petite anglaise

‘Look at my big nichons mummy,’ Tadpole shrieks, fingering her (papier mâché) breasts.

It is 10.30 am on Saturday morning and Mr Frog and I have come to watch Tadpole’s annual school carnival, while The Boy, not wishing to step over any invisible lines, remains at home. This year the children are all dressed up as works of art and the overall effect is a joyous riot of colour. The costumes, made out of stiff paper, are worn like pinafores, covering the children’s clothes and turning them into walking sandwich boards. As we stand at the edge of the school playground, behind improvised police-tape style barriers, rubbing sleep from our eyes, the children file past hand in hand.

Tadpole, unable to keep a secret, had whispered to me weeks earlier that the costume she was making was a Niki de Saint Phalle sculpture. I’d recognised most of the names she’d been bandying about over the past few weeks - ‘we did a painting just like Pollock mummy, we put the paint on the paintbrush and then did throw it in splodges onto the paper’ or ‘I did a picture of a lady with a very wide face, just like Fernando Bottero’ - but Saint Phalle was not a name I was familiar with. ‘I’m going to be a sculpture,’ explained Tadpole helpfully, as I waited for the relevant page to power up on Wikipedia. ‘A sculpture of a lady with great big nipples and a big fat bottom wearing a swimming costume.’

It was The Boy who, at the mention of Niki de Saint Phalle, pointed out that the fountains in place Igor Stravinsky, in the shadow of the Centre Pompidou are Saint Phalle sculptures. I knew them well, but never would have put two and two together.

‘Shall we go on the métro on an adventure?’ I suggest to Tadpole on Sunday afternoon.

‘Ooh yes, I love the métro,’ she replies, darting across the room to fetch her shoes. If only everyone were so easy to please.

When we reach our destination, Tadpole shrieks with delight and I catch The Boy’s eye, silently thanking him for coming up with the idea. We make several tours of the huge rectangular bassin, Tadpole racing on ahead, examining each sculpture in turn, trying to decide which one she likes best. My personal favourite is the reclining mermaid with water squirting out of one huge, multicoloured breast, but Tadpole is just as amused by the huge pair of lips, the spinning bowler hat, the Elmer-like Elephant and the majestic crowned bird, wings spread, reminiscent of a Mayan condor god. We take a few snaps of Tadpole, posing by the sculptures, squinting into the sun and grinning like the Cheshire cat.

When the skies darken and the first raindrops fall, we hurry into the Marais to find a restaurant where we can grab a bite to eat. Tadpole doodles on the back of a napkin with a biro unearthed from the bottom of my handbag.

Elbows on the table, chin cupped in my hands, I look from The Boy to Tadpole and back again, marvelling at how simple and how right everything feels.

For Gonzales (aka fella?).

You can find me here, here and also podcasting (with accompanying slideshow in which a shopping trolley plays a starring role?!) here.

I do hope no one is reading one in my carriage on the Eurostar today.

When I whisked The Boy away to London for his birthday last autumn, I remember wandering around Soho amazed at how all the pubs were so full that many of the drinkers had to resort to nursing their pints outside on the pavement. The penny only dropped when we pushed our way through the crowds to venture inside to order drinks of our own. As soon as we were through the door we realised that outward appearances had been deceptive. Indoors, all was silent as the tomb. The smoking ban had literally turned the pubs inside out, and the odour of cigarettes had been replaced with the (arguably more unpleasant) tang of stale beer and sweat.

France followed suit on January 1st and since The Boy is a hardened smoker, never to be found without a packet of Lucky Strike about his person, I shivered at the prospect of sitting outside our favourite bars in the bleak mid-winter. It was either that, I reasoned, or sit indoors, but regularly find myself alone, tapping my fingers impatiently on the table, while the smokers (almost everyone but me) took themselves off outside for a nicotine fix.

So far, I’m pleased to say, we seem to have managed to find a happy medium: bars and restaurants with heated terrasses and clear plastic awnings which effectively mean we are seated almost indoors. Granted, the patio heaters usually leave me pink-cheeked and frosty-toed, so I should probably start wearing an extra pair of socks if I want to be spared chilblains this year (yes, I know, they went out with the ark, no one gets chilblains any more - try telling that to my feet). I’m also well aware that heating the outdoors is an exercise which is unlikely to have a positive impact on the environment.

Hearing The Boy making arrangements to meet his mum for a drink this weekend - suggesting first Aux Folies, then saying “Eh merde, ils ont pas de terrasse chauffée….. Va falloir que je la rappelle pour donner rendez-vous au Zèbre…” it occurred to me that if I had an ounce of spare time, I should probably write a handy little guide called “Paris, la Clope au Bec” and pitch it to Parigramme, where it would nestle comfortably among the other titles in their collection.

I currently own “Bien naître à Paris“, “SOS Jeune maman parisienne” (I think it was the word “young” which clinched that deal) and “Les Mercredis des petits parisiens” (which despite all my resolutions, I have yet to open). Today, having browsed the full list of publications, I’d be curious to read “Comment devenir une vraie parisienne“.

I suspect that my own favoured solution - find myself a real, bona-fide Parisian, born only a couple of kilometres from where he now lives, and regularly exchange bodily fluids in the hope that some of his Parisien-ness will rub off on me - may be a little, um, unconventional…

“Scrape scrape clatter SCRAPE!”

This is the sound my upstairs neighbours’ clogs make as they grate against the hardwood floor like giant fingernails on a blackboard, at a volume loud enough to actually wake me from a deep, dreamless slumber. At least I imagine their feet clad in clogs. What else could possibly make that unforgivable noise? Although why anyone would slip on a pair of clogs at 2am, I am at an utter loss to understand. Ditto how anyone can stomp around for half an hour at 2am and then begin again, bright eyed and bushy tailed, at 6.30am. I’m beginning to suspect that there may be more than one culprit. Two clog wearers in the same household working different shifts. Statistically unlikely, I know, but I can furnish no other convincing explanation.

