On the weekends in Paris, if the weather is nice, you can find musicians all over playing or singing their music hoping to make a little money and maybe sell a CD.

I’ve seen this guy all over Paris and even saw him on TV. I guess he has some sort of thing with wheels to move the piano around. He was very good.

This group was at the entrance of the Palais Royal.

This man was singing soprano as you can hear. He was very intense.

Once again I have some unrelated photos, at least as far as location. I guess I could put them all under the title of “Weather”.

This being April and April being a month with unpredictable weather, I’ve been seeing a lot of dark skies and then, suddenly, sunshine. I like dark skies, really-so dramatic. I saw this view when we were at the market at Nation and liked the tower against the gray sky and the green chestnut tree in front.

This was especially dramatic with the sun shining on the white building and the dark sky behind. It was on our block across the street from our apartment building. It poured rain that night.

What better way is there to warm up on a cold, rainy day than with a pot of tea? I loved these little pink metal pots and the tea was good too-bourbon vanilla.

That diet. So, in case anyone was wondering how that Dr. Dukan Diet is going I thought I’d report in. Maurice and I are both now in the 3rd part, the part where the diet is finished and you are in the maintenance phase. In fact, I just couldn’t reach the weight I was supposed to and, after a week, I decided to stop anyway as that seemed to be where my body wanted to be. I was so nervous about putting on weight in part three that I went down to the desired weight. In part three you can now have a piece of fruit each day, two pieces of whole wheat bread and one normal meal a week with a starter, main plate, dessert and wine. Each time we’ve had this we have gained weight the next day which is discouraging. Oh, and one day a week you are back on strictly protein. It’s really hard for me to do this as I start craving the bread and, usually, my apple. I haven’t stayed at my weight that I worked to hard to reach, but sort of hover above it sometimes more, sometimes closer. I’m just hoping that when I am able to eat two normal meals a week that it doesn’t all start coming back. I have to stay on this part three until July 10th (5 days for every one pound lost). I’ll even have to try and eat as I should while I’m in the States which may be difficult. I don’t think Mexican food will do me any favors.

I sometimes find myself in the Madeleine neighborhood and, if I have time, I take a look around the the area surrounding the church as there are always interesting windows.

The church in the middle of the square. As you can see, it’s close to raining. We’ve been having a rainy week with more to come.

l’Ecluse is a very good wine bar with the wines all being from Bordeaux.

A shop selling Russian caviar.

There is a new Mariages Freres Tea shop there. They are selling a new tea called dragon as you can see by the window.

Across the square is Fauchon with its pink umbrellas for eating outside.

Fauchon’s almost always has luscious looking lips somewhere in the windows.

I went with a friend, Barbara who does fabulous gourmet tours (www.paristalks.com) recently to a dim sum restaurant called Yoom. It’s sort of a high end dim sum place with individual tables (though very reasonably priced), not one of those places where they wheel out metal carts of dim sum which you choose from while sitting at big group tables. The food was very good. I’ve read about Yoom several times on the Internet.

A look at some of the dim sum that we ordered from the set menu-six different kinds.

I really liked the rice side dish.

This was really good too-filled with shrimp with a sauce.

Although my birthday is about two weeks past, my friend told the waiter that it was my birthday and they brought out this typical Japanese dessert with a little candle which was sweet. It was a great meal.

The rue des Martyrs is getting quite a bit of press on all that is available there. It starts way up at Abbesses in Montmartre but it’s quite a way down the hill before you start hitting the interesting area.

There was this nice little, new to me, chocolate store with places all over France. The chef has won a major French award for both his chocolate and his pastries.

They sold chocolate with violet in it.

And something I’ve never seen before, crepes in a jar with armagnac sauce. Yum.

Lenny Kravatz has a sushi type place with lots to go. I had no idea he was into food.

I liked the fresh green of this chestnut tree.

We got a glimpse of Sacre Coeur with the sun shining on it against the dark gray sky. It looked like it was getting ready to pour so I headed home.

I was in the neighborhood of Palais Royal and I never pass up a chance to take a look inside the garden, especially in the Spring when so many things are blooming.

It has been gray and a little rainy here in Paris but, this being Spring, the sun can suddenly come out as it did in this case. It absolutely poured in and it was so brilliant that I needed sunglasses, something I don’t often need in Paris.

The daffodils are gone but the tulips were still going strong.

I headed through Palais Royal out the other side to rue des Petits Champs and saw this little restaurant with its bright red exterior and a charming painting. It’s called Maceo. I ate there many years ago and it was very good.

I didn’t go across the street to look at the menu but I bet it’s good. There is a growing trend here to have quick meals, usually sandwiches, as those famous 2-3 hour lunches are mostly a thing of the past.

Across the street was Passage Choiseur, not as beautiful as some but it had some interesting shops inside and some places to eat. I liked the entrance.

And here it is inside. It was fairly early in the morning and there weren’t many people about.