Christmas at Schmidt’s

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Great news! A new tale from Chelmsford.

Are you looking for a short story that will let you sit for five minutes, maybe ten, with a cup of tea, and take you back to the Sixties? When Marshall and Snelgrove reigned supreme in Oxford Street, when Littlewoods had a cafeteria, when there was a cinema near Oxford Circus. Look no further.

It’s 1962, Marie is planning some last minute Christmas shopping in the West End. On the platform of Chelmsford Railway Station she bumps into her old flame, Johnny. They travel on the train to Liverpool Street and arrange to meet for lunch at Schmidt’s, the German restaurant in Charlotte Street. But Marie is engaged to Bill. What choices will she make?

If you have a Kindle and 99p, treat yourself. Take a break. Make that cup of tea. Roll out the Rich Tea, and enjoy. After all it’s Christmas!

It’s available here

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You might remember Marie and Johnny from A Sense of Occasion, the Chelmsford Stories. If not, you could catch up with them here – at the special low Kindle price of £1.99!

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The Grand Lockdown Tour

Uffizi gallery Room of the maps

A few weeks ago, C & I decided on the Grand Tour. It was going to be the European Tour, but geography which will become apparent, made that impossible.

In order for this to work, we had to dig out our holiday clothes and these are the only clothes we can wear for the week. The plan is to immerse ourselves in the culture and the cuisine and if possible send some postcards.

    Lisbon Portugal February 2019 (8)

Monday – We began our trip by going to Portugal. We found our hotel very agreeable (housekeeping a little basic) and we were able to find a very good table on the terrace for breakfast. Avid readers of this blog may remember that last year we went to Lisbon for a city break. We loved it.

Lisbon Portugal February 2019 (45)

One of the things we did there was take a bus tour which passed along Av. de Berna where the Calouste Gulbenkian Museum is to be found. But on the trip last year we didn’t have time to visit, so on Monday as part of our Portugal day, we did. It’s a lovely building, set in gorgeous grounds and some very interesting art work.

Later C spent some time poring over her recipe books – it’s a sort of cookery holiday – and created some wonderful Pasteis de Nata. They were creamy and delicious. She was left with what might be described as a gallon of the custard mix and so we have enjoyed Flan on several occasions.

pastel de nata

In the evening we dined on a cod and fennel dish which surely must have originated in Portugal, with its long coastline and love of fish, despite the recipe coming from The Skinny Cookbook.

Tuesday – This was a hectic day, not least because I was giving a talk to the Chelmsford U3A Local History group about my novel, The Girls from Greenway.  And so, because of the lack of time, we took a detour from our European Tour to China, not least because it was going to be easy to prepare a vegetable stir-fry with noodles in the evening.

China

I  had been to Beijing in 2000 to talk about domestic violence and changes to the Chinese marriage laws. Beijing was a wonderful place to be – we ate some fabulous food there, and in between busy days at the conference, we were able to do some exploring. I even managed to have a (very short) conversation with a member of the Red Guard in Tienanmen Square, asking if we could visit the Mausoleum of Mao Zedong (shi, bu shi? Yes no?). The answer was ‘bu shi’ (no) as there was a meeting of the National People’s Congress.

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So now, we quickly visited Namoc – the National Art Museum of China, again a rather lovely light building with some tantalising, delicate paintings. By late afternoon C was suffering from jet-lag and we had to relax with large G&Ts, which was very possible, of course, in our comfortable hotel.

Wednesday – We were in France, the country that I love, visiting Paris, City of Light, but also City of Dreams, City of Culture…

Paris view - Saint Michel

We nipped in, briefly, to the Louvre, but the Musee d’Orsay held our interest. It has so many wonderful pictures, not least Les Raboteurs de Parquet (the Floor Scrapers) by Gustave Caillebotte.

Gustave Caillebotte The Floor Scrapers

After watercress sandwiches for lunch – a little known French favourite, for dinner we dined on the Elizabeth David and Barbara Pym stand-by – omelettes, green salad and white wine. It was to have been steak and chips, but travelling so fast through so many different cultures we have been eating a lot of rich food – and we will always have Paris.

