Paris! City of romance and glamour, where
even schoolgirls are effortlessly chic.
The smell of wet tarmac each morning as bouches de lavage clean the streets.
An enticing aroma of fresh baguettes, croissants, cafe and cognac.
Metro stations redolent of Gauloises and garlic, loud
with fluid French accents.
Secret geranium-scented courtyards bathed in sunlight.
And malodorous pickpockets targetting careless tourists. Stale-breath’d beggars slumped on Montmartre steps. Putrid bins crammed into ruelles teeming with thin cats.
But this spring the city is odourless, every cobbled square deserted.
Paris consigned to the rubbish heap by a bat - or possibly one dropped petri dish.
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My first visit to Paris was in 1967 on honeymoon, so I saw it through rose-tinted glasses. I still have one tiny cognac glass as a memento of those cafe-cognac breakfasts - so bohemian we felt! Ten years later we saw a different side of the life that teemed there, in the company of a French teenager and her boyfriend. All cities are two-faced though, and now I find the crowds claustrophobic - I do not envy those poor souls on lockdown in those empty streets. We live in a small town in the country, where my daily walks are full of spring colour and life.
Stay safe, everyone - we have a long way to go before this is over.
