French Tale No. 4 - Le Tres Chic Mummies

This trip to Paris I was determined to find out how the tres chic Parisian mummies do their shopping for all the gorgeous Enfant clothing I saw little ones wearing.

And I found it.


In the 6th arrondisment local Parisian mumies walk along the Rue Vavin - a street full to the brim with everything designer, gorgeous and child related - clothing store, baby equipmment, books, hairdressers, footwear stores along with candy stores and wonderful patisseries.

The Rue Vavin is located opposite the Luxembourg Gardens - the best playground in Paris for children and a great place to run free and burn off excess energy after being spoilt.

Here are a collection of some of the gorgeous little stores we saw. We loved it - well okay I loved it - Nick really just came along to push the pram and make sure I didn't spend all our money - which was a wise decision on his part as there were soooo many cute items I could have hidden away in our pack.



The first store was Berlingot which specialises in baby wear. Their collection was so gorgeous and they had a fabulous range of premmie outfits. Most of Miss Raya's outfits when she was in the SCN were french, bought by my mum. The French obviously believe that fashion starts very early.

After a few more gorgeous boutiques we walked past this great patisserie. In the windows were HUGE meringues. Those brown ones are Cola flavoured. Figuring we needed sugar to sustain our shopping I bought a chocolate meringue and Nick indulged with scrumptious baked cheesecake.

The footwear was divine. I was drooling over the little leather boots but the price was exorbitant for feet that grow so quickly.

Crossing the road we visited our favourite store in Paris for Raya - catimini. The clothes here are of the highest quality yet wearable every day. We were drawn to their different bold colours and funky cut and patterns.

Raya would look so cute in this outfit.

After Catimini we went to Simon - THE place to take your little one to have their hair cut. Specialising in children and not working with anyone over age 12 - this looked like the perfect place for Aurelia to have her firt special haircut.

Unfortunately Aurelia refused to cooperate and stay awake and by the time we reached the hairdresser she was snoring loudly in the pram. Nick wouldn't let me wake her up for her haircut - quite rightly - and so we walked past this gorgeous salon and Raya's long locks survived another day.

We searched in here for the perfect little gift to send my friend's new born darling Sienna.

After we had seen all the shops - (there were so many I only posted a few) we decided to check out the Luxembourg Gardens.

The playground equipment was excellent but not wanting to look like a paedophile photographing the play equipment through the fence when lots of children were playing this was the only shot I managed to get. There are separate areas for under 12 months, then a park for toddlers then older children.

Raya was just as happy to run around on the grass and look at the trees and twirl and laugh as she was to go on the equipment.

I can just imagine lovely Mother's Group outings for French mums in this park when the sun is
shining. Yep I think I could definetely give being a chic french mummy a shot.

French Tale Number 3 - Versailles

One experience worth having on a trip to Paris is a day trip to the 17th century palace of Versailles.



Located about 20km from the centre of Paris the chateau can be easily reached via train taking approximately 40mins. Versailles is the end of the line station and there are clear directions signposted once you exit the station to the chateau.



Versailles was the de-facto capital of Paris and was made with 20,000 workers and staffed by 35,000 people at it's prime.



The chateau has over 700 rooms and the opulence is amazing.



The gardens themselves are impressive and spread for kilometres from the chateau. The palace costs to enter but people are free to wander around through the gardens at their leisure which would be wonderful in summer.



On the day we visited Versailles, the weather was a little inclement, and so we decided to see the gardens first before the rains arrived. Well at least that was the plan.

The gardens are amazing and they are a perfect example of the typical symmetrical French Garden. The gardens cover more than 800 hectares and not only contain seemingly endless manicured garden beds but sculptures and fountains.

It was the impressive fountain and drainage systems in place that led the grounds being declared a UNESCO World Heritage area. Unfortunately we missed seeing the fountains in operation.

We were so busy enjoying the labryinthan layout of the grounds that we didn't notice the storm clouds gathering overhead.

Kilometres away from the chateau

As we stopped to sit on a bench in the maze of hedges we noticed that the temperature had dropped - dramatically and quickly. Looking overhead we saw the sky was now an inky black. Oh dear.

We may not have seen the fountains but we saw plenty of water as the heavens literally opened onto us. The rain began absolutely pouring down and we were kilometres away from the chateau. We had our gortex jackets on but our pants and underpants were saturated. Nick set off jogging with the pram having to take Raya the long way around to avoid all the stairs. I made a bolt for the chateau. We looked like drowned rats. The wind made our legs feel like they were being cut with icy knives.

The staircases in the grounds had become waterfalls and some of the small ponds were overflowing. People were trying to huddle against hedges (umm hedges are vertical and provide absolutely no shelter) because the path through the grounds had become a canal.

I have never seen such a downpour of water in such a short period of time.

Shivering we joined the queue to enter the chateau and left the pram at the entrance as they are not allowed inside the chateau. We also stripped off our sopping wet pant bottoms and left them to dry hanging over the pram.

The opulence of the interior of the chateau has to be seen to be believed

The audio guide is included in the price of the entry ticket and is an excellent commentary.

A large number of rooms are off limits to the public and traffic only moves through the palace in one direction. Don't bother fighting the crowds - just allow plenty of time to move through slowly and enjoy each room you are moving through. The palace is not a place to visit if you are short on time.

Each room is wallpapered in a vibrant colour and the pattern of coloured rooms is replicated throughout the entire palace.

All the artworks in the rooms apparently are originals, not replicas.

Raya knocking on the doors.

Sitting on a plush stool.

The chapel specifically built for Louis the Sun God to worship in.

One of the many noblemen's bedrooms.

The sun god emblem

The views of the theatre in the grounds from the view of the chateau.