Naturally I was not treated to my first clog concerto until the ink was drying on the deeds to the apartment.

“Whhhhhiiiiiiiirrrrrrrrrr. Grrrrrrrrr. Ding!” growls the microwave five centimetres away from my pillow at 7 am every morning, part of my elderly neighbour’s morning ritual, no doubt warming milk for a steaming bowl of café crème or a chocolat chaud. I try to look on the bright side. At least I don’t have to shell out for an alarm clock, as it would be superfluous, to say the least.

Tadpole’s side of the apartment shares a wall with the kitchen/dining room belonging to the old lady who often smells of urine and affectionately calls me “ma fille” in her sandpaper voice. She also appears to be hard of hearing, as we are regularly treated to bursts of cheerful North African music played at full blast on the radio. Thankfully she is reasonably quiet in the evenings.

But by far the worst noise pollution I have experienced so far were the shenanigans I overheard on Christmas day, when I fell gratefully into the warm embrace of my duck-down duvet after mainlining champagne and foie gras from noon until midnight. The culprits were, once again, the upstairs neighbours. This time the clogs were off, as, I imagine, were most of their garments. And evidently they had discovered a new pastime: sex. With what I can only describe as noisy abandon and great gusto Mr Clogs serviced his good lady wife from midnight until a little after 4 am.

Since I’ve been living here since late July, and this was both the first and the only time I’ve overheard so much as a moan of pleasure, I can only conclude that this was an annual lovemaking session and will consequently not be repeated before the evening of 25 December 2007. Call me an optimist, but I live in hope (but with emergency waxy earplugs at the ready).

I have never met my upstairs neighbours, but I am told they own their apartment. But in today’s post I received the convocation to the (also) annual assemblée générale des copropriétaires for my building which will take place next week. Nothing could keep me away. I need to know what a woman who brays like a donkey during coitus and is capable of upwards of ten orgasms in one single night looks like.

Whether I will feel able to look my neighbours in the eye, or be sufficiently bold to humbly request that they might consider wearing less offensive nocturnal footwear in the future, is another matter entirely. I can imagine the conversation already.

“Les murs sont comme du carton ici, n’est ce pas?”

“Ah, on vous dérange, mademoiselle?”

“Non, non, pas du tout…”

Sometimes I hate my British side.

We take a seat at an outdoor table in front of Le Panier - a quirky little café on the Place St Marthe - and a contented sigh escapes me. What bliss to take some time away from the computer, which dominates my living room, my bedroom, my life. The Place St Marthe is a perfect place for playing “spot the bobo” and basking in the last rays of the summer.

The proprietor sets down a carafe of water, two glasses and a menu, taking a seat by my side. My mouth twitches with suppressed mirth. I have been here before and I know from experience that he is a rather larger than life character, who often pauses to sit by his bemused patrons talking surreal nonsense until he gets bored, moves on in search of new prey. Today he is dressed in white and blue striped cotton pyjama bottoms and a scruffy t-shirt. I wonder idly whether he is going commando and peer discreetly down to see what footwear he has chosen to accessorise this charming ensemble.

“The specials today are blanquette de veau with mascarpone, sauté d’agneau and a mushroom tart,” he says, giving me an odd sidelong glance which I find impossible to read. “Personally I don’t recommend the mushroom tart, it’s not up to much…” I wonder whether this is a skillful reverse advertising strategy. If not, my overwhelming desire to order the tart is simply a reflection of my own perverse nature. In the end though, I decide against it, as I scan down the menu and something else takes my fancy.

My friend - so traumatised by our last near miss that he insisted upon picking me up today on his scooter to avoid a repeat performance - quizzes me about all the surreal things which have been going on of late and then we fall silent for a while, savouring the tender souris d’agneau (I’m very vague about cuts of meat, in French, but I’m reliably informed that no mice were involved in the preparation of this meal) which falls away from the bone and melts in my mouth.

We order dessert, coffee, a beer, whiling away the afternoon until it is time for me to collect Tadpole from school. As I draw close to the throng of waiting mothers around the doorway, I reflect on how privileged I feel, right now. If things had been different, I would still be scurrying to the office every morning, never sure what kind of atmosphere would reign. A stranger would pick up Tadpole from school in the afternoons, and mind her until I got home. I would brave the rush hour métro twice a day.

Instead, I pad through my apartment barefoot, clad in my favourite jeans and power up the computer. I take a break when I feel I’ve earned one, or when my head becomes dull and heavy and words no longer flow. Grabbing a book from the pile, I head for the Parc de Belleville, sit cross-legged in the grass, my hair ruffled by a gentle breeze.

Every day I pass the steps where a plaque reads:

“Sur les marches de cette maison, naquit dans le plus grand dénuement celle dont la voix, plus tard, allait bouleverser le monde”

A song echoes in my head. I regret nothing.

When I finally took a peek out of my window, towards 2 pm, I was dazzled by unexpectedly bright sunlight. And yet, for some perverse reason, I decided it was a perfect day for an outing to the cinema. A perfect day for sitting in darkness, indoors, alone.

Once upon a time, there was a petite anglaise who lived on rue de la Roquette, and taught English part-time for twelve, maybe sixteen hours a week. She had a student card, and an MK2 cinema card (in those days, the chain of art house cinemas were called Les Cinemas 14 Juillet) and she went to the cinema three, maybe four times a week. Between classes, to kill time, she often went to the morning showing (25 francs). When her apartment refused to warm up in the middle of winter, she saw two films back to back while her toes gradually thawed.

In her time with Mr Frog she still went often, although this sometimes meant reaching a somewhat unsatisfactory compromise. She liked thoughtful, challenging, whimsical; he liked car chases, guns and mechanically working his way through a bucket of (salted) popcorn. Sunday afternoons were often spent zipping down to Bercy Village on the Vespa, munching on a Bresaola toasted sandwich and queuing up for the latest blockbuster. Then Tadpole was born, and suddenly the cinema became a prohibitively expensive outing: €21 in babysitting fees before any tickets (or popcorn) had even been factored in to the equation.

