Further notes on my vacation

Despite Paris making me feel like a revolting little cockroach, obviously my feelings about it are mixed as you can tell by past posts. Our brief stay there Sunday/Monday, at Carmen's sans Carmen again, who was working nights, was unpleasant; I was riding the dragon, exhausted, sad to have left Barcelona, pissed off that I'd purchased the wrong Thalys ticket to get back to Brussels, and oh yes, experiencing constant false sightings of Bluebeard. That does not seem to have slowed down with age. The strength of the nervous paranoia inspired by the idea of him greatly exceeds any pain the man himself is likely to inflict on me, especially considering that we contrived to be something like civil in our last communiqués.

It seems I've managed to compress and squeeze a lot of my neuroses and guilt issues - because there is some me-guilt involved, and not just that ridiculous, conceited guilt of the Heartbreaker ('how oh how dared I be so very lovable!') - into the physical boundaries of the city that saw the worst years of my life to date. Is that a reasonable strategy to use to deal? Probably not. And certainly not, when I spend bits of my vacation there.

Luckily, however, it seems that the neuroses and the guilt issues are centre-ville-ers, and when we spent a few days with Mlle Pariyorker in her new digs in the swanky western suburbs in between time in Amsterdam and time in Barcelona, they did not get on the RER and follow me out. Mlle Pariyorker has stumbled onto a good pasture. Her new place is about four times the size of her abandoned marital apartment and half the price, for one; her professional prospects are singin' along, for two; she has her own substantial garden and barbeque now, for three; and her new man is a fucking brilliant cook, for four. And the important thing is that she seems much, much happier.

Do I think she dealt with her former situation with all the wisdom in the world? If I consider her actions, they were fine, even her only choice in the circumstances - it was her explanations that made me angry, and I don't know if she was being completely honest with herself in those explanations. Sometimes people'd rather look like a bastard than look like a patsy, and will take steps to do so even if the risk of looking like a patsy isn't that high. Oh, Pride, you naughty naughty Mortal Sin. Our capacity for it probably has some evolutionary advantages, but all the same I think the world would be a vastly better place if we chose just one day a year - say, Kwanzaa - when we strove to be humble. Or we could all take turns.

Anyhoo. We mostly stayed in the far west suburbs having a great time, and touristically we visited not only the Chateau's gardens and my absolute favourite thing, the Hameau de la Reine (god, that poor idiot Marie Antoinette - how women were the slaves of their circumstances back then, no matter what class they belonged to!), but also the vegetable garden of the King, which I think went up under Louis XIV. It's close to the Chateau and well worth a visit, as is the attached shop where the sell produce from said garden.

As far as agricultural techniques go, it's not anachronistic, or rather it is extremely anachronistic, in the sense that it looks like Louis XIV's garden but is pumped up like crazy on the modern plant 'roids. But it's very beautiful, particularly the clever way they get the pears and apples to grow on trellises, which the F-word and I resolved we'd try out when we become property owners. I liked the look of them but I think the F-word was more enchanted by how much easier it would be to pick the fruit than it had been in his early youth, when he had to scale ladders and reach under the heat of the southern Australia sun. Pictures to follow - though not of the F-word under the hot Australian sun - that's strictly for my fantasy file.