check in to the Cite (Friday was a holiday but they let us move in because we had already booked our flights).
The ladies in the office are quite formal - as only the French can be when they are being "official" - they require more photos (for the Museum pass and for their files) then we are handed over to Rashid who escorts us to our atelier and points out where we can do our laundry,
exchange our bedsheets (every second Tuesday) and collect our mail. He then prepares an inventory of the studio which I sign and we are officially part of the Cite.
Most of the buildings in the Cite are reasonably modern (in a Bauhaus sort of way) and were constructed in the 60's but the building where the university's studio is is one of the few very old ones
which were not demolished in this process. For this we are truly grateful as they have character and soul (an essence of all those that have lived here before perhaps?)
We then go to the the 7th arrondissement where
we used to stay to see if it has changed and if we can find a chacuterie - big changes, no chacuterie - there is still a type of market in Rue Borgogne but nothing like the old days (we are talking 23 years I might add). Return sadly to the studio wondering what else has changed and if we will still love Paris the way we once did.
Tuesday (there are now 11 Iris flowers) and I have an appointment with Maite at the Jardin des Plantes at 9. It is only three stops on the Metro to Stalingrad and I retrace my
steps of 2005 when I visited the Museum of Natural History here to the address she has given me. It is an old building tucked away behind newer buildings that front the street but easy enough to find with the map she has drawn.
I lay out all my documentation and present the rationale for my enquiries and my theory about the use of Australian flora in French design. She is very interested and after some discussion she telephones colleagues in the Bibliotheque (library) as well as the Botanical Gardens (JB) in Nancy (in Alsace Lorraine where many of the designs have appeared). Maite also gives me information about the JBs in Thuret and Thouin on the cote d'azur where may introduced species were first tried out.
It is 12 and I am off to the library to arrange for a carte d'identite which will allow me access to the salle de lecture were I can study the old records. A very officious young security officer tells me that the library is closed until 3 and I must leave (even though Maite has arranged for me to meet the librarian). There is a telephone conversation with Maite who apologises that the area I must access to get my pass is closed (because it is Tuesday and Tuesday is a little strange!) Its all too much and I return to my studio to lick my wounds intending to return the following day at 2 (when everything will be open). At 5 I get an email from Maite asking where I am as the librarian has prepared all the documents and wonders what has become of me. I apologise and promise to contact the librarian and explain - she is very understanding and agrees to meet me at 2 tomorrow (this is when I discover that my Optus mobile phone is charging me international call rates for local calls - not what I was told in hobart - and that this 5 minute call has cost me $10 - aaaaaaagh).
We decide that first thing tomorrow we will purchase a cheap prepaid French phone and I check out the options online (€29-39 or €30 for a SIM card with €10 time).
Trying to purchase a phone/SIM card on Wednesdaybecomes so complicated (partly because of my poor French and partly because everyone appears to have 'sold out' of cheap phones(?) and I decide to postpone the idea until after I return from the library.
Wednesday and Thursday at the library are a great success and I am up to my armpits in 100+ years old documents (some typed and some handwritten (mostly) in beautiful copperplate) - although it turns out that I don't need the carte d'identite because the 'librarian has already registered me in the salle de lecture' (only the French).
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