Nowadays, although I have a little more time to myself, I tend to want to spend my precious freedom wisely, preferring to see a friend for a leisurely brunch, or a few drinks, rather than sitting companiably in the dark.

But today I returned and got bitten by the cinema bug all over again.

I bought a ticket for the mid-afternoon showing of Michel Gondry’s The Science of Sleep, then retired to the outdoor terrasse, where I sipped a café crème and nibbled on a cannelé for half an hour, my nose in a book. At the appointed hour I chose the perfect seat (a third from the front, in the middle of the row) and kicked off my flip flops, tucking my feet up under my skirt. The room was sparsely populated and quiet. As the lights went down I felt a familiar tingle of anticipation.

The film was quirky, endearing and occasionally laugh out loud funny. Gael Garcia Bernal was rather delectable in his ill-fitting, large collared suit. Losing myself in a dreamscape filled with stuffed toys, cardboard toilet rolls and eggboxes for a couple of hours was glorious escapism.

As the credits drew to a close, I strolled out into the sunshine and stretched like a cat. Glancing at my watch, I was pleased to note I had a whole hour to kill before Tadpole o’clock. I stopped at a café I’d never even noticed before, on a whim. A table in the sun. The sound of djembé players drifting over from somewhere near the canal. An occasional métro aérien screeching across the metal bridge from Jaurès to Stalingrad. Scenes from the film replaying in my head. A crisp, cold pression. One of the best croque monsieur’s I have sampled in years (it’s all in the topping - and this one was oozing to perfection with thick coating of bechamel).

Bliss.

There was only one false note. From time to time I found myself missing a certain someone. It crossed my mind, fleetingly, that Mr Frog would have loved the film; that he would have adored the café. We would have sat in companiable silence (popcorn chewing excepted), conversation unnecessary.

Ironic, isn’t it, that I should find myself wishing I could spend a few hours of my precious freedom with the one person who can’t be there. Freedom, it seems, comes at a price. And situations are never quite as clear cut as they first appear.

“Et, dites-moi, ma fille, pourquoi vous avez quitté votre mari, hein?” my neighbour enquires, in her abrasive, rather masculine voice.

Head: patchy fog. Limbs: rather stiff. Conversation: undesirable.

I danced until 4am last night in the scarlet womb of the Batofar. At first I thought the drink was playing evil tricks on my sense of balance, but it soon became apparent that the boat really was listing on the starboard side. I chose to believe that an uneven distribution of revellers across the dancefloor was responsible, because even if the boat had been about to capsize, there could be absolutely no question of leaving half way through “Bizarre Love Triangle”.

I finally manage to collect my wits sufficiently to venture out of my apartment twelve hours later. My aim is simply to take out the rubbish, have a peep inside my letterbox and then scuttle back upstairs to bed. Clutching a wad of junk mail and bank statements I begin my ascent. Halfway up the stairs I am waylaid by my new neighbour.

I don’t even know her name, but I am already perfectly au fait with her family situation. A son, living in Israel with his two wives (!) and four children. She was born and raised in Tunisia. There are two grown up children living in Paris, one of whom is a taxi driver. Her husband passed away sixteen years ago. She wears a sleeveless patterned overall over her clothes at all times, which I think Vitriolica would refer to as a bata; a headscarf is knotted around her wispy grey hair.

One thing is abundantly clear: the lady does not do small talk.

In the space of two minutes, she has already quizzed me about what I do for a living (ahem, complicated…) and enquired as to why my daughter isn’t with me. When I explain that Tadpole is at her daddy’s house today, that leads her to the million dollar question: “what on earth had possessed me to leave my husband?”

Executing my very best gallic shrug, I mumble something incomprehensible about how these things happen, which seems to satisfy her, for now. I choose not to correct her erroneous assumption that Mr Frog and I had been married. Now is not the time. It’s not that the subject of our separation is a sensitive one, really, but I suspect that to someone of her generation, my reasons would seem pithy. We didn’t fight tooth and nail. He never mistreated me in any way. We still get on rather well; in fact he’s one of my very best friends. The flame just sputtered out, over time, and we find it healthier to live apart. Even to myself, I now gloss over the leaving him for someone else part, which somehow seems irrelevant.

My neighbour decides to impart some friendly advice, woman to woman. Ever since she first saw me moving in, she has had a soft spot for me, apparently.

“Il faut pas rester seule, ma fille,” she says, putting a wrinkled hand on my arm and looking earnestly into my bleary eyes. “Pas pendant trop longtemps. C’est pas bien.”

I force my lips into a smile, wondering how to extricate myself from the conversation without causing offence. The footfalls of another neighbour in the stairwell give me hope. It is a thirtysomething male, bound for Franprix with a tartan shopping cart. The briefest flicker of irritation passes across his face when he sees my neighbour lying in wait, but, to his credit, he fields her questions about his family and his summer holidays with admirable patience.

I seize my chance and mutter an excuse, darting back into my apartment.

Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s lovely to have neighbours who actually want to have a chat from time to time. It’s usually the elderly who do - younger Parisians rarely take the time to get to know the people who surround them, even if the paper thin walls which divide our apartments mean that we are intimate in many other ways.

But next time I have an errand to run, I shall be checking to see that the coast is clear before I put a foot outside my door. Because there is one more thing you should know about my neighbour: her memory is failing.

We have had this very same conversation three times in the last week. I’m not quite ready for round four, just yet.

I take my seat with a group of girlfriends at L’Apparemment Café, an old haunt of mine deep inside the Marais, opposite the Musée Picasso, where you can choose from a long list of mouth-watering ingredients - sun dried tomatoes, artichokes, fresh marinated anchovies - to build your own salad. Except it is Sunday today and I had completely forgotten that on the day of our Lord they serve only brunch.

