Although it’s Saturday and we could sleep in, I don’t know why but we just don’t. Our apartment backs onto the courtyard, as I’ve mentioned (quieter than the street side), and we hear the nesting doves or pigeons, whatever they are, around 6:45. It works as well as an alarm clock.

Most of the regulars were at the gym today, including us. I ran into one of them-an older man who’s always been very polite to me-the other day after our workout at Thevinin, Boulanger-Patissier, on rue Notre-Dame des Champs. He didn’t look the least bit guilty being there whereas I am sure I did; then again, I noticed he bought a baguette while I tried a croissant aux amandes. I don’t know about his, but mine was delicious, no doubt completely offsetting the séance at the gym, but there you go…

Today, however, we eschewed the tartine (essentially, baguette, butter and jam) and everything else and had a sensible breakfast. I am sure their butter, having a higher fat content, tastes better, no doubt explaining why the tartine is a popular breakfast choice in hotels and cafés.

My regular newsagent didn’t have the IHT today, meaning no Sunday crossword, but Sandy had noticed that our little corner convenience store, 8 À Huit, carried it so I found one there. Good thing because it’s cool and overcast here today.

Someone asked me the other day if we shop or buy anything here. Not really, for two reasons: (1) there’s not much, if anything at all, to buy that we can’t get in Toronto; and (2) although this wasn’t the case two years ago when we first started planning this sabbatical, the Canadian dollar to the Euro is more than ridiculously bad at the moment.

As rained all day,we went to the Pompidou Centre, www.centrepompidou.fr, to check out the well-organized and massive Kandinsky exhibit, covering his Russian, German and French periods. On the way past, we stopped at the Brancusi Atelier adjacent to the Centre and it was very interesting, set up exactly as Brancusi had it at his death. He bequeathed it to France as long as they exhibited it just as he left it.

We tried to get into the movie “Welcome” but it was sold out so we went back to the apartment and read until dinner. I am reading “What is America” by Ronald Wright, an English writer who now lives in B.C., whose “A Short History of Progress” was one of the most compelling books I’ve ever read. This one, as well, essentially about the way in which the U.S. has become a relatively scary theocracy, certainly under George W. Bush.

Finished the day with another enjoyablel, but late, dinner at Le Baratin. Less crazy than last time, with just the two of us dining although, maybe it’s repeat-visit, rule-violation, but we’ve eaten better on earlier occasions. The proprietor did invite me to go to Burgundy with him to taste wine from barrel, however, so I may be blogging from there later in May.