Chunnel vision

It’s time to face it. Time to admit that our days in Paris are numbered. In a little over three weeks, the lease ends on our apartment and we have to move on.

We’ve set our sights on London.

Like so many Frenchies, we’ve decided to give our careers a shot in the arm by going where the work is. LSP has suffered for so long, swimming against the tide in the French job market, where experience, it seems, counts for nothing unless you’ve been to the right school, and handwriting analysis is seen as a legitimate recruitment tool. I, too, will have more options to broaden my field of work, being able to work in the UK thanks to a British-born grandmother.

So we’re shaking ourselves out of what has become, if we’re honest, semi-retirement and plunging back into the fast lane. The main thing, we tell ourselves, is that we’re staying in Europe, close to our ever-expanding clan of friends and family here, and still providing an attractive option for our Australian circle to visit!

The master plan is still Paris; but Paris on our terms, in security and certainty. One day, with replenished resources and renewed desire, we will return to carve our slice of this wonderful place.

In the meantime, we are keeping the farewell melancholy at bay by packing and looking for somewhere to live. Nothing like a rising wave of panic to stem the tide of sentiment.

Lord. Even my metaphors are muddled.

Shhh!

The most annoying man in the world was at my gym this morning.

I was in the middle of my wake-up workout, whittling away the grogginess, when my slowly sharpening focus was shattered. The swing doors smacked open and in he strutted: Mr. Cocky McTosspot. You know the type. His invasive swagger advertised his inadequacies so loudly that he might as well have been holding a sign saying “I DRIVE A RED SPORTS CAR.” He was one of those sad little men who compensate by making as much unnecessary noise as possible.

Ratcheting up the seat on the machines with an arrogant flick. Adjusting the weights with showy clanks. Huffing and straining, veins popping ostentatiously. Dramatic grunts and hiss-counting reps: “Dix-huitttttttt, dix-neufffffff, VINGT!” and then dropping the weight with an echoing crash as if to crow “Hear that? Hear how much iron I can lift?”

Mister, if eye-rolling made a noise, I’d be DEAFENING you right now.

Then, appalling cherry on the cake of his awfulness, he answers his mobile and shouts belligerently at some poor assistant. Repeatedly.

My mind seethes with revenge-thoughts of frightening violence. I stand up and tap him on the shoulder as he admires himself sickeningly in the mirror. I reach down, take his phone, place it on the floor, and smash it to pieces with a 25 kilo dumbbell.

OK, that last bit didn’t actually happen. But I did give him a really withering look on my way out. Take THAT, McTosspot!

Lemon Drops

Back in Paris after a glorious time on and around the Amalfi coast. Impressions and highlights:

The transformation of Capri in the evening, when the daytripping hordes have emptied onto the ferries, and the island exhales into dusk.

Sunset Bellinis made from fresh white peaches on an impossible terrace hanging – so high! -above the soft darkening sea, pink cliffs fading in the twilight chill.

Trying not to hum "Funiculì, Funiculà" on the ride down to the Marina Grande.

Arriving at our villa in Amalfi, running from room to room trying to work out which one Ingrid Bergman used to sleep in.

Breakfasts on the blue-tiled terrace, squinting into the diamond-dazzled sea.

Exploring the terraced gardens dropping down to the water, picking armfuls of fruit and flowers.

Days spent at the tiny beach club, lizard-like on the rocks, and long shady lunches of seafood and wine.

The crystalline sea, so cold it made you laugh, enticing with mysterious grottos and white pebble coves.

The colourful chaos of a religious festival greeting St. Andrew’s relics, arriving by boat from a two-day visit Rome, to be re-interred in the Duomo, 800 years to the day since they first arrived from Constantinople. Priests and policemen, sailors and schoolchildren, everyone bedecked in robes, band-striped uniforms (swoon!) and medieval finery, church bells topping the joyful din.

Fireworks after dinner, deafeningly close, lighting up the buildings clinging to the hillsides like a Neapolitan nativity scene.

Afternoon gelato and after-dinner digestifs.

White-knuckled bus trips along clinging cliff-top roads, winding and lurching from near-miss to near-death, trying still to take in the beauty flashing by.

The first thrilling moment in the streets of Pompeii when you share the sensations of its original inhabitants, shockingly immediate.

The smell of wood smoke and wisteria in the gardens of Ravello, perched prow-like over the coast.

Being told I spoke Italian with a Portuguese accent.

Above all, and everywhere, the scent of citrus blossom; the lush yellow and sharp syrup of lemon.