In which we go for a walk

It's been a rather damp and chilly December here in Paris (which I understand is nothing out of the ordinary), and Wednesday was no exception. By Wednesday evening, things had dried out a little bit, and so after dinner we all headed out for a walk. (Between the weather and Cherry's stomach bug, we'd been stuck inside more than was good, and Ezio was beginning to climb the walls.) Sapphire and Blaise had discovered a big apartment building with lots of decorations a few nights earlier, and Sapphire was very excited about showing it to us.

We headed off, up the steps across the street. When I saw which direction we were generally heading, I suggested that we swing by the Mairie on our way to the apartment building. Fontenay-sous-Bois had set up a bit of a Christmas forest in front of the town hall, complete with an atelier de Père Noël (Santa's workshop) in a little cottage. The kids and I had seen it during the day, but wanted to see what it looked like lit up, and Blaise hadn't seen it at all. Since we were the only people there, they had great fun chasing each other through the lanes while Blaise and I chatted and watched them run.

After 15 minutes or so, I suggested that we head over to the "long building" as Sapphire called it. (It's right next to what she calls the "tall building".) We can see this building from our apartment, and from there it looks quite ordinary, but we walked around to the other side of the building that night. Most of the building was pretty ordinary looking, but there were probably 20 balconies that were lit up like Christmas trees, each different of course. We admired the lights, and the kids chased each other around for a while. Then we realized that the area they were chasing each other in had a 6 foot drop off to a parking area on the other side, so we rounded up the kids and headed for home.