WH Smith

We went to a wonderful booking signing tonite at WH Smith at 248 rue de Rivoli. The author, Charles Timoney was signing his new book A Certain...Je Ne Sais Quoi: The Ideal Guide to Sounding, Acting, and Shrugging Like the French.

Here is Kim giving us a pre-book signing glass of French wine. Sorry Kim, I have no idea what happened to this picture. You can tell it's Kim by her wonderful smile! It looks like there were light sabers in my photo...help me Leesa!!!

Charles Timoney...

Thanks to Kim for taking this picture of me and Tom shrugging. I was supposed to be frowning but with Kim around that is not possible!!

It's so wonderful living in Paris because I have access to so many different cultural events. It only takes me about 30 minutes to get to WH Smith (2 different metros) and a very short walk. I'm enjoying every minute of my time in Paris!!

The Man in our Bathroom

This is the "man" on one of our shower tiles who watches over the bathroom. Who do you think he looks like? This post is really about our bathtub/faucet problems. They have been going on for almost a month now. First, it started with a crack in our tub. Various plumbers came through and their views were vastly different on how to fix it. Obviously, the tub had to be replaced. Some of the plumbers said that every tile around the shower and tub had to be replaced. Some said that just half of the tiles had to be replaced. And some said that only the tiles on the front of the tub had to be replaced. This went on for weeks with a parade of French (oo la la) plumbers showing up at my door. Meanwhile, we had duct tape holding the crack together (sorry no picture). Then, the next issue was when could the work be done. Some plumbers could do it in October while others couldn't do it until December.

Well, as you can see from the following picture that our tub was replaced and only the front tiles had to be replaced. However...now the problem became the faucet. Our old faucet worked fine but for some reason it was replaced. We could only get freezing cold water or burning hot water - nothing in between. We had to use our spaghetti pot to mix the water together to get temperate water. This went on for several days while we waited for the plumber to come back.

Next, we had an upside down faucet (a bidet if you will). It did work for giving us the right temperature water .

While the faucet is turned off...a little odd..

Anywho...the good news is that the plumbers came back again tonite and now everything is wonderful again.

The owners of the apartment who paid for this are wonderful. They are a cute retired couple who live in the building next door.

The boys go food shopping!!

So, Tom and Bob went food shopping at Carrefours yesterday. I had 2 things (more or less) on the shopping list. They found out that if they spend more than 150 € that they would get free delivery. Below is what was just delivered! I don't know where we are going to put all of this stuff!!

5K

I participated in the 5K walk/run today with the Canadian women's group. The 5K raised money for breast cancer research and the start was at the Château de Vincennes. What a great event! This year more than 14,000 participated in this event. Before the "race"...

Getting ready to go though the starting gate....

Wonderful views from the start...

And we're off...so many people ahead of us...as far as the eye can see...

Photo-op during the "race"...

Very picturesque walk..

And we made it!!! Only 1 hour and 11 minutes and 10 seconds after we started!!!

Celebrating at the finish line!

Merci beaucoup, Diane, for coordinating the "race" for us!!

London Vacation!!!

Well, it was a 6 day vacation for one of us. The other one (Tom) was there on business. We took the Eurostar right into London. It is such a quick and easy way to travel between these 2 countries. Here we are entering The Chunnel. This is the first time that I was able to get us entering into The Chunnel.

Regent's Park...

I should've brought my roller blades!!

We saw the musical "Avenue Q" on the West End. It's a funny and quirky show that won 3 Tony Awards when it was on Broadway.
Speakers' Corner in Hyde Park....

Hyde Park...

Enjoying a pint of ale...

ChinaTown...really, really good food. We ate at 2 different Chinese restaurants.

Rehydrating at a different pub...

I saw "We will Rock You" the musical of Queen's music. Unbelievable!! Brought back a lot of memories from my youth!

I also saw the musical "Billy Elliot". What a great story! The young boy that plays Billy is the most fabulous singer, ballet dancer, actor, tap dancer, gymnast - incredible!

We had dinner at a friend's house outside of London and had the most delicious Indian food that I've ever had. Tom also learned how to cook chapaties and can't wait to try out his new recipes. We both love Indian food and this was our 3rd night eating Indian for dinner.

The next 2 pictures are where we spent New Year's in 1988 (?). I'm not very good with dates or details...

On our way back to Paris on the Eurostar... Tom is right - business traveling is NOT easy!!

Oxford, England!!!!

I spent the Monday of my London vacation in Oxford. Below is my wonderful tour guide "Anne from Oxfordshire"! I'm not sure yet how to link to Anne's blog. I'll put that on my "To Do" list this week. We had a great time exploring Oxford! I took the Oxford Tube (which is a bus and not a train) from London into Oxford. It was an extremely easy way to get there and took about 1 1/2 hours.

A floral shop in a covered market

There are so many universities in Oxford and the students are just returning for the fall term. Lucky for us, the main doors to most of the universities were open so we were able to peek inside. I couldn't believe how green the grass was.

Another university....

And another university....

Oxford is such a quaint and historic village

Don't know anything about this gargoyle on the sidewalk...

Another university....

Guess what?! Another university!
AND...a university library!!!

Anne doesn't have to worry about me taking over as a tour guide anytime soon. I obviously can't remember many details of my visit but it was absolutely worth the visit and, of course, seeing Anne! Merci beaucoup Anne!