Thursday – Italy. We spent the day speaking Italian – si, non, buon giorno.  And then a wander around the Uffizi Gallery. 

Italy

The last time we were in Florence we tried to go to the Uffizi Gallery, but the queue was so long and the day was so hot. We contented ourselves with looking at the copy of the statue of David outside the building, and if memory serves me correctly, we went to a nearby cafe and had a cooling drink of something akin to lemonade. This time we meandered through some of the famous rooms, including the Room of the Maps and the Botticelli Room.

It was my day to cook. Supper was pasta of course, a simple sauce of smoked salmon, lemon, dill and yoghurt, followed by panna cotta. It was to be tiramisu but we couldn’t get the sponge fingers.

We were looking forward to Greece and Austria…

 

 

 

 

Corona Diary – click and collect

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Day 31

C returns home, shocked and exhausted, after hunter-gathering at a click and collect event at our local supermarket. Depending which way you look at it, we are in or teetering on the verge of being in a vulnerable group.

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Instead of a 2lb bread tin – there is baking going on, particularly delicious and so easy crusty apple cake, courtesy of Sam Wollaston in the Guardian – they have substituted a tray for 4 Yorkshire puddings,

yorkshire pudding tins

and instead of strong bread flour we have cornflour. Presumably the wonderful staff who are whizzing round the store, trying to keep up with everything, have been told by those above, to substitute substitute substitute however wild the substitution may seem to the recipient. We asked for 1st class stamps but received 2nd class but there is no sign of the frozen spinach.

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C’s slot was 7am-8am. She leaves home at 6.45. The store is just down the road. At 7.04 my phone buzzes, a text – ‘Chaos’. I reply with uplifting words. ‘Oh god.’

Apparently the assigned area for collection is in the disabled area, queuing is all over the place, with long lines of both cars and pedestrians, some social distancing, some not so much, and there is some middle-class shoving – ‘I was here at 10 past 7!’ The staff are doing the best they can, trying to keep order, and to be fair to all. Someone who is ahead in the queue gets the frozen chips from someone else’s bags – possibly the nice woman who is in front of C, who keeps saying ‘I’m sure you were here before me.’

chips

It was much more organised in Walthamstow, despite the substitution of Thai basil leaves for ordinary basil. For that we scoured the internet for recipes using Thai basil . To which we shall revert, both in relation to Walthamstow and Thai basil.

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And we did get clotted cream – C is going to make scones – and anchovies which have been thin on the ground. So all is not lost.

anchovies

Most things go swiftly into quarantine, in the back room, which now resembles  Quartermaster’s stores from guide camp, although crisps were never on the menu there. Feel we can justify all items –  in the event of a sudden sweep of the neighbourhood for Public Hoarder offences – chocolate for example is to maintain morale, and sticky tape is required for all the craft work which we shall soon undertake. quarantine

Some time later

Aha! As I said, we were charged for – and received – 2nd class stamps, but tucked inside the bags, beside the spaghetti and the chick peas, was a whole pack of 1st class stamps for which we have not paid.

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Stamp/spinach letters will be written – if we can work out how to do that. I keep getting letters from CEO Mike, I think I can call him that since he calls me Elizabeth and has written so frequently, I’m sure he’ll know the answer. Click and Collect is a great idea, but in these difficult days, organisation is the name of the game. And cake of course.

crusty apple cake

Where are we now?

IMG_0875(1) It is spring, the trees are full of foamy blossom, like every year, like last year. But this year we are in a very different world, indeed different from just 10 days ago.

My aunt lives in a care home. Last week was her 92nd birthday. The day before I rang the home to see if it would be OK to take her out for a meal. They weren’t sure, but suggested I just visit. By the evening they had rung to say I couldn’t visit at all.

There followed some panic ordering of flowers and Celebrations from a local florist who delivered them.

