56. Various centuries (a melange)

I like my work. Friday we spent working in a 13^th century (ex-)abbey, which just happens to have a bunch of manuscripts in its library. Sitting in a long, vaulted room, looking out over the gardens and studying original mss was really a very pleasant way to pass the day.

And I’m also getting to study and play such gorgeous music! La bonne chanson est une merveille.

We had dinner last night in a gorgeous tiny restaurant in Montmartre – the oldest still in operation up there (it dates from 1872, which may not seem that old, but Montmartre didn’t really become part of Paris until after 1871), and with all the original decor intact, including walls covered in paintings. Toulouse-Lautrec used to hang out there, but unfortunately he omitted to leave any souvenirs. We wandered past it a week or so ago and decided we had to eat there some night. And it was so much fun. There was a jazz trio… and when you’re the only customers in the restaurant (which we were for the first hour) and it’s so small that your chair you chair touches the saxophonist’s, you can’t ignore them… they were very nice guys (and good musicians too), and when they found out we were musicians we had to have a go on the (clanky) old Pleyel too, and we all applauded each other merrily. I won many points for recognising a Charles Trenet song (‘dis-donc, elle est australienne, elle parle très bien le français et elle connait les chansons de Trenet!’). When other customers arrived – a Taiwanese girl by herself, a couple (she was Hungarian, he was Kenyan) and a bunch of Americans from Seattle, none of whom spoke French – the pianist (and singer, and he was good too) went and chatted to them all, and got them to request songs (the Taiwanese girl wanted ‘La vie en rose’ – ‘It is my favourite! Paris is my dream place!’), and the Kenyan Louis Armstrong.

And I have to quote some samples of the English translations on the menu, because they were just amazing. I don’t know what the Hungarian, Taiwanese and Kenyan customers would have made of the following items:

• ‘steack tartare of beef, prepared, unready, income’
• ‘Confit of duck Skipped apples’
• ‘Mouse of lamb’ [souris d’agneau]
• ‘Salmon grilled, with its jardinière of vegetables, wipes the coriande’
• ‘St Jacques cooked in his vegetables’ [‘Coquilles St Jacques’ are scallops, in case you were wondering]
• and, of course, ‘burnt cream’

To conclude, some useful advice from my current reading material, a history of Elizabethan London:

‘He that wooeth a widow must not carry live eels in his codpiece.’