Dreaming of Sunflowers

We missed out on seeing sunflowers this year, so I'm dreaming about them instead. Most of these are Loire sunflowers.

After the rain.

The bees like them too.

As far as the eye can see.

They also look wonderful from behind.

Bonne journée to you all.

One Perfect Rose

We have quite a big communal courtyard by Paris standards. It is mainly covered in tarmac but there are a few planted areas. Right in front of our front door is a small flower bed where a neighbour planted some herbs and a rose a few years ago. The herbs have long gone but the rose, despite being half eaten by snails and green fly produced one perfect flower this year.

Yellow is for sun

Yellow is for sun, and sun is something we're seriously lacking at the moment. Sun with a bit of warmth that is. Spring sun that falls on your face and kisses it gently leaving a warm glow.

In an attempt to lure the weather gods into sending us some warm sun I have gathered together a collection of yellow.

This is what spring is meant to look like. Lots of these please!

A few light rain showers are allowed.


Here are some non-flower yellows. Beads at the Place des Abbesses brocante.


Yellow against a blue sky at the Marché aux Puces de Saint-Ouen.


I even found some yellow in one of the tunnels on the Paris Périphérique


Yellow in the restaurant Georges on the top floor of the Centre Pompidou.


Yellow street art.
.


Eggs.


Pencils.


The fence around the famous Caberet in Montmartre, the Lapin Agile.


Autumnal yellows.



I guess I'm asking for trouble from the weather gods by writing this post.

Danger!

Luscious Lemon Curd

Recently the parents of a friend of my daughter were talking of their initiation to lemon curd, or rather leemon courd. Their anglophone brother in-law had brought a pot of the stuff to their holiday home in Normandy. They loved it. Suddenly I had a craving for some lemon curd, a conserve that is not so easily available in Paris, certainly not in our immediate neighbourhood.

It should also be said that I'm a lemon curd snob. I can only really be bothered with the exorbitantly expensive stuff from delicatessen style shops. As we weren't going back to the UK for a while I decided to try and make some. In a few clicks on the Internet I had Nigel Slater's lemon curd recipe up on my computer. 

Time to buy some lemons.

The most labour intensive part of making lemon curd is squeezing the lemons. To lighten the burden I recommend 1 x amenable child to squeeze the lemons for you. Apparently is is GRRREAT, just like squeezing the juice out of brains. Who knew?

In the interests of preserving my child's fingers I grated the zest. The smell is so good!


Add the sugar.

Put the lemon zest and juice, the sugar and the butter into a heatproof bowl set over a pan of simmering water (bain-marie), making sure that the bottom of the basin doesn't touch the water. Stir with a whisk from time to time until the butter has melted. 

Lightly beat three eggs and one egg yolk with a fork, then add to the mixture.



Stir the eggs into the lemon mixture. Let the curd cook, stirring regularly, for about 10 minutes, until it is thick and custard-like. It should feel heavy on the whisk.

This mixture makes two small jam jars. So far we've sampled it on buttered toast, in plain yoghurt, a table spoon of it in an apple crumble and of course straight from the jar. All of these options are delicious.


Nigel Slater's lemon curd recipe

Makes 2 small jam jars
zest and juice of 4 unwaxed lemons
200g sugar
100g butter
3 eggs and 1 egg yolk 

Put the lemon zest and juice, the sugar and the butter into a heatproof bowl set over a pan of simmering water (bain-marie), making sure that the bottom of the basin doesn't touch the water. Stir with a whisk from time to time until the butter has melted. 

Mix the eggs and egg yolk lightly with a fork, then stir into the lemon mixture. Let the curd cook, stirring regularly, for about 10 minutes, until it is thick and custard-like. It should feel heavy on the whisk. 

Remove from the heat and stir occasionally as it cools. Pour into spotlessly clean jars and seal. It will keep for a couple of weeks in the refrigerator. 

The last of the falling leaves

That time of year thou mayst in me behold

When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang

Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,

...

Extract from sonnet 73 by by William Shakespeare (1609)

As I walked up Rue Caulaincourt on Sunday I marvelled at the pavement which was strewn with fallen leaves. These small green leaves have been clinging on much longer than most, but now it's time to let go. The last of the leaves are falling. Winter is coming. Sigh.

Red leaves in the Montmartre Cemetery.




Red leaves and a cat.

Orange leaves in Oxford.



Yellow leaves.

Yellow leaves and a crow.


Yellow leaves and some spikes.


A beautiful tree in Parc Monceau.


A carefully swept pile of yellow leaves in our street.

This morning when I passed this tree I noticed that somebody has been playing with those carefully swept up leaves. The work of a Parisian road sweeper is never done.

Blenheim Park, Woodstock

It's the school holidays at the moment and we just spent a few days in the UK. Yesterday afternoon we went to Woodstock to go for a walk in Blenheim Palace's 2100 acres of parkland. The park was breathtaking. Needless to say the autumnal colours are as good in the UK as in they are in France.

These were the first trees we came across. They had obviously been trimmed recently (by livestock apparently. Sheep were in this field).

When I studied architecture a hundred years ago, we used ink pens to draw. If we were feeling a little bit extravagant we would buy Letraset lettering, transferrable lettering that you would painstakingly 'transfer' onto your drawings letter by letter (yes, it was as bad as it sounds). If you were feeling positively rich you would buy Letraset trees and people.  These trees here look a lot like Letraset trees.

Yesterday the sun was struggling to shine through the clouds.

I loved this tree with its' silvery bark and caricature shape. It's a beech tree, but looks a bit like a eucalyptus tree, (Bruce)

The lake and trees beyond looked beautiful framed through the trees.

Not to mention the trees beyond the trees.

I loved the silvery grey roots of the beech trees...

...and the bridge across the lake, framed in fiery orange and yellow.

And here is some painting with trees.

And then to finish off, a bit of architecture.

More pictures of Blenheim Park can be seen here. Just gorgeous.