Pompidou's lady in a black dress

Only one day in Paris - Arthur wants to go up the Eiffel Tower, Jago wants to go on a boat, Freya wants to do steps, Nikki wants to go to an art gallery. I'm not sure, but Pompidou Centre seems like a good place to start.

Starting from the top. working way down, we spend the next three hours there.  Escalators popular, films great, giant moving beanbag is it art?  Too much for any 18 month old, and have to admit I wanted to jump on it too.  The thing that most entertains children was a series of silent movie type films where lady in burqa does unlikely things, like water skiing, ice skating, sunbathing.  Reminds me of Heard and not Seen.

I ask Arthur what it is and why it's funny.  'It's a woman in a black dress being funny'.  It's not like he hasn't see a burqa before and, thanks to his primary, his knowledge of religion is better than mine including why muslim women wear burqas.  Jago adds, 'She's so funny when she picks up the fruit' [one of which is a phone]  Why it is a little uncomfortable for me and Nikki to watch?  They just sit there and watch the three screens looping the ludicrous lady in a black dress.

On the first floor there is the children's area.  Kawamata has been making a cardboard city with children.  Actually the cities made for 'Faces and Places' project with Taryn Coxall run by Birmingham Archives and Heritage were superior in both quality and apparently depth of experience.  Sadly, as no Kawamata, children can't add their own building.  So lots of scissors and carboard, can't make anything.   Shame adults can't have a go too.

For families Pompidou was definitely an improvement on Eugene Boudin in Honfleur.  We were being followed there by security to ensure no loudness or other distractions for art experience of all.  Even in the enlightened Pompidou, you've got to ask why do art galleries find families so hard?

Preserving the past - cave paintings

Rouffignac cave paintings look like nothing when reproduced in image like this.  Only way to see them is in the caves.  The composition, the way the drawings work together, here with ten mamouths together, but most impressively on the roof of main cave - twenty or more fabulous drawings, all working best when viewed from particular points of the cave, where the animals begin to really gain movement and flow together.  So well thought out and executed.  There are over 200 images in this cave.  Shame couldn't make it to more caves.

An odd feeling to be connected with early homosaps from 12,000 years ago, and to admire the craft of whoever it was who did it.  Also the importance of preserving orginal work.  There is a cave closeby 'Lascaux II' a replica of the orginal cave, with far more and more colour workings recently discovered.  Access to the orginal is not possible so they faithfully recreated.  I wasn't that interested to see it, when could see originals, albeit lesser 'quality'.

Rouffignac had been damaged by visitors with flame torches in eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and it had taken a lot of skilled work to remove marks made over the orginal, but it is still 'original'.  There are challenges preserving the past, tough judgements to be made.

Normandy and Bayeux

A long drive and light closing in Normandy when we approach our first campsite.  It was called 'Camp Oasis'.  Sadly the 'Camp Oasis' we'd booked was ten miles up the coast.  No matter, we got there in the morning, slightly cleaner, three not two stars, but still no toilet seats.  That must be four star.  So, what to do in Normandy mid summer with three children under 7?

We went for the truly awesome Bayeux tapestry.  There was a bit of a queue - I'd have settled for the tea towel, but Nikki was determined, so three hours later, we were there.  Slightly disappointed not to see Harold Hardrada there, or the giant beserker who held Stanford Bridge, or Harold's mates Magnus and Eric, which had made the bulk of my story to keep kids going in the queue, but that's Normans for you.  Although apparently it was probably made by English nuns.

Anyway, 68 metres of embroidery with English audio did,amazingly, keep all children enthralled for the hour or so we were there.  It's got to be up there with Eiffel Tower for top things to do in France.  One of the oldest works of community art in existence!