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Sunday December 24. Paris.

Market day!  This was my big Christmas treat of the day.  A local band was playing carols, with people dancing and smiling.



Cantal cheese and farmers’ yoghurt from Brittany, tender leaf lettuce, ripe avocados, a perfect artichoke and a huge lemon, little potatoes, persimmons, shrimp from the sea, and a half baguette and little mango Yule log from the local boulangerie-pâtisserie with the longest lineup - out the door and down the street.  I am so grateful, and with all this abundance, how tragic that so many people - in Palestine, in Yemen, in Ukraine, in Afghanistan and elsewhere - struggle to find something, anything, to eat.

This afternoon the sun made a valiant effort and broke through the grey for a while.  I walked downtown - about 45 minutes away - and heard a splendid organ recital at St Eustache church, three César Franck chorales played by Thomas Ospital who I think is the regular organist there. Wafts of melody drift here and there throughout.   Soft gentle moments leading to emotional surges of sound. Sad at times, once or twice rather frightening, but uplifting in general - wonderful music.


Then on to one of France’s major classical theatres, the Comédie Française, for Molière’s ´Le misanthrope ´.  A strange choice for Christmas Eve - this depressed and pessimistic person ends up all alone by the end of the play - no Scrooge-like redemption.  

I wish all of my friends and family a very happy Christmas with good cheer and lots of love in the air and in your hearts.  Let’s redeem the misanthropes!!

Comments

  1. LindaJanuary 1, 2024 at 10:56 AM

    Hope you had a lovely Christmas, Celia! Just catching up again on your posts. It looks as cloudy in Paris as it has been here, where we have not a flake of snow. Two blue sky days and a run of foggy or cloudy days with warm temperatures (7/8 degrees most days--one day it went to 14 in my sunny backyard). Cooling down now though.

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