Ice Cream Sunday

Last Sunday Richard's friend Tom came to stay for a few days on his way back from Angoulême in the west of France, where there is an annual comic book convention. The town is a centre of paper making and printmaking and has apparently long had an association with graphics arts - the Musée de la Bande Desinée is there, and a big statue of the head of Tintin creator Hergé in the town centre. Tom had bought some comics with really inspiring artwork in them.

Many of the museums and galleries in Paris are free the first Sunday of each month, so last Sunday we went to the Orangerie. I hadn't been there since visiting Paris with Dad when I was about 13, but had a pretty clear memory of the water lilies. I dreamt that night about Clueless: "Do you think she's pretty?" "No, she's a full-on Monet" "What does that mean?" "From far away she looks okay, but up close she's a big old mess." Downstairs is a perfect-sized gallery with paintings by Picasso, Matisse, Marie Laurencin, Andre Derain and Rousseau. Many had been the property of one collector whose name now escapes me, but there was a dollhouse mock-up of his apartments as they had looked with all the paintings in them, which made me feel I'd like to own a proper dollhouse and make furniture for it. When you peered into his front room you could see a reflection of your giant face through a doorway, which felt very Alice in Wonderland. There were some jolly paintings by Rousseau, who was apparently ridiculed a bit for his painting style during his lifetime and called Le Douanier (the customs officer) after his place of employment, and indeed a couple of the paintings were quite comic. The Orangerie appeared to be joining in a bit by selling some of his paintings as novelty cards with pop-up elements - none of that disrespectful stuff for Picasso or Matisse.

The weather's been lovely this week - milder and sunny most days. I've got a favourite walk, which is straight to the river from here and across the Pont Marie onto the Ile Saint-Louis. Crossing the bridge I see Notre Dame towering over the Île de la Cité to your left, and I feel elated and like perhaps I really live here, although Paris is just on loan to me. In the middle of the island you can't see the river, but you still feel water surrounded, and I think it'd be my fantasy place to buy a flat in Paris. On Saturday Richard and I walked to the eastern tip which comes to a point and feels like the prow of a boat. Then we walked down the rue Saint-Louis en l'Ile, which bisects the island horizontally and is filled with restaurants and patisseries and shops selling tourist tat. We were enticed in by one ice cream shop which had a list of about 40 flavours. I had a boule of gingerbread, and it was maybe the best ice cream ever. The flavours were complex, with aftertastes and everything. Heaven in a cone.