Saturday morning I was up bright and early and down to the shops before the hordes arrived - one of the good things about here is that you can go to the shops on Saturday morning at 9am and be back by 10am, having done what would take about six hours to accomplish in Paris. The crowds and their cars start arriving mostly from about 10am, and by the time the shops close at 1:30pm (very few are open until 5pm), the main street is bedlam.

I wanted to get a coat for Paris, but Ulla Popken didn't have anything I liked that was in my size. The best one was a gorgeous golden brown tweed, but sadly they had smaller and larger, but not just right. Everything else was a bit parka-like, which is not what I wanted at all, and not good colours. Kathryn, I already have black coats, a woollen one and a raincoat and assorted black jackets, so I did want something different. I think a lot of people do wear black coats all winter, I notice this in Paris, but I often think it is because they only have one coat - there's a lot of people who earn a pittance and pay most of it for a tiny apartment with no wardrobe space. Not being in that situation, although my apartment is pretty small, I have a bit more variety.

What I did end up with is a very soft, warm jumper in a gold/black fleck, that I shall take on the plane and put on when I get to Paris. As I will be taking a taxi from the airport to home, that should stop me actually perishing from the cold. I may well visit Ulla Popken in Paris, though, and look for one of the nice tweed coats! Depends how much time I have to spare after I have done all the essentials.

Apart from shopping, the weekend was fairly quiet for me, I was tired and sat in front of my computer listening to audio books and doing knitting and a bit of stitching, although nothing that is exciting enough to show yet.