Back in Paris. And it is cold and rainy.

Silke and Jerome and I are back in Paris! It had begun to seem like some distant and implausible dream, but now it seems just very normal. Normal and exciting at the same time.

We asked Seamus, the landlord, about the nearest boulanger. His reply was that it was August in Paris, and nothing was open. And furthermore, that if we did find someplace open for business, the people would be grumpy, because the summer in Paris has been miserable. As a matter of fact, it was raining. And we could not find umbrellas. Usually, you can buy umbrellas on every corner in Paris. Street vendors wave them in your face. But on a rainy day in August? Nowhere to be found. Newspaper stands for example usually have umbrellas. But the newspaper stands are mostly closed up for the month. We visited the old apartment to pick up our mail. The corner store there always used to have umbrellas. And they were open! But umbrellas? Sold out. We decided, since we had got off the plane that morning, that we were too weary to attempt more real errands, and instead that we would visit one of our favourite parks for a walk - in the rain. That park was Buttes Chaumont. But when we got off the metro first we went looking for an open grocery store or any other kind of shop that might have umbrellas. No luck. Then we were struck with the crazy idea to have ice cream. The sugar boost might help keep us awake. One grocery store that was open hadn't bothered to unlock the ice cream freezer for the day; apparently they weren't expecting any ice cream sales. But, finally, we did at least manage to buy some ice cream bars and a bottle of water, and we proceeded to the park, where we found a bench sheltered from the rain by overhanging trees. There we consumed our ice cream bars. It was great.

Ice cream bars in the rain on a bench in parc des buttes chaumont.