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ON SATURDAYS they put extra stalls out along a street of food shops near the church of St Eustache, Les Halles. You get a sample of the natural history of France from the displays of marine life and products of the countryside. You get a feel for France's history from shops specialising in North African spices. There are fungi that I've never seen in English shops; dried blackish Chanterelles, Truffles, Oyster Mushrooms and Pied du Mouton, which does look a little like a sheep's foot.
Jardin du Luxembourg  
After a galette of potato, ham and raclette cheese, we make our way via the Pantheon to the Jardin du Luxembourg, with its Medici fountain. I pick up the squidgy fruit of Ginkgo, lying amongst the distinctive lobed leaves beneath the tree, and get Barbara to put it in the front pocket of her little backpack, to draw back at the hotel. This isn't a good idea since, besides being squashy and sticky, the fruits have a sickly smell. For this reason female ginkgoes are rarely planted. An avenue of them planted in Central Park, New York, created such a nuisance that it was felled. The fruits are apricot in colour, with a whitish bloom. Each contains a large stone.
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After coffee at Quasimodo's near Notre Dame, we follow the quais by the Seine downstream to the Jardin des Plantes, where I sketch this row of London Planes (I guess they have a different name here in Paris). There's a temporary sculpture installed here, a gargantuan millenium hourglass enclosed in a glass box. On the dunes of white sand below there are winding trails like caterpillar tracks an inch wide which were probably made by some beetle that has found its way inside.
Apart from the pigeons, Crows are the most conspicuous birds in the city. During our stay here we never spot a Kestrel.