Frosty Weather & Warm People

I calmly encouraged someone to help me pull the maggots from the open wound on my foot.

My feet must have been aching, even in my sleep, to inspire such a dream.

Despite the sore feet and bad dream, yesterday’s 15km walk, left me wanting more.  The sky was blue, the sun was shinning,  I left the apartment without my umbrella and a lighter scarf heading from The Marais to Montmartre.

A glutton for punishment I am, I could have taken the metro but I love walking through the different arrondissements along the way – to notice the changes in each area.

A walking tour from a travel guide was what I intended to do today.

When I finally reached Pigalle at the base of  Montmartre,  dark forbidding clouds hung threateningly from above, without an umbrella and a huge walking plan ahead of me, this did not look good.

Only moments later the sky opened up and brought down buckets of rain, along with tourists swarming down from the hill of Montmartre, sans umbrella like a plague of wet rats.

Now armed with my third, umbrella, conveniently snapped up from one of the many souvenir shops that line the streets,  I was happy to be fighting the crowds, this time,  they were leaving.

Exhausted and out of breath ascending the hill to Sacre Coeur, the rain eased and the sky gave me a glimmer of sunshine once again, as I reached my favourite spot to photograph the Eiffel Tower.

In my opinion, not a good decision on the 18th’s council, they have allowed Christmas stalls to set up, crowding the already crowded streets around the Sacre Coeur.  With the continuing drizzle and chaos it encouraged me to abandon my walking plan, I simply wandered.

After the rain, the temperature dropped and it was windy and chilly.

I plonked myself on an outside chair of a brasserie,  in the freezing cold, of Place du Tertre.  Something, I would probably never do.

Place du Tertre is where the artists hang, in the lovely square, touting, pieces of art and offering to draw your portrait.

With a glass of Cote de Rhone, watching the passersby, the occasional artist offering to draw my portrait, I sat, content, transfixed, watching the afternoon, slowly turn into night.

Christiane, a German woman sitting next to me,  started up a conversation.  She shared her memories of this very same square and me, mine.

My first visit to Paris, many years ago, an artist offered to capture me, on paper, with his pencil.

There was not one feature that resembled me but it was the experience and the memory, that still stays with me. When I am in Montmartre, I always stop by the doorway, where a not so good portrait took place.

With an abandoned plan, some unwanted rain, yet another umbrella, shivering all the way down the steps from Montmartre to Pigalle metro, leaving behind me, La Basilique du Sacre Coeur de Montmartre,  lit up in all its glory.

I smiled,  somethings don’t always go to plan but sometimes you happen upon interesting people and do things you wouldn’t normally do.