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On Monday I was able to speak to her through the window of her room. It made me feel better, but I think she was rather bored by my presence. Although she did seem happy with the radishes I brought which I had handed in (Great radish recipe here). Strangely, she also likes gherkins aka cornichons, and will eat a jar at will (Gherkin serving suggestion here).

rillettes and cornichons Chez Georges, Paris

Shelves in supermarkets are empty, our local café has closed, we are cancelling visits and social events. My French class on Tuesday was carried out on-line. The sound quality wasn’t very good, and the screen was full of images of class mates which came and went, sitting in their own homes. But we were able to speak. A therapist friend is organising sessions on line, but apparently it is an exhausting, stilted way to proceed.

I wander out for walks and have awkward but rather nice conversations with friends, standing two metres apart.

Everywhere the cry is for more masks, more protection, more testing, as well as more hospital beds, more equipment, more intensive care units.

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I worry about my former colleagues who are still required to attend court, I worry about their clients, the witnesses, the jurors, the court staff, who sit in crowded rooms, waiting, listening, breathing. And from what I hear, the conditions in the toilets are no better than they were in my days, little or no soap, no proper dryers, no hand sanitizer. This is no way for justice to continue.

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And then at the end of a long day in court, as with our hospital and care workers, doing a quick bit of shopping only to find the shelves are empty. There must be a better way.

We have had to invest in Netflix. We are currently watching Designated Survivor, with Kiefer Sutherland, which is a bit slow and the ideas are sometimes crude, but it’s so nice to see someone who is articulate as the President of the US.

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In the meantime, since today is the International Day of Happiness, here is Rory Bremner giving us a message from our Prime Minister.

Authors at Westcliff-on-Sea

Authors At flyerI’m just packing some books into boxes, checking the bulbs in the fairy lights work, and making sure the equipment I need to display the books is all present and correct. Because we’re off to the seaside.  The forecast is sunny and I can’t wait to see the sea rolling in over the beach

. East Coast

Westcliff-on-Sea is in Essex, a short walk along the front from Southend. I’m told it’s on  an estuary, and not real open sea, but it’s called Westcliff-on-Sea and that’s good enough for me. In the 60s Southend really was the City of Dreams. We knew that  all the good groups played in the Kursaal,

The_Kursaal,_Southend-On-Sea  and there were great shops where we could buy mod fashions. On top of that there was the pier and all the amusements, as well as candy floss, sticks of rock and Kiss Me Quick hats.

And tomorrow I’m going back. I’ve been back since obviously. I’ve done cases in the magistrates court and I’ve been to exhibitions – notably the East London painters at the Beecroft Art Gallery.

Heybridge Basin by Harold StegglesHeybridge Basin by Harold Steggles

Tomorrow night is going to be something different. It will be a wild affair, I think. Over 20 Essex authors all in the same room at the Westcliff Hotel. There will be books to buy, there’ll be a prize draw, and there will be a magician walking round the room doing bookish magic tricks. And entry is free! I’m really looking forward to it. Hoping I’ll pick up some writing vibes by breathing in the air!

Westcliff Hotel

Sometimes it is hard to start writing on a blank screen. And I know sometimes it’s hard to know what to read next. A few years ago I went to visit a friend in Denby Dale, a small village in the Yorkshire Dales. At that time there was a lovely bookshop on the main street and I went in and bought a few books but at the same time I picked up a bookmark which had a rather fab challenge. Books to read in the year. So here it is updated for 2020 (and thanks to J R Nicholls, Bookseller and Publisher who had the idea). I think it’s a great way to find books to read.

Favourite Books (16)2020 Reading Challenge

Read a book:

  • Published this year
  • You can finish in a day
  • You’ve been meaning to read
  • Recommended by your local bookseller
  • You should have read in school
  • Chosen for you by your spouse, partner, sibling or child
  • Published before you were born
  • By a local author
  • You previously abandoned
  • You own but have never read
  • You’ve already read at least once

Authors At author list

See you there!

The Girls from Greenway

My new novel The Girls from Greenway! Cover high res

Life in the Sixties – Motown, jazz, frothy coffee, ten pound poms, the pools, love and betrayal. The book is set in Essex. Two sisters, Angie and Doreen have a difficult home life on their council estate in Chelmsford. And then things get worse – unknowingly they fall in love with the same man.

