in-law Kerry told me that she has a friend who will not eat figs because the female wasps that pollinate them then die. Manifestos such as this one are common:



Multiculturalism is alive and thriving everywhere you look.





London of course is not representative of the whole country. It voted massively to remain in the European Union. As in other metropolises - Paris for example - many people are doing just fine.



Odd-bird English eccentrics have not gone extinct.



But here and there are signs of discontent, of the sleak beast's underbelly.



A well-known side effect of steroids is irritablity, increased aggression, and in my short stay I witnessed both. On the Tube I saw a man, with a look of sheer hate on his face, dig his elbow into a woman who was apparently in his way. While delivering the goods to Georgina and Christopher, I was the brunt of three outbursts of road rage. “It’s Saturday morning," I recounted. "There’s no traffic. They could see from my German plates that I'm not a native.”

They both smiled: “Exactly.”

The Joys of January

A shadow of myself

Friday, 25 January

After the immoderation of Christmas and New Year, January is usually a month of resolute plans for a fresh start. A time when we promise to clean up our lives and become better people, when we hold out hope for a personal metamorphosis and—why not—for a better world. The short winter days and generally dark skies tend to turn our focus inward.



For me this January is unusual. First of all, thanks to my attack of pancreatitis last October, I have not drunk a drop of alcohol in well over three months (I will admit that abstinence has not been easy, particularly, given my love of champagne, during the festive season). Though I am back to eating a reasonably normal diet, the quantities are still limited. So this year there’s no need for me to even consider a January cleanse.

Furthermore, here in Paris we are living in a freshly renovated flat, one that no longer looks as if five children were still sharing our space. After seemingly interminable works last year, this feels like a happy end, rather than time to start a good clean; our house is in more order this January than it has been perhaps ever.

As for improvement in the larger world, I'm close to giving up hope. The planet is warming faster than expected; the US government is shut down with no end in sight*; Great Britain seems to have lost its collective mind as it hurtles toward a possible no-deal Brexit; authoritarianism and populism are on the rise almost everywhere.

"When does it end?"

Here in France, we will undergo our 11th Saturday of gilets jaunes tomorrow. It is too early to tell if President Macron’s grand débat national will have a salutary effect but the list of grievances, registered in cahiers de doléances, is long and the willingness of many gilets jaunes to even participate is limited. Take note that the most famous cahier de doléances was announced by Louis XVI on the 24 January 1789, six months before the French Revolution.

Today's wish list includes:

"cigarettes at 4 euros a packet"; "free education" (it already is); "fuck your mother Macron"

Because self-improvement programs, short days, lousy weather and a messy world do not incite joy, January is generally not a popular month. Some years I might agree but not this one. Since the last I'm-not-sure-how-long stretch of time has consisted of one interruption after another, this January is inciting lots of joy chez moi. Getting up early to work under an orb of light with my cup of coffee, followed by walks in the dark Tuilieries, are magical moments.



Getting Tasha back into the doggy swing of things by handing her over to Koffi et Cie - the equivalent of sending the kids back to school after over-long holidays - creates an incredible lightness of being twice a week.

Koffi and Virginie: strategy session on what to do with all these dogs

Most of the tourists have gone home and the streets in our neighbourhood are quieter. Even the gilets jaunes movement has its positive side-effects. The last two Saturdays only one gate to the Tuileries has been open and Tasha and I have had the terraces to ourselves. The Jardin des Champs-Elysées, where Tasha delights in frolicking in the steps of Marcel Proust, have been surrounded by barricades, meaning fewer people to bark at and no possible escape. Bad weather has its charms too.



Partly I am savouring this same-old, this interlude of calm, because the year ahead promises some important changes that will seriously disturb the peace. I'll be writing about those developments in future blog posts. So stay tuned!

At the edge of the ice

*Since I wrote this, it has been announced that the government will open again...for the next three weeks anyway...the US continues to hopscotch from one crisis to the next.

Mere Anarchy?

boulevard Saint Germain

Friday, 11 January

Exactly one hundred years ago, January 1919, W.B. Yeats wrote his most famous poem, The Second Coming. It's the one where he talks about things falling apart; the centre not holding. About the blood-dimmed tide being loosed upon the world. I’ve cited or referred to it before. The message only seems more relevant this January 2019.

A new pedestrian area opened recently not far from us in central Paris. Tucked behind the boulevard Raspail, the rue de Grenelle and the rue du Bac, Beaupassage is a haven from traffic and is indeed beau.

