An Extra Hour

Even though I remembered about the Paris time change last night when coming home from a fun night of Indian food and a hipster cocktail bar on what might have otherwise been the last Metro of the night, I of course forgot to reset my cellphone, my clock and my alarm before hitting the hay.

So this morning, I got up, made my French roast coffee with demi-ecreme milk, and got dressed for work. (Yes, even flashy foreign correspondent types have to work on Sundays.)

Anyway, I glanced at my Sunday paper and there it was: the ever so helpful time clock logo reminding me that the day would be 25 hours long... not the usual 24. Yay! Manna from Heaven!

I had another entire hour I hadn't been expecting.But what to do? Should I sleep? Should I cook?

I decided instead to hop on a rental bike and ride nearly all the way to work (this is from the 17th arrondissement through Porte Maillot and into the suburbs) but adding a stop I had never made before: at a weekly fruit and vegetable market that I had always wanted to investigate, but never found the time.

And what a great day it was. Skies like out of a painting by  Rene Magritte and almost no traffic on those annoying roundabouts, because the French were either still in church or still at lunch.

I made it to the market at les Sablons and was not disappointed: row after row of autumn veggies bursting with color. Table after table of freshly cut and fragrant flowers. Umbrellas protecting a rainbow display of alleged cashmere sweaters. Turkish rugs. Crystal vases. Oysters!

In the end I decided to buy only things that were orange, a color of the season. I picked up the ripest persimmon i could find (note to self: not a good eat-at-your-desk item!); I asked a vendor to cut off a three-inch thick slice of a mysterious pumpkinlike squash which will end up being roasted in my tiny Parisian oven; I got a handful of clemetines, with a few leaves still clinging to their stems.

Finally, I bought a hunk of something I saw an older French dude buy: Wild boar pate. I'm not kidding, and no it wasn't orange. Expensive, yes. Tasty? Incredibly so. Fat laden: Don't even ask. But hey, I had just biked to get there so I let myself justify the added globules.

Then I peddled off to work, stopping briefly at an adorable boulangerie for a skinny baguette to go with the piggy pate.

So, what did you do with your extra hour?