 

 

 

Tidy your room

Chinese opera

It all began so well. Full of vim and vigour, I decided today was the day I would tidy my study. Onward.

American idyll

I opened the door. Hmm, worse than I remembered. A moth flew out to greet me. Piles of papers looked at me sullenly. ‘Don’t think you can just turn up here and put us into little files and conjure a new book out of thin air,’ they said.

Suddenly, I got the message.

Hell is realI knew what I had to do.

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Dreaming of a dark stranger in a large hat in a very tidy room.

Current situation

 

Fringe Benefits part 2

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The Edinburgh Festival – millions of people and thousands of shows. The streets are crowded with buskers, acrobats, fire-eaters and thousands of people like us – trying to find their way around. Everywhere are posters for shows – all very enticing and all involving much mathematical and geographical calculation to ensure we can skip from one event to the other.

Day 3

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The sun is shining and we wander down to the Scottish parliament. We are whisked through security (C Swiss Army knife will be returned when we leave) and we step inside. It is a modern building – the first debate between members took place in 2004 – and there are many pleasing curves in pale wood. Downstairs in the lobby there is a World Press Photo exhibition – photographs taken in 2018.

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For lunch we have a rather awful sandwich at Patisserie Valerie (I thought they’d closed) and then move down North Bridge to the Hilton Hotel, where, surprisingly, we shall spend the afternoon. We have tickets for three shows.

We walk upstairs and wait in the light comfortable bar and then we’re called in to see Walls and Bridges

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It is a play about students in 1953 East Berlin, performed, I think, by students. The poster is great, Two or three of the actors are excellent, but the play lacks any real political insight above the usual stereotypes of life in East Germany – the ardent communist who speaks rather woodenly and the young free thinkers anxious to break out of their narrow lives. It is a bit depressing.

We therefore decide to give the next play a miss. We had booked it not knowing it was the same group. Then we read some of the reviews and see it may have more to it than we realised, but it is too late, which is a shame. However, the Hilton Hotel is a very comfortable place to wait for our next show, so we find an empty sofa and have a whisky – Jura.

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A woman advertising another show – In Pursuet – wanders through the bar with a life size cardboard cut-out of Sue Perkins. The woman herself looks a little like Sue Perkins, but it is not her. In a corner someone is doing face painting. Is it for a show? Or is it just Art?

IMG_5879 (2)Our next show is Sherlock Holmes and the conundrum of Arthur Conan Doyle.

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We are at the funeral of Conan Doyle, his second wife is here and who should turn up but Sherlock Holmes. There is community singing. This is difficult at a real funeral, let alone in a small dark room with 20 strangers. It is a confusing 40 minutes. I am not even sure what the conundrum is. I am pleased that I have actually heard the Radio 4 programme Great Lives talking about Conan Doyle – Gyles Brandreth was very knowledgeable and funny.

It is bucketing down! The new fab walking shoes are not wet-weather proof.

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We make our way to the Surgeon’s Hall to see Dr Phil Hammond talking about the NHS and health generally. He is very good, charming, amusing, with thoughtful easy politics, which is very welcome. There hasn’t been much political content in the shows we’ve seen.

Day 4

Today we are wearing the plastic macs we bought specially for the Fringe and brought to Edinburgh so carefully and neatly and which we left in the room yesterday when we went out in the pouring rain. It is still pouring. We sit damply in a cafe and have a Scottish breakfast.

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Friend Gill is heading down from Dundee to have lunch with us at David Bann, a very nice vegetarian restaurant.

We meet Gill at Waverley Station and walk to St Mary’s Street. They don’t take bookings during the Festival, but we are very early and there is space. The restaurant meets with Gill’s approval. There is tofu, cooked in a way that even I like it. All is beautifully presented, the staff are friendly and the coffee is good.

Then we dash to the National Museum of Scotland, where there are many obscure and interesting things to see.

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At 3 o’clock those toes are feeling very tired – but happy – and we board our train back to London. And then begins another adventure, as the great power cut hits. Our night in Retford.