Perhaps because I’ve been in Berlin and paying less attention to Paris, it came as a complete surprise when I stumbled upon it just after the opening. I’d noticed work going on these last years but had no idea to what end.

Upon entering, it is impossible not to be impressed by this space adorned with trees and protected from street noise that is attracting flâneurs back to what had become a moribund quartier. To marvel at the way the architects have highlighted the old architecture...



...and tastefully integrated the new...



To pause for thought at the wall sculpture, a vast forest landscape made of cardboard by Eva Jospin, daughter of a former prime minister.



To gawk at the fancy restaurants and the swanky butcher, baker and fitness centre.

But my wonderment was tempered with regret, even a degree of indignation. Until the high-end property developer Emerige got a hold of the space, the rue de Grenelle side housed a large Renault garage that serviced first our Grand Espace then our Mégane on many occasions. I walked through what used to be a door at the boulevard Raspail entrance countless times, on my way to and from the slightly shabby activity centre where my children took ballet and judo and chess classes after school. I used to visit a friend, an illustrator of children’s books, in her studio flat, until the rent (in preparation for the development project, I now realize) was raised through the roof and she had to move. It has become part of the Beaupassage's luxury living apartments. Until not so long ago there was a horse butcher in the rue du Bac; today you could feed a family of four on what it costs to buy a slab of chocolate there.

Okay, the centre of Paris, at least the 7ème arrondissement, has always been upscale, but until 15 years ago you could get your car fixed, broaden your children's minds or visit friends with limited means. Then it got hollowed out. Now it’s an enclave of chic shops and restaurants for the happy few who can afford them.

Last Saturday I looked out our living room window and saw this:



The CRS, the reserve police who are called in for all gatherings of civic unrest, had formed a blockade at our front door to stop the les gilets jaunes from storming the National Assembly around the corner. I ran downstairs to have a look. The protesters were amassing on the footbridge I cross every day with Tasha...



...crowding the esplanade of the Musée d’Orsay (visitors were evacuated)...



and starting fires in the boulevard Saint-Germain...



...while shopkeepers either closed up or looked on...



Les gilets jaunes are an amorphous, multifarious bunch. They started as individuals legitimately protesting a fuel tax that disproportionately affected them and morphed into a more general, many would say unreasonable even sinister, movement. Standing at their edge, you feel that blurry nature. Who is protesting and who is just watching is not clear. Varying motivations are on display.

'Screw you all.'

a selfie opportunity not to be missed

Les gilets jaunes are on everyone’s lips. I overhear conversations about them between people on the street and in restaurants. Shopkeepers, who have suffered crippling losses, can talk of little else. But it’s my friends who have surprised me. Their stances, on both sides, are full of passionate intensity but short on empathy.

Two of my fellow dog-walkers, for example, are ready to get out of the euro and the EU and bring down the government. “The elites are all in bed together. They keep asking us for more and more and we get less and less in return. The whole system needs to be demolished,” says my usually mild-mannered, tolerant friend. She is ready for rule by referendum, about as close to mere anarchy as you can get.

On the other side, even some of my gently left-leaning friends are enraged by the movement. To their mind France is already a generous state. Healthcare and education are practically free; subsidies for housing and families abound; unemployment benefits are prodigious. And every year we get five weeks paid holiday. Furthermore, these friends point out, if les gilets jaunes succeed in overturning the government and making the economy tank, they will suffer first and foremost.

Well beyond the limits of the 7th arrondissement, you can see people, many young, many whose parents were born elsewhere, who are doing just fine for themselves in this system. They live, eat and laugh in revitalised neighbourhoods near République and Nation. Just look at a list of those gunned down by terrorists on the 13 November 2015.

But take the Métro to Saint Denis or read about towns and villages in deeper France, as I recently did in Retour à Reims and En finir avec Eddy Bellegueule, and you’ll see that vast swathes of the population are not flourishing; they have been left on the other side of an increasingly visible barrier. Meanwhile the middle ground, the centre that holds us together, has been lost, pretty much any way you look at it.

To know this is true, all I have to do is look out my window.

En Famille

(needlepoint portrait by Catharine M)

Friday, 28 December

It has been almost two years since Tasha crash-landed into our life. But since we were in India last December, this has been her first Christmas en famille.

And she had to jump in at the deep end; there were no concessions for Tasha being a novice to the holiday's rites and traditions. The whole family, minus Christopher’s fiancée Kerry but including my sister Catharine, gathered here in Paris. People travelled from London, Berlin, Chicago and Los Angeles and we were 12 around the dining room table that we fortunately recently inherited because all the leaves were put to work.