This would be perfect if I hadn’t already ploughed through a copious Pain Quotidien brunch the day before, a major blowout involving lashings of praline spread, confiture de lait and other sinful concoctions which, if they didn’t taste so good, might as well be applied directly to the thigh area with a palette knife.

Waving my healthy salad goodbye, I settle in for the long haul: juice, coffee, a boiled egg, mountains of crusty bread, pancakes with maple syrup, a cheese platter (the French always seem to add a random unnecessary savoury dish into every brunch menu, which I never have room for), fromage blanc and blackberry coulis… and conversation.

“I can’t believe you snogged two guys on the dancefloor last night. Seriously, you are a menace to society!” My friend blushes, as she has only just arrived, doesn’t know the other ladies present particularly well. She should be used to me by now.

“No”, she says, recovering her composure remarkably quickly, “they were the menace to society. Fancy reaching your mid-thirties and not knowing how to kiss. Appalling. One of them had a technique like a washing machine. His tongue went round and round in a clockwise motion, then suddenly went into reverse and swept round and round in the other direction. It was so, well, mechanical.” She shudders at the memory.

All this talk of domestic appliances calls to mind the last person who chatted me up: a Darty man who delivered my new cooker. Granted, I indulged in a little eyelash fluttering, but only because I wanted him to take away an old refrigerator left in the apartment by my predecessors, and that wasn’t strictly his job…

The result was ten or more messages left on my mobile in semi-literate text speak before my suitor finally drew the appropriate conclusions from my resounding silence.

“Men just seem like too much trouble right now, I don’t even have time to do all my own stuff, let alone take anyone else into account,” I say, almost thinking aloud. “Mind you, I kind of wish my favourite toy hadn’t gone missing when I moved.”

Because, yes, of all the things that could have inexplicably failed to materialise when I unpacked my boxes, it had to be that. I live in fear of it turning up at an inopportune moment (say, during a visit from my ex-mother in law).

Embarrassment potential: critical.

I am woken by a text message and realise that

beer + ill advised gin based cocktail because it was cheap in happy hour + beer + beer + beer + ?

is a disastrous equation which can only = feelings of nausea and throbbing pains behind the eye sockets.

The text message invites me to lunch. At 2pm. At the “Zéphyr”. It is 10am. The idea of eating food, even drinking water, is uninviting at this juncture, but I dare to hope that things may feel a little different in four hours’ time. And the message clearly reads “buy you lunch”. Le Zéphyr is rather nice, in that artfully shabby, old fashioned sort of way which Paris does so well. It’s even within walking distance of my house, which is a thoughtful touch. Such an offer cannot be refused. I text back “ok”, hoping my inability to type anything further will not be construed as rude.

Shortly before 2, I make a triumphant dive for the one available table on the raised decking outdoors. The sky is making a respectable attempt at blue, although experience over the past two weeks has proved that caution should be exercised. I inspect the awning overhead: it wouldn’t protect us from one of the bibilical style deluges Paris has been subjected to of late, but is better than nothing.

I take out my book and find my page. The fact that I have reached a section written in a sonnet sequence does not make it ideal hangover reading, but I perservere, wishing I had brought a Voici from the stack Mr Frog’s mother so thoughtfully brought to Paris. My friend calls to announce his lateness and I hunker down in my seat, unperturbed. It’s a nice spot, the sun is (almost) shining and I am determined to savour my well-deserved screen break. I don’t have a clue I have been waiting for almost three quarters of an hour until the waiter comes over to warn me that his lunch shift is almost over.

I panic and call my friend, and after some confusion - the menu seems to have changed since he last ate there - I order us both a steak and he promises to appear in time to eat it.

Ten minutes later he phones back (apparently not for the first time, but my phone is vibrating quietly in the depths of my bag, the sound indistinguishable above the grumble of passing traffic.)

“Hi, where are you? I can’t see you anywhere.”

“In Le Zéphyr, sitting out front!” I reply, craning my neck, seeing no sign of him on the pavement. In any case, the terrasse is now almost empty, I really shouldn’t be too difficult to spot.

Suddenly I realise what has happened here, and suppress a violent urge to bang my head against the window. Repeatedly.

“I’m guessing that there is more than one Zéphyr in Paris, am I right?” I sigh.

Indeed I am. My friend is at the Café Zéphyr, halfway across town, at Bonne Nouvelle. He doesn’t have his motorbike with him today. He could never manage to get here in time to eat his steak warm. This is officially A Fiasco.

As I reassure him, through gritted teeth, not to worry, that it will be fine, I’ll cancel his order, the waiter appears, bearing two plates.

The phrase “there’s no such thing as a free lunch” springs cruelly to mind, as I start to wish I’d never crawled out of bed in the first place.

I wait for the downpour to finish, craning my head out of Tadpole’s window to see if there is any forked lightening to accompany the ricochets of thunder. It’s a good job she’s not here with me. Last time we witnessed a storm she pressed anxious hands to her ears and begged me to make it go away, testing my omnipotence to the limits.

“Mummy, tell the clouds to stop bumping!”

I realise I should probably start reading up on a few things I have forgotten since GCSE science, now that we have entered “why?” territory.

There is no sign of a taxi at the junction, so I plunge down into the bowels of the métro instead. I am struck by how natural this feels, after my awkward experience in the London Underground. My hips instinctively know the height of the turnstile barrier and precisely how hard it must be nudged. My feet lead me to the optimum position on the platform, aligned with the exit I need when I get off. I feel the familiar bumps of the podotactile through the thin soles of my shoes.

With the KLF roaring in my earbuds, I sit back and close my eyes. I know how many stops there are before I reach my destination; I know the quartier (Bastille) better than the village where I grew up.

As the train pulls into the station, I raise the handle so that the double doors glide open while the carriage is still in motion, allowing me to alight, gracefully, at the precise moment it reaches a standstill. I walk along the platform, springing steps in time with the music in my head.