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Sunset over Retford

 

Fringe Benefits part 1

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We are going to Edinburgh, to the Festival Fringe, on the train. The weather is quite chilly and the sky is grey. From starting the journey in a t-shirt I put on a (cotton) scarf and my denim jacket.

At York a group of middle-aged women get on the train, and tell the train manager that they are performing at the Fringe. Although I really want to, I don’t ask them what they’re doing in case it’s something like ‘Songs from the Shows’ and we have to go, because we have struck up a rapport.

The closer we get to Scotland, the lovelier the countryside becomes. We pass the Angel of the North

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Lindisfarne, Berwick-on-Tweed (which just sounds Scottish). We see the sea and then dark satanic hills, covered in pines, looking like the back of an All Year Round Christmas shop, waiting for a delivery of lights.

And suddenly we are in Scotland. In order to fit in I adopt my best Janet-from-Dr-Finlay accent.  ‘Will ye no have a wee cup of tea before you’re away, Dr Finlay?’ I will of course never use this question or attempt the accent.

The streets are full of posters advertising all manner of shows.

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We check in to our apart’hotel which is wonderfully central, on the Royal Mile, but unaccountably has a picture of Sean Connery on the wall, as well as a modern monarch of the glen.

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There is also a dishwasher.

We have already booked tickets for some shows and tonight we are going to see Pizza Shop Heroes,

  Pizza Shop Heroes poster    

a play about and acted by four young men who came to the UK as unaccompanied asylum-seeking minors. They became part of a theatre group, Phosphorus Theatre. In the play, they are now adults, all working in a pizza joint, they tell their stories, their different experiences – long dangerous journeys being ripped off and beaten up at every turn – which are extraordinary and awful and powerful.

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Day 2

Cherie – My Struggle is on at 10.30am, at the George Hotel – a one-woman show, a woman in a red dress and dark hair and a wide mouth, whose name I cannot discover. It is a very accomplished show – the life and times of Cherie Booth.

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I don’t know what to expect, but I realise now I want more politics – why was she Labour? What was the difference between her and Tony in their attitude to Labour politics (apart from the fact she was born to it and he decided on it after a posh upbringing)? Did she feel betrayed by his career in politics – other than by the fact she got Thanet North when she stood as a Labour Candidate – and therefore never had a chance of winning and he got Sedgefield and won?

Having said that – it is accomplished, it lasts 50 minutes, it reminds you of bits of political history you’ve forgotten – the tragedy of the death of John Smith, Gordon Brown’s strange agreement with Tony, and  the terrible shock of discovering in the newspaper that your beloved dad’s got a new wife and child.

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Afterwards we go to Frederick’s Coffee House. There are many steps to climb to get here. Edinburgh is so full of highs and lows. I am wearing my new M&S (black but sparkly) (unwontedly sparkly) trainers which I bought to enable the trekking around Edinburgh. They’re comfortable but my feet are very hot.

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We have a flat white and a slice of (very sweet) blueberry sponge cake.

After lunch we go to see Syd, Arthur Smith’s show, an hour of memories of his father. It includes singing (he has a young woman accompanying him on the piano) – which is unexpected.

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Arthur Smith has a tuneless gravelly voice. He sings Leonard Cohen and Kinks songs which I quite like but C thinks is sentimental. But Arthur Smith is about the same age as me, so many of his references reverberate with me, talk of the war, music, adverts. But his father was a policeman, which was not something that would have happened in our house.

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Next we wait in the rain, under a tarpaulin, to see Sarah Keyworth, nominated for Best Newcomer in 2018. She is a young lesbian and very funny. It is extraordinary how a single person on a stage can keep you amused for an hour, how she can remember all her lines, how she keeps it fresh after doing the same set night after night.

We give the last item on today’s agenda a miss as my legs are aching. It’s an interesting looking play about a murder – but quite a long walk away. Is it wrong to determine your cultural intake by geography? I answer this question by saying we need time between events to savour the content of what we have just seen.

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Dijon – we are keen as mustard

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We take the train from Gare de Lyon in the south east corner of Paris, and head towards Switzerland. But we are not going so far – we are on our way to Dijon. Our journey will be an hour and a half. We pass flat acres of corn, an occasional river and now and then a small village with red roofs and a church spire.

