Paris in winter

This weekend I was visiting Richard in Orsay, just outside Paris. Orsay used to be where Brigitte Bardot lived...in this very house....



Brigitte is attributed with some famous quotes. Here are a few of my favourites:

“I gave my beauty and my youth to men. I am going to give my wisdom and experience to animals.”
“It is not fatness! It is development”
“I can't do the same thing every night, the same gestures... it's like putting on dirty panties every day.”

Talking of wordsmiths(?!), we tried to improve our french (and escape the cold weather) with an old fashioned game of scrabble. Can anyone work out what the 2 words in the bottom-left corner are, which use a 'blank' tile?



We also ventured into Paris proper to enjoy a lunch and explore the quartier juif and la marais. The buildings of Paris were very striking in the winter light.



Adeline and Céleste joined us as tour guides to show us around some of the arondissements. After we all enjoyed a well-earned chocolat chaud, we headed back to Orsay where the christmas lights are already being assembled!

Cap d'Agde

Each year the world's chess elite gather in the south of france for a chess tournament at Cap d'Agde. From the end of october until early november, the 16 invited players from around the world battled it out until Grandmaster (GM) Teimour Radjabov (19 years old) emerged the winner and collected the 16,000 euro winner's check (not bad for a week's work!). I went to watch some of the games including the semi-final between 2 players tipped for future greatness. Here GM Magnus Carlsen (15 years old) is photographed while waiting for his much older opponent, 16-year-old GM Sergey Karjakin. In the background a photograph of a competitor knocked out in the early rounds: former world champion Anatoli Karpov. Apparently chess is a young man's game.