Sometimes, just sometimes, I feel like I own this city.

I glance down at my watch, startled to see it is already way past two. Time for a change of scenery; an hour or two outside my own head. I grab a book, at random, from the teetering tower by my bedside, find my purse, and, noting the ominous colour of the sky, arm myself with an umbrella.

The rue de Belleville is a wasteland of shuttered shops and extinguished lights. Welcome to Paris in August. A whole city to myself, with the exception of the most obvious tourist traps, but much of it closed for business.

I hesitate outside a shabby looking Thai joint with a seven euro lunch menu which I have never eaten at before, usually favouring the flashier Thai further down the hill, which pulls in the crowds on the strength of a favourable review in the ‘98 Routard.

A little girl with sleek black pigtails, presumably the proprietor’s granddaughter, captures my attention. She darts among the empty tables with her older sister, shrieking in a language I do not understand. She must be Tadpole’s age, give or take a few months. Momentarily overcome by a rush of tenderness for my own absent daughter, I picture her sleeping on her belly, fingers curled into a fist in front of her face.

I choose a window table, amused to see I am seated directly opposite the famous trompe l’oeil advertising hoarding. A perfect reading spot.

Opening my book I plunge into the first short story and am slowly but surely reeled in, the sound of the girls playing receding as I become increasingly indifferent to my surroundings. When my food arrives, I am brought back to reality with a jolt, but luckily have the presence of mind to request cutlery, so I can keep one hand free to turn the pages as I bring forkfulls of beef and lemongrass salad to my lips.

An hour later I tip the owner and set off back home, resolving to eat out alone more often. With regular practice, maybe I’ll be able to master book in one hand, chopsticks in the other.

There’s something worthwhile to aspire to.

London is one long ride on an interminable escalator, mopping my brow and frowning at the chunky A-Z, wondering how it is possible for many of my destinations to be so very far removed from metro tube stations.

It is struggling to remember to “KEEP LEFT” in corridors and on staircases which are neatly divided into two halves. Keeping my expensive travelcard handy for when I leave every station to avoid awkward, embarrassing fumbling; a wave of homesickness for my Navigo card and its comforting “DRIINNG!” welling up as the alien “PIINNG!” of Oyster cards echoes in my ears.

In Paris, leaning over the edge of a platform to squint along the tunnel, I can often spy the lights of the next station, and sometimes make out the next one after that. A station is never more than a short stroll away.

I drag my overnight bag along residential streets, plastic wheels rumbling noisily over uneven paving slabs, glancing at my watch periodically to see if I am late enough to warrant making a breathless, apologetic phone call.

I am pathetically grateful to whoever had the foresight to paint helpful hints on the tarmac at every pedestrian crossing, prompting me to “LOOK RIGHT!” or “LOOK LEFT!”, rather than trusting my (apparently continental) instincts and stepping out into the path of a rapidly approaching black cab.

It is in my native land that I am truly a fish out of water: panting, helplessly disorientated, yearning for the familiarity of my French home.

* * * * * * * * * * *

Later, back in the village where I grew up, I creep into my daughter’s bedroom, craving the familiar scent of her warm curls, her damp scalp.

She is unexpectedly awake, sitting up in bed with a welcoming smile. I cover her cheeks with kisses.

“Mummy,” she asks, “are you going to sleep in your bed today?”

“Yes my love,” I reply, “so you can come and fetch me when you wake up in the morning.”

She pauses for a moment; I can almost see her thinking.

“Mummy? Have you got a sleeping bag like mine?”

“No. Mummies don’t usually wear sleeping bags.”

“When I will be a mummy and you will be a little girl, I can lend you this one,” she says generously, gesturing down at her pink gingham pod.

I find this notion of role reversal strangely comforting.

Later, against my better judgement, I slip into the single bed, beside her oblivious sleeping form and let the regularity of her breathing slow my rapidly thumping heart.

With an hour to while away before meeting the bank manager, I decide to take a stroll down memory lane and take in some of my old haunts. The weather is, in turn, cloudy and menacing, sunny and optimistic. Wandering around my old quartier is likewise bittersweet.

There are things which make me smile knowingly - grateful for their constancy. The makeshift sign in the traiteur’s shop - proudly boasting that once again, this year, they are the national champions “dans la fabrication du fromage de tête!”, for example. I beg you, please do not enlighten me as to what “fromage de tête” is, it’s one of those things I’d rather die not knowing. I fear it has more to do with heads than cheese, and that’s as far as I’m willing to let my mind venture.

A few paces further, nostrils teased by the pungent aroma of spit roasting chickens, I see the butcher’s assistant and note with amusement his familiar (drawn on) moustache with fanciful curlicues. He calls out a jovial “Bonjour Mademoiselle” as I pass, and I silently thank him for not saying Madame today.

Rue de la Roquette: the location of my first Parisian chez moi, crammed full of ghosts, mice and the odd cockroach. I see my younger self meandering tipsily homewards in the early hours, blissfully unaware of the existence of Guy Georges. A carefree, reckless me, buying fresh croissants at 5.30 am after a night dancing at the Rex club; pupils swollen to the size of saucers. A less jaded me, striding out into the city armed with my guidebook, determined to explore every inch of the city on foot.

I pass my laundrette (immortalised in the film Chacun cherche son chat) where girls sit flicking idly through magazines, while the warmth and hum of spin cycles lulls them into a pleasant torpor.

Glancing at my watch, I am startled out of my rêverie and hasten to retrace my steps towards the bank. I don’t have enough time to venture along rue Richard Lenoir, to the old apartment Mr Frog and I shared opposite the Gymnase Japy, where Tadpole was conceived.

But I’ll be back.

…if the offer goes through on my Belleville 2 pièces.

update: it has gone through. OHMYGOD! I’m officially stressed now at the prospect of having to woo banks and look at reams of paperwork. If any kind reader can recommend a good courtier based in central Paris I would love to hear from you!!!

