I mst to confess to having a weakness for kitchen stores. You never know when you'll need some strange pan, odd-shaped spatula or industrial-grade utensil. 

Rue MonmartreOn it you'll find La Bovina, A. Simon and Mora. Around the corner is Detou, which stocks an amazing collection of baking supplies and E. Dehellerin, which is perhaps the most famous of them all. Here's a map to help you find your way. 

View Paris cooking stores in a larger map

The driveway is blocked by the remains of one of the linden trees. The boys and I will be out this afternoon with the tractor in an attempt to move it aside. They've suggested that by leaving it there they could skip school tomorrow. 

The smaller of the two walnut trees at the back of the house couldn't withstand the gusts. 

I've talking in the past about how to spot a French speed camera. They've always been easy to anticipate, thanks to the big sign politely located on the side of the road 400 meters ahead of the camera.

Motorists have got the hang of where they are (Hint: if the brake lights of the cars in front of you all suddenly light up, then chances are there's a radar ahead) . Sat-navs and other devices alert them to upcoming speed camera locations.

So here's what the prime minister announced that the government was going to do:

1. 800 new speed cameras will be installed between now and 2012. Instead of the big warning sign upstream, a small sign indicating a speed trap zone (contrôles de radar fréquents) will be posted 1-2 km before the zone. And there could be more than one camera in the zone. 
2. 100 "average speed" cameras will be installed starting in 2011. These cameras will check your average speed as you enter and leave "sensitive area" as the government calls them and calculate your average speed. 

Both measures should spell the end to the slow down-speed up dance that everyone does today.

If you're having trouble viewing our gate on the following map, drag and drop the orange figure onto the intersection with the arrow pointing towards the street at 10 o'clock (our driveway). Spin your view around until you see an white gate between two bring gateposts and two large hedges. 

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They rented the car in France through a US car rental company, with pick-up at the CDG airport and drop off in Paris. They also rented a GPS. What the car rental company failed to tell them was that while there was no extra fee for dropping the car off at a different location than where they picked it up, there was a €200 surcharge for dropping the GPS unit off at a different location. Sneaky. 

The guests fought hard and finally obtained a refund. Let their experience serve as a lesson. Make sure you ask about these kinds of surcharges when you rent the car. Or better yet, BYO GPS. I've updated our travel tips to reflect this new information.

The goals, based mainly on feedback from guests, were to speed up the load times, simplify blogging, make it easier to add new content and change the design, and make it iPhone-friendly.

This last point was the most difficult. Paradoxically, Apple's web-building tools aren't well adapted to making iPhone-friendly sites. But in the end, we were able to do just about everything we wanted. So, take a look around and let us know what you think. We hope you'll find it does all this, and more.

Every mayor holds a town voeux ceremony (ours was last Sunday and Virginie was there in her role as town councilor). Depending on the size of the town, he or she may hold several: one for city employees, one for the public, etc.

The same scene is repeated all the way up the ladder of power, from the mayor to the deputy to the senator and all the way to the President. He is subjected to a grueling "voeux" marathon. He travels around the country presenting his "voeux" (in the form of a agenda-laden speeches) to the different sectors of French society: from businesses to the media, healthcare to education, art and culture to the army, justice and legislators, farmers, unions and religious communities. I'm sure I'm forgetting a few.

Anyway, here's my chance to wish you our "meilleurs voeux" for 2010.