We have just returned from several weeks in the shade of the Mont Ventoux, which was lovely and lately sunny , almost midsummer hot. The train ride back was lovely too, carrying us from the blue skies and sun of Avignon over mostly farmland, overcast but green. Reddish-brown, then white cows grazed or hung out in the shade of a single tree, Flat or rolling hills, with the occasional village or stone farm that looked as though life in them had not much changed for centuries, Then Paris. I went to bed listening to street noise and have woken to sun making sharp shadows on the protruberences of the neoclassical church across the street, It is a long weekend. Paris residents will have gone away for the last of May’s long weekends (Ascension Thursday through Sunday). I had to run to the neighbourhood nursing station to get the bandage on an incision on my leg changed, and coming back the rue de l’Odeon was full to the brim with people supping with friends.

Beverley Bie Brahic