The signs were unmistakable. A feeling of buoyancy, of lightness, a renewed spring in my step. That familiar sensation of seeing the city through a filter, bathed in a flattering, glowing light.

Last weekend, I fell head over heels in love.

It hit me first on Friday, when I stepped out of the métro at Odéon. Shivering in the cold as I waited for a friend to arrive for our cinema date, I took in the animated bustle around the monument everyone chooses for a rendez-vous point. Girls waiting breathlessly for a special boy to arrive, smiling shyly when he appeared. Groups of students arguing over which film to see. Mobile phones pressed to every available ear. A buzz, an excitement, which I had long forgotten, but which reminded me of my early days in Paris, of Mr Frog and I when we shared a tiny maid’s room near the Sorbonne, went out in St Germain almost every night.

Saturday, stepping out of an apartment building in the rue des Envierges, I decided to take a detour through the backstreets of Belleville, where it is so easy to imagine the village it once was, with its cobbled streets and few remaining villas with walled gardens. The sky was periwinkle blue, the birds were singing, and I felt my spirits lifting; overwhelmingly glad to be alive.

Later, leaving Le Flore, the taste of a sinful, thick hot chocolate lingering on my lips, I took a stroll along the banks of the Seine, on a whim. A vague, half-formed plan to buy a book, was casually shrugged off in favour of letting my feet lead the way. My boots took me across the Pont Neuf, where I half-smiled at the sight of the couples gathered in its alcoves; bemused to note that seeing them caused me no pain.

Sunday, pleasantly exhausted after a long evening which began with a bar in the rue Montorgeuil, continued with a restaurant, and ended with a pendaison de cremaillère where I met some fascinating people and talked until the small hours, I struck out for a friend’s house near the Park Monceau, a bunch of delicate pink tulips in one hand, a warm baguette under my arm (and flour on my coat, because I haven’t mastered quite how one can do all those things and yet remain immaculate).

Monday morning, despite grey skies and light drizzle, a distracted glance from my kitchen window as I cupped my bowl of steaming café au lait fell on the deep, buttery yellow of the crocuses I had the foresight to plant in December.

Last weekend, Paris opened her arms to me and I fell into them, gladly. Gratefully.

I had forgotten how much it is possible to love this city.

Easing my hand gently out from where it had been lodged - between someone’s left buttock and a standard issue French teenager’s Eastpak rucksack - I glanced tensely at my watch. The métro was taking an eternity to leave each station, the doors failing to close on the tightly packed mass of commuters and student demonstrators compressed within.

I was late for my first appointment with my new destiny; getting progressively more flustered as the minutes ticked by.

Red faced and panting, I finally arrived, complete with Tadpole and pushchair, at the address I had scribbled on the printout. A smartly dressed man with a briefcase awaited us in front of the entrance, and he motioned us inside, although not before woefully mispronouncing my surname.

Tadpole was in a very chatty mood.

“I’m going to help mummy choose a new house today!” she announced. “I’ve got three houses: mummy’s house, daddy’s house and tata’s house! And now I going to buy an udder one!” Normal rules do not apply to Tadpole-speak, a language punctuated exclusively with exclamation marks.

Mr Agent Immobilier raised his eyebrows, probably thinking that 32 square metres of working-class Paris looking onto an interior courtyard doesn’t normally qualify for “house” status.

He rang the doorbell, and a harried looking student answered the door, before scuttling back to her dissertation.

I looked around me, finally able to appreciate, after combing my way through all those petites annonces, what thirtysomething metres really felt like. Tried to imagine fitting Tadpole and me, plus as many of our belongings as possible, into a space half the size of the apartment we occupy, but can no longer afford.

I couldn’t, without resorting to use of the word mezzanine.

The indignity. Thirty four years old this year, teetering on the brink of getting myself 165,000 or so euros into debt, and I will be reduced to either sleeping on a convertible sofa in the living room, or adopting the bed-on-stilts approach in order to share Tadpole’s bedroom.

Obsessed as I may be with clambering onto the first rung of the property ladder, it hadn’t occurred to me that I would have to do so in quite such a literal sense.

I forced myself to pay attention to the kitchen, the bathroom, the electrics, the central heating, but concentration was difficult, on account of a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach.

Because the word “mezzanine”, to me, spelled the end of an era, and the beginning of a new one which I am rather hesitant to embrace. I closed my eyes and let myself contemplate my dream home, a stone cottage nestled in the Breton countryside, one last time.

Then I took a deep breath and let it go.

For now.

This advert is plastered across the walls of many Parisian métro stations at the moment.

How very fitting.

The ad is actually for a loan finance company - and I think the “compagnon de route” in question is supposed to be a car, but it did give me a little jolt the first time I saw it, all the same.

I mean, how would you feel if you saw your name across a billboard?

What do you mean, it’s not my name?

I almost signed a cheque “petite” once…

We walk, leather glove in pink woolen mitten, up the rue de Belleville towards the Eglise St-Jean Baptiste. The narrow pavements are bustling with Saturday morning shoppers despite the biting chill in the air, and my stomach begins to growl as we pass first an appetising pâtisserie (whose boast is that they have twenty different flavours of macaron), then a tiny, pungently scented fromagerie, our noses alerted to its presence long before we reach it.

Tadpole is busy “blowing clouds” through her chapped lips.

I notice, quite by chance, that the SNCF boutique is unusually empty and seize this opportunity to renew Tadpole’s Enfant Plus travelcard. (A truly wonderful invention: thirteen hours of excruciating labour pain = a 50% discount on all train travel for me, plus a free seat for Tadpole). Soon to be expired travelcard is helpfully stowed in the pocket of my handbag, as a reminder, along with a set of passport photos which Mr Frog obligingly had taken last weekend.

We take our seat at the desk, and I adopt the saccharine tone I reserve for most French fonctionnaires, as it has just occurred to me that I do not have any form of Tadople ID about my person.

