A Day in the Country

A farm in Corbreuse

Mr. Welcome ran off to Egypt and Dubai with our camera to capture ancient pyramids and images from the tallest tower in the world (yawn), so I am unable to supply you with such photo journalism as Peanut's first steps, the newly planted raspberry bushes, and the state of our living room after a day alone with the kids.

But spending the weekend with the in-laws provided me with a chance to borrow Mrs. Welcome (senior)'s camera to capture the beautiful images of our day in the country.  The first picture is the back of the barn that connects the two houses to form a hamlet, viewed from the garden.

This is looking outwards:

and this:

I walked slowly holding Peanut's hand as he made his tiny way, smelling the blossoms and casting my glance as far as the eyes could see.  Vivaldi's "Spring" was floating through my head when the gay melody scratched to an abrupt stop as Big Boy danced across my field of vision, waving his hand and screaming like a banshee.  Nettles.  Drat nature.

When Big Boy was finally calmed down (he has a penchant for the dramatic that is just non-existent in the rest of his family line), we sat down to lunch.  We were at Claire and Alain's - friends of Mr. and Mrs. Welcome Senior (Claire was also a former teacher of Mr. Welcome when he was a boy).  Colette was there as well, another former music teacher who taught all of the boys to make their own flute out of bamboo and to play it.  

Having gained an audience with two of Mr. Welcome's former teachers, I hoped to get some dirt on him, but Colette was much too nice.  And Claire's observation that he was a bit spacey was based on her teaching him the year of his bike accident, where he spent weeks in the hospital, had to have an operation on his skull and take anti-epilepsy medication afterwards.  So the observation was perhaps not quite just.  (Remember my head trauma from my car accident?  Mr. Welcome and I have a scar on the exact same spot on our heads).

This is the back of the hamlet where we ate lunch.  For the entrée, we had avocado and cucumbers, a platter of halved hard boiled eggs surrounding stir-fried leeks, and grated carrots with vinaigrette.  For the main course we had roasted potatoes with thyme and roast chicken, followed by the cheese platter.  It was at that moment that Young Lady informed us that they get offered a cheese platter at school every day for lunch, and they can raise their hands to choose what cheese they want (camembert, gruyere, etc), and that Young Lady never raises her hand for the cheese.  But when there's ice cream for dessert, her hand shoots right up.  I guess you can take the girl out of America, but you can't take America out of the girl (although the girl does insist she's more french than american, much to my dismay).

We finished with the coffee platter, which was so rustic as to be cute.  That blue mug there is serving as the coffee pot.  Someone, who shall not be mentioned, was so used to drinking out of a coffee mug as to forget this one was communal.

And then the children went off to play, climbing the steps up to the wall of the hamlet and shouting obscenities at pedestrians on the street.  Yup.  Guess which angel was leading the way on that charge? (hint: she's six and rarely docile).

The grown-ups chit-chatted and Colette took out her bamboo flute and played a few songs for us.  The children shouted requests from their infantile repertoire before going off to stretch out on the rugs that were airing in the sun.

  
On the ride home, all three children were conked out.  Mr. Welcome Senior, who is a wealth of information and speaks perfect english from his studies in England, drove me and the kids back, while Mrs. Welcome drove Colette and two of my nephews.  I pointed to the clusters of tiny green leaves that surround certain branches like a gigantic dandelion puff and commented that Mr. Welcome had told me that was a parasite.  Mr. Welcome Senior added, "yes it is.  As a matter of fact, it's mistletoe.  The Dutch come and take it by truckloads because it has a much bigger market in the Netherlands for Christmas."  I was surprised that we had managed to create a tradition of kissing under a parasite.  


Later Mr. Welcome Senior said, "You see that green bird up there?  It's a parrot.  A container of them escaped from the Orly airport and have infiltrated all of southern Paris.  It's a very territorial bird and they won't allow other birds to nest in their territory.  They've even adapted to the Parisian winters."  I asked how many birds had escaped from Orly, and he responded by saying he didn't know, "but, well you only need two."


With Mr. and Mrs. Welcome Senior, and Mr. Welcome with his four brothers, plus all of the offspring between them, it seems that the parrots are not the only ones to invade all of southern Paris.  


Including the countryside.