Righty ho, it’s a bit late, but isn’t this just superb?! “Yes, yes it’s the Eiffel Tower, so what?” I hear you say. Well, it’s made from BREAD! This was the window display at Poilane for Bastille Day. The tower was a good metre high.

Next to it was this:

Yes, that’s right, a bread carrousel!  And can you make out what the animals are?

An elephant and a horse! Wowee!

Poilane often have interesting windows, but this just blew me away!

I’m in hiding.

Somebody put a notice up in our apartment building recently announcing a “building party and bbq”. Excellent idea.

Are those things that are just announced? Perhaps there’s a core of people who all know each other and they decided and the rest of us are expected to attend.

Expected, because how on earth do you hide in your apartment pretending you’re not there? It’s not as if letting the phone ring will cut it – the party-goers can see the lights on!

I can’t enter or leave the building because the entrance hall and garden courtyard is the party location!

And why is it that I’m so terribly anti-social? First there’s the food: I can’t eat it (have you tried to have meat well-cooked in France? Pregnant women are also not allowed salad in France. Not much else to eat at a bbq!). Second there’s the wine: I can’t drink it. Third there’s the language: I can’t speak it well enough to socialise with people I don’t know but kind of have to see everyday. If I were to never meet them again, I wouldn’t mind, but that’s not exactly the case with neighbours. Which brings me to my fourth point: I don’t actually want to socialise with the horrifically noisy neighbours from the apartment below. It’s hard to avoid it because I have no real idea what they look like. If the father decided to shout in the aggressive, military manner he does every single evening to his four year old twin sons (who I’ve also never met), I would know who he was. If the mother decided to scream, as she does every second afternoon, I’d know immediately she’s someone to avoid. The chances of them showing their ‘home’ faces are rather slim – which is fine, I hear them often enough!

Finally, point number five: Mr S is away tonight for work.

I’m a big, fat chicken and don’t want to face everybody in my faltering French (did I mention that one of our neighbours regularly corrects the grammar on announcements and notices put in the elevator?) alone.

These little dolls appear once a year for the Prophet’s birthday. Apparently the tradition started in the more populous areas of town where sweet makers would make dolls out of sweets for girls and horses for boys. China’s cheap imports have changed that, but it is still nice to see the colours on display. Sweets are still involved – apparently they go under the skirts!