“Bonjour Madame, j’espère que vous allez pouvoir m’aider…”

I needn’t have worried, because Tadpole has already launched into a full charm offensive.

“Bonjour Madame,” she trills, smiling winsomely. “Je m’appelle [Tadpole Frog], et j’ai deux ans!”

I feel ever so slightly nervous about how much more information Tadpole intends to volunteer, as she can be somewhat random in what she chooses to share. The day that “mummy made some bubbles in the bath” being a case in point, which was recounted, with accompanying sound effects, to anyone who would listen.

Thankfully she stays on topic on this occasion, and starts telling the lady that it is her birthday tomorrow. (Tomorrow, in this instance, meaning June). We obtain the card, without incident, and I manage to persuade a reluctant Tadpole that it is time to leave. Not an easy feat, as she has taken off her mittens, obviously feeling quite at home, and is now enthusiastically exploring the possibilities of the swivelling chair.

When we finally get home, after lunching on couscous together, on a whim, in a local restaurant, I take out the travelcards and compare Tadpole’s photos. The difference takes my breath away. Casting my mind back to February 2005, I try to remember how many words she could say, or what she enjoyed doing back then, and cannot summon up an image of this smaller, rather hairless, toddler. There is something less definite about her facial features on the older picture, but it’s difficult to put my finger on exactly what has changed. Seeing her evolve a little every day, it is only when I am confronted with hard evidence that I realise just how far we have come.

Tadpole snatches the picture from my hand.

“Look, there’s baby [Tadpole]!”

“Yes, that’s a picture from when you were just one year old,” I explain.

“I a big girl now,” she replies, seriously. “I do all my wee wees in my potty. Just like mummy, but mummy does them in the big toilet!”

I am somewhat relieved that we didn’t have this particular conversation at the SNCF shop.

Just when the tips of the crocuses (or croci?) I planted in my windowbox at Christmas time had started to emerge, albeit tentatively, and spring seemed to be hovering tantalisingly just around the corner, Paris is now horribly cold again. Cold, and damp.

Tuesday was the nadir of this sorry week. First of all, in the mad dash to visit Tadpole’s other local maternelle with Mr Frog before work, I managed to forget my waterproofs and simply did not have time to go back for them. Instead I stoically pushed the buggy through driving sleet and rain, head bowed in resignation, all the way to the childminder’s house. Water dripped miserably from the end of my nose. My coat soaked up water like a sponge, growing steadily heavier.

“Poor mummy’s getting wet,” remarked Tadpole helpfully, from her vantage point on the dry side of the waterproof buggy cover. A puddle was forming on its top, so I tipped the pushchair over sideways, without warning, to drain the water off, much to Tadpole’s delight.

“You don’t say,” I muttered, wondering idly whether at the age of two and a half, it wasn’t about time Tadpole learned about the joys of sarcasm.

Swerving to miss a crotte, rendered liquid and even more treacherous by the rain, I wanted nothing more than to turn back towards home, languish in a hot bath and crawl back into my bed, where instead of sleeping the previous night, I had hovered in that frustrating limbo between slumber and wakefulness, unable to switch off my addled brain, too busy composing and re-composing ever more vitriolic lettres recommandées to my web hosts. In French.

Arriving at the childminder’s high rise block, our nostrils were greeted by the familiar tang of (human? canine?) urine in the lifts. The sliding doors firmly closed behind us, I pulled back the raincover and bent over the back of the pushchair to plant a kiss on Tadpole’s nose.

“Look mummy’s upside down. Like a bat!” exclaimed Tadpole, as my hair rained droplets all over her dry clothes.

I smiled a wry little smile, in spite of myself, thankful for the presence of this cheerful little person who always knows how to make everything bearable. I only have to make eye contact with Tadpole and my worries have a funny way of dissolving, instantly.

And because I’d like to end this post on a positive note, I won’t trouble you with how I skidded on the wet floor of the métro and twisted my ankle, landing unceremoniously on my buttocks.

No. Let’s stick with the first ending.

Oh my! Only yours truly could manage to co-star with a high-tech portapotty and a wheelie bin for my fifteen nanoseconds of fame.

I staggered into Starbucks on a rainy Wednesday morning en route for work, regretting not a little the liberal quantities of wine and champagne consumed the previous night. Nothing to do with VD, incidentally, as Lover was safely in Rennes, watching the football at the pub, hopeless romantic that he is. Instead, as it was my Tadpole-free night, I had kindly offered to help a couple of girlfriends celebrate their ill-timed birthdays.

Eight hours of sustained (proper English-style) binge drinking later, and we narrowly avoided being locked in a (closed) Etienne Marcel métro station.

But that’s another story.

So: 9.50 am, Wednesday morning, tired, emotional and rather nervous. Barely had I pushed open the door of the café when the journalist who had contacted me a couple of days earlier via my comments box (and who can’t have been more than twelve years old) accosted me (she had apparently already asked every other person in the building if they weren’t petite - I was late). Returning to her table while I ordered a restorative scone and coffee, she waited patiently for me to arrive. I cringed as my Christian name was shouted out when my drink was ready, not even noticing that it was also scrawled across my takeaway cup in marker pen.

Call me paranoid, but I’ve always been brought up to believe that journalists cannot be trusted.

*Flash* went her expensive looking camera, over and over again. I had been instructed to pretend to type something on the (borrowed) laptop, and the journalist actually wanted me to smile, but I could manage no more than a terrified, rabbit-in-the-headlights rictus. The other customers watched the sorry spectacle with interest.

As I made my exit, blushing furiously, I thought I heard a couple of people sniggering.

It was only when I arrived at the office, and a good friend pointed out that my skirt was unzipped at the back, revealing more of my tights and bottom than anyone but Lover should be allowed to see, that the reason for their mirth became clear.

Move over Bridget.

