People care, Wednesday, 16 December

Another very cold day and I stayed warm by going to the Louvre. There are many things worth saying about the Louvre, but two things are that perhaps of particular interest. First, it is not just the contents of the building that are what one goes to see, it is the building itself. This was a huge royal palace with immense rooms many of which are museum pieces in their own right.

The second thing worth commenting on is the collection of paintings. There is a tendency to think of the Louvre as a museum; but it is also an art gallery. Everyone knows that it houses the Mona Lisa, but in addition it has thousands of other paintings which, if not equally famous, are magnificent in their own right. Today I spent all morning just looking at the French paintings from the 18th and 19th century.



Meanwhile Virginia was out doing "her own thing," also known as Christmas shopping. Another trip to the Champs Elysee (Gucci, Louis Vuiton, Dior, etc.) We had arranged to meet friends for lunch at Chez Clement near the Arc de Triomphe, and found we had run into the season for office Christmas lunches. Great fun to watch people from another culture enjoying themselves in exactly the same way as Americans, Australians, Brits etc. do at any festive season. Different language,same songs.

We have been very touched that friends and acquaintances here in Paris have been concerned for our well-being in such frigid conditions. The proprietor of our local Alimentation or grocer store gave Virginia a good ticking off for being out in the early evening without a hat and said he did not want to see her at this time of night without one as it was very dangerous. We had a telephone call from a concerned friend in the south of France advising us about heating in the flat. The Boulanger (baker), knowing how hot it is in Australia at this time of year was concerned to know how we were coping.

The forecast for the next several days is that the weather will deteriorate further and there will be enough snow to cause what the French refer to as "perturbations." It looks like we just might have a white Christmas! We remember that when we were here last year, we had snow at Easter and a French saying goes, "If it doesn't snow at Christmas, it will snow at Easter." The Christmas before our last visit, we were told, was mild. Whether that makes the saying true or not, only your weatherman can say.