Un Week-end à Paris

Charly's grandmother lives on the outskirts of Paris, so as a family they tend to visit every 6-8 weeks for the weekend, mainly to check on her, but also to make use of the free accommodation that is less than a 20 minute metro journey into the centre of Paris! This weekend we went to Paris!

We left on Friday afternoon/evening. The intention was that we leave pretty much as soon as Marc had finished school at 4:30pm, so we could be in Caen for the kids dinner at 6:30pm, and arrive in Paris ready to put the kids to bed and have dinner ourselves at about 8:30pm. However, like many things, this didn't go to plan and we didn't actually leave until almost 6:30pm.

At 8pm, we stopped at a Courtpaille off the E46 to have dinner. It's like a grill diner restaurant, a bit like the Beefeater. The kids were starving and tired by this point so it wasn't a very easy mealtime. I had faux-fillet steak with chips and asked for it to be medium/well-done. Fran had a steak kebab (it had a posher name than that), and Charly had some other kind of steak. The kids had steak hache with chips. They bring you a bowl of free salad (bowl of lettuce with blob of garlic mayo) per adult and a plate of salami and gherkins for the kids, and a basket of bread. If you weren't that hungry, or were a bit cheap (*cough* dad *cough*), you could just go in there and have something small, and fill up on the bread and salad.

The waitress was very nice but everyone was very stressed as we'd left really late and we were all tired. All the steaks came out super under-cooked (well-done France...) including the kids steak haches which were practically raw. Charly sent that back as it was for the baby - he did explain that! Mine was definitely not medium/well, more rare, and blue in some places! - though, that is why I ordered it like that as I'd just have med/rare in UK. Fran ordered hers med/rare, but it arrived mooing. The first chunk she had was edible but most of it she couldn't eat. We were trying to be quick else I think she would have sent hers back too.

My Bedroom in Le Vésinet
The walls matched the curtains,
and were padded with cushion.

For dessert, Charly had a mini-dessert trio with coffee, kids had compote and yoghurt and I had an amazing chocolate cake with vanilla ice cream.

After nappy changes and pyjamas, we got the kids back in the car and headed off again. For the first stretch, Fran drove so I'd been in the back with the kids. It was a lot less stressful/squashed then that awful journey with Helene but I had to spend the whole hour keeping Aurianne awake so that she would eat, and then sleep better later, while also keeping a tired and hungry Marc entertained too. Marc also got very upset because Charly ate a twix enroute and he only got a biscuit. He kept saying 'I want a little something stronger' but we didn't work out what that meant until the Twix was gone and that wasn't an option anymore. Oops.

Really old book collection

On part two of the journey, Charly drove and so Fran took the back seat to put the kids to sleep etc. Charly and I talked about Paris, the journey etc. and once the kids were asleep Fran sat forward and we talked a bit about weddings in France. Charly's parents own a Chateau in the south of France which they have been recently doing weddings in. As a qualified wedding planner (and generally just as a female), I find all things wedding very interesting. Charly told me that in France they like to treat all religions equally by not acknowledging any, and so everyone has to get married at the city hall registry office (which most people do quickly a day or two before and have a religious ceremony as normal after). I think this is treated more as 'registering marriage with the state' than an actual marriage by most as you don't have to repeat words or anything, apparently just tell the judge you want to get married, show ID and sign the register.

We arrived in Le Vésinet at about 11:30pm. Le Vésinet is a very nice, up-market suburb in western Paris, about 10 miles from the centre. According to Wikipedia, it is one of the wealthiest suburbs in Paris and is known for its wooded avenues, mansions and lakes. I didn't see very many mansions (probably because they were hidden behind the wooded avenues, walls and gates) or many lakes, but I didn't really get to wander in the area much.

When we arrived at the house, Fran was stuck in the back so I got out to open the gate. Charly was a bit worried as usually his Grandmother leaves a light on in the porch for them, and the porch door unlocked but the light was off and the door was locked. He went off to 'break in' while I started unpacking the car.

As the children were fast asleep we decided that they should be the last things we put in the house, but with Fran stuck in the middle it meant that I had to sort out everything else. This wouldn't have been a problem, but I couldn't open the boot. I tried for about 5 mins with Fran telling me to 'try putting your knee on the number plate and pushing in and down' etc. Eventually I remembered that Charly had locked the car from the inside (which I remembered when we gave up and Fran was about to get out and do it, only although the driver and passenger doors opened, I couldn't open the back doors either...) so managed to find the button and unlock the car, and then start unloading it.

After another few minutes, Charly came back via the front door and told us he'd found the back door open. I started taking stuff up to the house, and then came back to help free Fran. She had Aurianne asleep in her arms, but once everything was inside, she passed her over to me so she could make a bed for Marc (he was in a cot) so they could bring him in, and then make their bed. The travel cot which they brought for Aurianne takes a while to put up and is v. fiddly so they didn't bother and just decided to have her in with them for the night instead.

Once their bed was made, I handed baby back over, and went to my room. I had the smallest bedroom which Marc usually has. It looked like the house has five bedrooms, but I later discovered there was a basement and another corridor downstairs which probably led to more bedrooms too.

In the morning, I got to see a bit more of the house. It reminded me of a National Trust building - perhaps that of an early 19th century author...

I didn't take a picture of the bathroom but that was really interesting too. The bath tub was barely long enough for me to sit in properly, and it had a sloping ceiling so you probably couldn't stand up fully in it if you were much taller than me either.

Lots of old paintings and china

There was no sign of Charly's grandmother when we all got up, but we later found that she'd been sleeping downstairs (I think in one of the rooms that the corridor must have led to). She wasn't feeling very well and had a lot of back pain. There also wasn't very much food in the house so Fran and Charly were very worried about what she'd been living on. Charly went to the shop to get some things for breakfast - bread, jam, cereal, butter, milk, OJ... while Fran called the Aunt to go out to get some medicine for 'Super-Grand-mère' (that's what Marc calls her).

In French, a Great-Grandmother is usually called a 'arrière grand-mère' (back grandmother) or 'bisaïeule' but they've gone for 'super-Grand-mère' which I think is really sweet.

At around 11am, we headed off to Paris...

Beware, there are a lot of pictures to come! (I took over 500)

Living Room

Driveway

Shed or Gatekeeper?

Another mini-house in the garden.
This is where Charly's Aunt & Uncle stay.