(photo by Fanny B)

Given that we had just returned from Berlin to an almost-renovated apartment (workers spent one morning after our arrival putting up shades; as of this writing some shelves are still missing and a bare, dangling light bulb still graces our lives!), this was an unusually challenging exploit for the human as well as the canine residents. Besides buying Christmas and stocking presents for everyone, we needed to stock up on basic supplies, as well as Christmas specialities, then cook, bake, cook. We were not used to so many people coming and going, to trees in the living room. We felt nervous and suspicious...







...we barked inhospitably and often. But the many hands lightened the work, created a friendly buzz. They also provided much attention and leniency on the no-jumping on people or furniture rules...



...and unusual entertainment...

with Fanny and Victor's neon top

Good food was shared and delicacies abounded.

A whole bag of stinky favourites

On Christmas Eve there were presents, like the top photo portrait that Catharine needlepointed, and on Christmas morning stocking treats.



Once Christmas lunch was finally over, there was the traditional Family Walk. It was sometimes more fun for the humans...





...but in the end not so bad for dogs either.





The greatest revelation of the last week, however, has been that unlike any other activity - chasing the ball, long walks or runs or even bike rides - the hectic Yuletide festivities actually tired Tasha out.



Thumbs-up for Christmas en famille!



(photo by William F)

Laws of Nature

Friday, 30 November

It's a law of nature: if you are down, someone else around you will be up.

As readers of my last blog will know, it has not been a great last six weeks for me. For Tasha, on the other hand, it’s been a time of growth and happiness.

A week after our return to Berlin and the day before my illness, I had taken her to stay with Anna, Tasha’s and my trainer-guru, because David and I were supposed to be leaving for a long weekend in Tuscany with friends (from this point of view at least our medical emergencies could not have been better timed).



Tasha loves everything about life with Anna. First she adores Anna herself. Who could not? Anna is a burst of sunshine emanating joy and the positive energy she preaches, even while juggling a child, her own dog, veterinary studies and a job at our veterinary clinic. Oh, and in a couple of months she’ll also have her certificate in dog and horse psychology. Tasha gets swept up in this busy life and thrives on it.

Trip to a lake last summer

(photo by Anna)

She loves Anna’s son Ilyas and in turn is loved by him and all the children at his Kita (day care centre). She also loves Anna’s dog Lana, another abandoned dog whose early traumas in Romania make our French dog’s pale in comparison. Tasha even seems to like hanging out at the vet’s office while Anna is working. No barking at other dogs there! In fact with Anna and Lana Tasha does not appear to misbehave ever.

Two angelic peas in a pod

(photo by Anna)

When David went to pick her up after five days, Tasha said hello to him, then went and sat pertly at Anna’s feet, making it clear that that was exactly where she wished to stay. Which vexed both David and me, when he told me. Is that where our monumental efforts have got us? The Princess rejecting her pedestrian life with us?

Fortunately Her Highness quickly settled back into our humdrum existence.



Tasha's general well-being these days may also be related to her finally approaching adulthood. At almost four that makes her 28 in human years, right in line with many of her fellow millennials who are not in any hurry to grow up. Anna reckons that given her early hardship and retarded development, she is now an adolescent. She certainly acts like a teenager. Moody one minute...



...the next patiently waiting for her walk...



...the next maddeningly acting like a two-year old and barking at a gardener, who then gives me a lecture on dogs being kept an der Leine...



...the next being a dog you can safely take out and about, one who is finally showing some intellectual curiosity in the world around her...

The Soviet War Memorial

Despite these fluctuations in temperament the tendency is definitely upwards, towards a more repsonsible, mature canine. Some changes in the daily routine may also have helped. While I was away David moved Tasha's long walk from early morning to mid-day. I tried the new rhythm and what a difference. We pause Zen-ly to watch the day rise over the Spree...



...and have a training session, which is good for Tasha's conduct and my concscience. Then around noon we go to the Treptower Park and it's like walking under a different sun. Tasha is less wound up and so are all the other walkers-runners-bikers-dogs who are not on their stressed way to work.



Why I didn't try this sooner I don't know because the short morning walk, being less of an interruption, has hugely improved the work part of my day. I've actually been quite productive these last weeks.

Laws of nature have an impact and in this case the effect of Tasha being up has been to elevate me, maybe not quite to her level, but to feeling much better about pretty much everything.