Interlude: Paris

Three trains and a plane

I’m cheating on the bus with two trains, a plane, another train, and walking, all to get to Paris where I eat my weight in cheese and wine and buy five books, a new one for each day I’m there.

I walk in 38C heat and tell myself I will buy a portable fan every hour on the hour until I forget to buy a portable fan. I drink a rosé so light it is essentially a cloud which lifts me up and up into the sky and on to the notes of the Chet Baker song playing in the café.

I plod around museums and art galleries and look at colours behind glass after glass after glass and my legs hurt so much but it is ok. Some of the paintings greet me like friends and others are new. Each is astonishing. And I walk, and walk, and walk as the Seine comes into view and I approach yet another bookshop. Finally: the end. A train, a plane, another train, then another, then a taxi. Home. I’ll be going on the bus tomorrow.