Henri Cartier-Bresson and mustard

Visited Annie and Paolo in their small book-filled flat yesterday. I met Annie at a bus stop in 2009; the midwives of France had suddenly gone on strike and paralyzed public transport, so we started to walk together and talk, and eventually she invited me in for tea to meet her husband, and we've remained friends ever since. They are intellectuals, but they like good cakes. We ate a lot of delicious cakes. The midwives, she told me, are still on strike.

Today's walk on the right bank: the bridge of locks. Last time I visited, there were only a few.

The crummy old Louvre (the back side)

 A crummy old flower  box in a courtyard - white rhododendrons and roses, gorgeous

 You turn a corner in this city and are confronted with something like this: la Madeleine.

 And this - the Maille mustard mothership. Couldn't resist going in.

Miles of exotic mustards.

Tonight Lynn and I went to the Henry Cartier-Bresson exhibit at Pompidou - a wonderful exploration of this amazing man and his spectacular work. And this is the view we saw on the way down the escalators afterwards. Gracias a la vida.