Goodbye!

At last, my faithful readers - and oh but I have been testing your faith this week, with my long silence, have I not - I have a new address, a new life, a new blog for you to visit...

www.passementeries-diary.com

Now, you must be patient with me. The artwork hasn't actually happened yet, but it will. And my new camera hasn't arrived yet, but it will. And my wifi connection is very slow and needs to be upgraded to an official, paid, account, and it will. Patience. Patience.

Please be kind and update links and so forth, tell your friends about Passementerie, tell me how to improve it, tell me what you would like me to post about, tell me your favourite colour.

Goodbye from A Year in Marrakech - I hope you have taken something beautiful about Marrakech away with you from this blog, or at least useful. I only hope I can achieve the same for and from Paris!

Bloganthropology and falafel

I am sitting here by a tall window that looks out on a courtyard of mature trees, diligently working my way through a raspberry pastry of epic proportions. Beside it, awaiting my attention is a pain au chocolat the like of which I never seen. I'm not sure I have the strength. Well. Perhaps I should be brave. Perhaps... oh dear, I just can't. Not even in the interests of bloganthropology (the careful study of other cultures for the benefit of a blog). Perhaps it is not such a blessing that we have a truly wonderful baker almost directly beneath our apartment...

Yesterday, we failed completely to acquire food due to a combination of exhaustion and the bank holiday, although we have high hopes for today. As soon as DHL puts in an appearance with the Famous Huge Lamp we will be going for some food reconnaissance at Rue Mouffetard, which holds one of the oldest food markets of Paris. While most people relish the idea of eating out in Paris, we are quivering with anticipation for eating IN. The sort of food to which places like Fallon & Byrne in Dublin had accustomed us was a little thin on the ground in Marrakech, and living in the Medina as we did (and without a car, of course) required trips into the Ville Nouvelle for the supermarket whenever we required something that the markets of the Djemma could not provide. I'm not a big fan of the meat on offer in Morocco, so my husband being a vegetarian was not a problem, but here in Paris, vegetarianism rules out the vast majority of the restaurants. It's not that the veggie option is a bit pathetic, it is that there simply isn't one at all on most menus, although the wonderful restaurants around the Rue des Rosiers are the exception with their huge arrays of falalel, hummus and other delights.

Please don't think I have forgotten about the new blog for Paris - I am waiting for the banner, and as soon as I have that, it will be up and running and I will post the link. I'm hoping for Monday the 12th right now and in the meantime will continue to post here. Original photographs will be back next week when my shiny new camera arrives.

Fabulous leek picture with credit to blog.vegkitchen.com - I like leeks. They are also healthier than pain au chocolat.

WE'RE HERE!

My loves, we woke up this morning in Paris! I don't know how it happened... I think that the lugging and the heaving and my husband plaintively asking me how on EARTH I saw fit to buy two rugs the day before we left Marrakech must have been a dream, because I woke up this morning between Frette sheets in a very cosy bed and looked around my Latin Quarter apartment with Maryam's Muse on the mantlepiece and a creamy Moroccan wedding blanket on the wooden floor by the bed, all peace and serenity. My husband tells me that I slept for just over eleven hours and that I must have been exhausted, but I don't think *that* can be it. Clearly we arrived here by magic.

Thank you, Maryam, for the loan you made us yesterday morning - we could never have done it without him!

Victor Vasnetsov. The Magic Carpet. 1880. Oil on canvas. The Art Museum of Nizhniy Novgorod, Nizhniy Novgorod, Russia