The famous hall of mirrors. These mirrors were created by famous Venetian artisans as they were the only artists with the skills to create mirrors at this time. Once created Louis the King then sent assasins to Venice to dispose of the artists to ensure that the Hall of Mirrors would never be replicated.

This room is the real highlight of the visit to Versailles.

Ray loved the golden "bubbas".

The roof in the hall of mirrors.

Raya was impressed with the ceiling.

The Queen's chambers where she would give birth in public.

The king's chambers.

We had a wonderful day out and the entrance cost is reasonable for what the palace has to offer. We would highly recommend people travel out of the city of Paris to see what Versailles has to offer and catch a glimpse into the world of Paris gone.

Little Groover

Raya loves to dance. Any time she hears music a big smile crosses her face and she starts wiggling her hips. She has perfected the Iggle Piggle Dance from In the Night Garden.

The only thing better than dancing for Raya is having an audience to dance in front of. She is quite the little entertainer.

This video is of just a typical Saturday here at home with our little groover. She came running into the room wearing those frames.

We love how her tummy jiggles while she dances

xx

Shoes...Go out now

This is what Miss Raya will say to us. Regularly. Many times during the day.

She will run off to the bedroom and come running back with her gumboots or her latest obsession - her new red shoes.

The daylight hours are disappearing quickly here and with the rain the number of trips to the park have been limited.

Finally we had a break in the rain so we did take those new shoes and go out to the park.

She loved every minute of it in the way that little children are pleased by the simple things. The love of the slippery dip has been replaced with the see saw and the swings.

If you have a little one at home don't take the sunshine for granted - get off to the park and enjoy the little magical moments.

The perfect way to end the day

Too cute

Here's a great note to end the week on

Trick or treat time

One noticeable difference here in the UK is that people tend to go all out for Halloween relative to Australia. All the kids in my class were excited about dressing up for Halloween, the diner lady gave them treats - lucky me as the teacher got the tricks lol

The window displays in shops around here all feature Halloween items and lots of houses have begun decorating already in the lead up to next weekend.

The shops have also been putting up anti-social warning behaviour signs - hmm I am sure the antisocial youth of the neighbourhood are taking the time to read the small print on these fliers.


The shops have been banning the sale of eggs and flour to anyone under the age of 18 in the weeks leading up to Halloween (obviously targeting the anti-social adolesecent who likes to stockpile early). Nick and I chuckled at how silly this was until our poor teenage housemate went to Sainsbury's to make his sister a surprise birthday cake for her birthday today. He has to be the LEAST anti-social teenager I have met - he is extremely mature and is planning on going to Oxford to study pure maths - but they wouldn't sell him the flour or the eggs. It is an odd day when you see a teenager hanging out the front of the store asking adults passers by if they will buy you a packet of flour rather than a packet of smokes.

Not to be deterred by the egg and flour ban some charming local lads I saw were putting the ban to good use and had decided that small pumpkins would be an even better item to throw whilst having a particularly colourful 'social' conversation with passers-by till the cops drove down the road. Good ole south London lol


But moving on to another form of anti-social behaviour - toddlers - no only joking Miss Raya is delightful - halloween becomes all about the dress up. Miss A already knows who she wants to dress up as. We saw the costume while out shopping. She squealed with delight and there was sobbing when we left it on the shelf.

Miss Raya wants to dress up for Halloween as....







Upsy Daisy. I know she would look absolutely delightful but I am also concerned that if that outfit comes into our home she will never wear anything else again.

I also spied the above unisex pumpkins with these matching little slippers. I think Miss A would look adorable as a little pumpkin even though the ones she has seen carved into faces scare her.

I also saw this one on Etsy - which is a less tacky commercialised halloween item which would look lovely on a little girl.

So the most important decision of Halloween - the costume - is yet to be decided (and we still need to convince daddy there even needs to be a dress up) but we will post piccies for whichever outfit we choose.

The NHS is well rubbish

We have already blogged once about having to use the NHS in England prior to walking the camino. My second experience with the NHS warrants another blog entry and using the British expression of something being "well rubbish" I declare the NHS is well rubbish.

One difference from Australia is in England the majority of people I have met sing the praises of the NHS. And for the life of me I can't work out why because so far I haven't been impressed.

Ok so the Pill and all contraception are free over here but Britain also has the highest teenage pregnancy rate in Europe so it isn't like the Brits are taking the contraception.

We have registered with a local medical centre. Registration was no real problem and this practice will allow us to see whichever doctor we like within the practice.


Our medical centre also earns brownie points because they offer a walk in service every morning of the week which means you don't need an appointment, just make sure you are in the surgery before 10am and they promise they will see you.

Colleagues I work with have their dr's appointment times mailed out at the beginning of the month and once those appointments are gone, there are no more.

Yet they still sing the praises of the NHS and the one line I keep hearing is "it's free, it doesn't cost us anything".

Umm actually yes it does.Your taxes pay for that NHS system so actually it isn't free. Your dr gets paid a salary, they aren't working for free.

Also my surgery sounds good in that they offer a morning walk in service but that is only because I wasn't able to get an appointment in the afternoons for a fortnight. Therefore for me to see a dr I would need to give up a day of work - which means a loss of more than 130 pounds - which sounds like quite an expensive doctors visit to me.

When I went in to my consultation - if you can call it that - the dr didn't examine me. She didn't take my temp, listen to my chest, feel my glands or take my blood pressure.

When prescribing medications I had to remind the dr of my allergies. I also had to ask whether the drugs would impact on other medications I was already taking - to which she said "Yes" and didn't elaborate any further. Turns out it was a good thing I asked since the antibiotics counteract the effectiveness of the pill for 2 weeks. Getting pregnant following a dr's consult would be a very

expensive doctor's visit.

So if you aren't feeling really unwell before your visit to the NHS doctor, you certainly will be after your visit.