It’s still hot but the sky is grey and the air is heavy. We are optimistic travellers and hope the weather stays dry. We have not come prepared for rain.

Gradually the landscape changes. It is getting a bit hillier. A few dark forests. Villages now ‘nestle’ in valleys, or straggle up the sides of inclines. The houses look more Germanic, higher roofs, bits of dark wood – verging on the chalet-like. I feel a Julie Andrews moment coming on.

We alight at the station and walk out into the wide forecourt. What a calm, clean place Dijon is, small but perfectly formed – a lot of golden creamy stone and stories of Dukes and Duchesses. The historical centre of the city has been registered since July 4, 2015 as a UNESCO World Heritage site.

Dijon is the capital of the Côte-d’Or département in the Bourgogne-Franche-Comté region and as well as mustard it is famous for its churches. Our hotel is next to the Cathedral and we are prepared for religious drama.

We have lunch in Place Rude, where C has Eggs in an Epoisses cheese sauce. I have a taste – this version is not unlike a savoury Ambrosia Rice Pudding without the rice. I have ham with parsley. It is a terrine with parsley laced through it. And very nice. Washed down with a glass of Petit Chablis (a poor person’s Chablis, I understand).

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We sit beside a small roundabout designed, apparently, by Gustave Eiffel (or Mr Tower, as we should call him).

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In Dijon there is an ‘owl trail’ – little brass/bronze owls in the pavements point the way round the city centre with stories about the buildings and squares. We go to Tourist Information and buy a helpful booklet (‘hibou,’ I say, practising my French. ‘Non, chouette,’ corrects the assistant – it’s female), then we follow the signs

dijon-owl

to discover a little of the town – watchtowers and museums, cellars and walls. We pass the ‘roofless’ house – where, legend has it, a pie-maker made delicious paté, but one day a child’s finger was discovered in his wares. The pie-maker was put to death, of course, and the roof of his house removed.

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We venture into the 12th Century church of Saint Philibert, beside the cathedral, right by our hotel. It is an empty shell, its pillars and arches propped up with intricate wooden structures and odd bricks. The floor is covered with soft white brick dust – deadly for wearers of black shoes, like myself – and there was an art exhibition of modern unappealing paintings. But the church was stunning.

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The next morning is sunny and bright. We have breakfast in the Brasserie des Beaux Arts, in the Place des Ducs, which is a small green square. It is early. There is only one other table occupied. We see a man arrive with a basket of baguettes. Behind the rocks in front of us, is a small waterfall. Two women are sitting on a bench, reading. All is peace and quiet, totally tranquil.

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We go into the Musée des Beaux Arts – it’s free! – a modern museum that takes us through the story of Burgundy, and resolves the question of how England could own a small part. Look at the map – Calais (Angleterre).

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We are walking past the market and notice an alleyway with a sign pointing to a café. We walk down and look inside. It looks friendly, if a little ramshackle. It is very cheap. It is full of serious looking thinking people. The café of philosophers.

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We have a very good cup of coffee and feel deeply intellectual.

Having followed the chouettes, now we follow a different route, in the north of the town. The highlight for me is the trompe l’oeil on the wall with a stature of Garibaldi. Garibaldi assisted Dijon in the 1870 war. Dijon Place Garibaldi

It is time to go. Just before we leave we buy mustard – by way of small gifts from Dijon – but we bought them in Monoprix (a cross between Sainsbury’s and Waitrose). We could have bought them in Paris. Although perhaps not the oddly flavoured ones – mustard with Cassis, mustard with curry …

For our final lunch we sit in a local park – the Park Darcy – named after the man who had first devised the method of underground reservoirs to bring water to the city. There is a pretty waterfall splashing into a pond.

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We have a ham and tomato baguette. Several people appear to have visited Mr Wok – a nearby establishment – and are skilfully wielding chopsticks. A friendly dog jumps into the water, then comes over to us and shakes itself vigorously. My trousers suffer. And so, in a small damp way, do I.

It is time to go back to Paris.

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