It’s been really cold here in Paris, the sun’s out, but it’s freezing. We had a lovely weekend, thanks for asking. Saturday night we took a trip out to the ‘burbs ‘en groupe’. Claire, Anne, Olivier, Michelle & I started our evening here with fois gras and onion confit on toast and a bottle of Jurancon. We all piled into Claire’s brand new, midnight blue, Renault Megane convertible (Claire works for Renault and gets a new car every 6 mths!) and followed the tourist route, along the rue du Rivoli, around Place de la Concorde, up the Champs Elysee, passing the Arc de Triomphe, Neuilly & La Defence before getting onto the highway and heading out to Colombes. We were all wintered up to go see JD play hockey… Saturday night hockey in Paris.

It was a blast. There weren’t many supporters and we had no expectations that they might win, but we took our fan status seriously, and Michelle kept up her side of the bargain shouting encouragement and insults almost simultaneously. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen a game of ice hockey, but it was as much fun as I remembered, and JD impressed us all with his talent. Sadly the visitors from Montpellier were taller and meaner and better and they won. It was a great Saturday night, it felt like we were out in the country somewhere, back to basics.

The reverse trip took us back through all the sights only later and with more poupouns dressed up on the Champs Elysee. We got back to our neighbourhood around Les Halles and hightailed it for a midnight dinner in the local bistro, just us and half the hockey team. The game review lasted about 2 minutes, but we did promise to do it again sometime when Michelle gets her voice back…