NYC

 Zabar's cheese department - nearly France. No, perhaps as good as. Seriously. This is only one side - there's a whole other wall. I bought a Morbier, plus some of Zabar's famous smoked salmon and sourdough bread.

 Cousin Lola, 91, just out of hospital yesterday with a pulmonary embolism, telling me what to see - "The Chagall exhibit at the Jewish Museum! Don't miss the little goldfinch at the Frick." She has of course read the novel of the same name and told me all about the artist who painted the bird. We talked about her moving to a residence, but, she said, "That's like giving up your life. Though it's hard to have a social life at 91. Everyone's dead." Still, she goes to a senior's club to play bridge and mahjong - "They've got all kinds of classes too, they're teaching Chinese!" - and sees every art major exhibit and a lot of shows, mostly free through a senior's website. Lola is an artist and so was her mother Belle; that's one of Belle's canvases behind her. I always wear a little tourmaline ring she made.

NOT France. A distinguished-looking man in skin-tight running tights, puffy jacket and bright red ballcap and sneakers, walking his elderly dachshund, similarly colourfully attired, with waiting baby carriage for when the dog tires. Unimaginable in Paris or perhaps any other major city in the world. Not the dog coat and carriage - the tights.

My favourite NYC thrift shop - the Housing Works, which donates its proceeds to AIDS. It is, I kid you not, right across the street from Cousin Ted's. But it has been discovered and is full of New Yorkers, intimidating for a country mouse like moi. No, only kidding. It's just that I buy second-hand at home - in New York it's tempting, the streets lined with twinkling shops, to buy something new.