Penultimate Paris Post: Pic n Mix

This post is like a literary pic n mix – a little bit of everything, in notes, thoughts and pictures.  So, open your paper bag and get ready to pick a snippet to mix with a snap!

Views from the Batobus river boat cruising along the River Seine:

Parisian Styles and Trends Noticed (admittedly exclusively female – oops!):

·         Pashminas or poncho-style tops; lots of draping of luxurious fabrics over one shoulder, dahling.

·         Ankle boots with thick, opaque or flesh-coloured tights and above knee-length skirts.

·         Mostly boots with small, short heels: ankle, calf-and knee- length; with very few stilettos spotted!

·         Waist-length jackets or longer, cinched in at the waist to create exquisite shape; a shape defined, honoured.  Worshipped.

·         Long woolly scarves wound and knotted at the neck, often in striking accent colours complementing the whole ensemble (particularly remembered: a mustard yellow scarf over a black crew-necked sweater and black jeans).

·         Outfits in tones and hues of colours; not particularly bright, but rich, jewel colours, warm against the skin.  Complementary-colour dressing is spot on!

Notre Dame and my attempts at artsy photography (which aren’t so bad, if I do say so myself!):

Doorways, of which I have an odd interest in (please don’t ask for the logic or reason in this; it’s just that beautiful architecture talks to me, and doors are often the thing that catches my eye and my imagination first...  Who could live behind them?  What happens when they’re shut, or open, and why?  How would I feel if this was my front door?) :

Le Tower:

Shakespeare and Company...

...a bookshop that I longed to go in after it was featured in a book I read this summer, 'The Shoe Queen' by Anna Davis.  Much smaller than I anticipated, the bookshop is in fact like a collection of bookshelves all jammed together and leant against one another.  It has a ye olde worlde look and atmosphere to it, as the name suggests, and is “rammed to the rafters with books,” as Zoe said.  Stocking English language tomes of all genres, there are several reading areas upstairs, each one with a different theme.  Though we weren’t allowed to take photos in case we disturbed anyone reading, I couldn’t resist recording the little writer’s cubby hole and wishing it was mine...

It reminded me of reading about Roald Dahl’s writing hut at the bottom of his garden (in the fab biography Storyteller: The Life of Roald Dahl by Donald Sturrock), and I wondered at what other visiting authors may have scribbled on scraps of paper or even typed in indelible ink.  And so the cubby hole begged me to be creative and come inside – except I’m a bit too wide and rounded than the usual Parisian writer, if the snug fit was anything to go by...  Still, it was quirky, fun and enticing and worth a disobeying pic!

And finally...a (red) reflection on my time in Paris:

"The spirit of adventure is what makes happy lives."

~ Dame Freya Stark