a week ago today, my mother and i sat at a tucked-away table in the leafy courtyard of la renaissance patisserie, at the rocks, eating french pastries (after our lunch of french meat pies). while she perused someone’s left behind tabloid newspaper, i photographed my gateau. then she said, “you know, the baby is really sweet and good, but sometimes it’s nice to go out without her.”

“mowmy, it’s always nice to go out without her,” i replied, which is sort of maybe an exaggeration, but that afternoon at least, i was happy to be left alone to eat my hazelnut biscuit with chesnut puree, vanilla bavaroise and candied chesnuts. the “biscuit” was actually a dense sponge cake studded with chopped hazelnuts, and its base was a thin layer of dark chocolate. it was a small cake, compared to the monster wedges you get at other cafés around the city, but mmm… it packed a lot of cakey, creamy, nutty, chocolatey punch. and because my mother is practical, she wrapped the decorative star anise in a serviette and told me to take it home to flavour a soup with. really, the cake that keeps on giving.

the next day she got on a plane, and flew back home to a stack of old newsapers that she will be compelled to spend a couple hours each day reading, until she has caught up with all the news she missed while she was away.

me and the kid? we spent the last week getting used to normal life again. coincidentally, the last vestiges of illness — the lingering cough, the leaky nose — also vanished. so now it’s playgrounds and parks in the sharp morning wind, and then healing hot chocolates and baby-cini after. it’s watching maisy DVDs on demand or listening to the child sing, in perfect pitch, the maisy song (or versions of it in which “maisy” is substituted with any number of two-syllabled words: mummy mouse, or water mouse, or nana mouse, or potty mouse… you get the idea.) it’s trying to squeeze maybe a flier design or a bout of invoicing in during naptime. it’s kind of awright.