It is Saturday morning, and I am not yet sure whether I have a hangover. By rights I should: two G&Ts, a Kir Royal, a beer and a Cosmopolitan would normally be a toxic enough mixture to lay me low. Thankfully, as I open first one cautious eye, then another, exposure to light doesn’t herald in a searing headache. Nor does breakfast cereal cause any queasiness. This is fortunate, because there are few things worse than a trip to the hairdresser’s when one is suffering from mal au cheveux.

I apply foundation, not feeling brave enough to stare at myself in the mirror under fluorescent lights without it, and thank the lord for the absorbent powers of sushi rice. Taking a final long look at my hair, which perversely always looks particularly fetching the day I decide to have it cut, I wrap up warmly and hurry to the metro.

I rarely enjoy paying a visit to the hairdressers. It’s disappointment guaranteed. The only variable is the actual degree of that disappointment, which can vary from utter despair (the haircut inflicted on me days before the birth of Tadpole, which I describe as my “racoon with mange” look, little documented in the photo album) to a feeling of having been cheated (no difference discernible to the human eye, for the price of a mid-range digital camera). Scarred by past hairdressing misfortunes, I dread that final moment of truth when I must replace my glasses, hands trembling, and behold the results. Adopting my most convincing “oh, a pair of socks with polka dots on, that’s exactly what I wanted for Christmas” face., an expression which remains frozen in place until out of sight of the salon, where my bottom lip starts to wobble and then I crack, barely stifle a howl.

I give my name to fiftysomething facelift on the front desk, presumably the salon owner. She gives me a resentful glare when I confess I cannot recall the name of my hairdresser. I suspect she is worried about spoiling her perfect manicure by typing my name into the database. As I haven’t been back for eighteen months, having tried a couple of places on visits to the UK in the interim, I am not what you would call one of their esteemed regulars.

My colourist is called David. Something of a misnomer: Goliath would be more fitting. David boasts rippling muscles, and an all-over fake tan, the buttons of his white overalls straining to contain his hairless, brown hulk-like torso. His mouth looks oddly inflated, and I spend the next half-hour (€ 107) trying to work out whether he has had collagen injections, or just has a terminal pout. Unfortunately, David also has rather rough hands, and a tendency to pull each strand of hair painfully taut as he applies the white paste. I wince, quietly, and wager that the wealthy forty and fiftysomething ladies around me with their generous tips and insipid conversation about their next trip to Mauritius get somewhat gentler treatment. Thankfully I am permitted to keep my glasses on throughout this part of the proceedings so I escape the vapid chatter by burying my nose in a Japanese ghost story.

The time comes for rinsing, and I dare to hope that I might, at least, get a head massage. But no, instead David manhandles my scalp with his large, hulk-like hands, roughly applies a soin(€ 14) and disappears without a word, after twiddling a dial at the side of my reclining chair.

I sit and wait. And wait. Look at my watch. Cross and uncross my legs. Sigh. Begin to worry about the fact that I have left my handbag out of sight at the other side of the room. Wish I had my glasses. Wonder where the toilet is. And why there is a concealed rolling pin inside my chair, working its way up my back. Indeed, I am being massaged by a chair. A warning would have been nice. And although the feeling is soothing at the outset, it gets a little stale after twenty minutes have elapsed. And makes me painfully aware of my bladder.

A few more interminable minutes pass, and finally an apologetic junior appears to rinse off my conditioning treatment. David, it appears, does not do rinsing. The shower spurts into life; I cross my legs tightly.

Rinsed and turbaned, much relieved after a visit to the ladies’ room, I am ready to face the last hurdle: Jean-Francois, hairdresser extraordinaire. He claims to remember me, but allow me to remain inwardly sceptical. I am asked to stand, something I have only ever experienced in France. Ten snips later (€ 77) a junior is enlisted on blow drying duty. J-F dries the last few strands, and shows me how to do a zig-zaggedy parting.

I replace my glasses.

The results are surprisingly good. Goliath has done a decent job with the highlights - subtle, but not invisible - and J-F Superstar has at least respected my wishes, leaving my hair mid-length and layering the front, as instructed. So far, so good. I am escorted to the front desk to settle my bill. Studiously ignored by the surgery queen for a full five minutes while she tries to persuade my hairdresser to take more appointments, despite the fact that his last four clients have all complained about the long wait.

Finally, she deigns to turn to me, compliments David on the colour (causing me to wonder if maybe it is’t a bit too brassy, after all?) and calculates the grand total. I gulp. We are in digital camera territory and I am having a flashback to the last time I stood on this spot and vowed never to darken their doors again. How could I have forgotten?

But the worst is still to come. With a vinegary smile, like bile wouldn’t melt in her mouth, Madame Nip Tuck continues:

“Dis donc, vous en aviez besoin, hein?”

It is probably A Good Thing that I don’t have a pair of scissors to hand.

Monoprix: where customer service comes to die.

Unfortunately, as Monop’ (as it is not so fondly known) is the only supermarket located within striking distance of my office, it is a place I must reluctantly visit to buy supplies of Covent Garden soup. The other lunch options in the vicinity of my office are so fiendishly expensive (€ 10 for a sandwich and dessert, anyone?) that I have little choice in the matter. And so it is that with a heavy heart, I find myself once again in the Monop’ foodhall, searching for an oh so elusive shopping basket.

Five minutes later, laden with cartons of spicy Thai chicken soup and garlic naan bread (when the lover’s away…) I take up a queuing position. Not in just any queue, mind. Over time I have acquired an intimate knowledge of the relative merits of the motley crew that are the Monop’ cashiers. There are those who are painfully slow. Those who are efficient, but have a habit of chatting to local pensioners at great length. Those whose French is unintelligible. All, without exception, look thoroughly miserable. The pay must be terrible, and I doubt I’d be able to muster a smile if I were in their shoes, but, even so, my sympathy has its limits.

I opt for a young, but oddly toothless, cashier. My turn finally comes around, and I unload my week’s lunches onto the conveyor belt. Prompted for my carte de fidelité I proffer it, wearily. I have tens of thousands of points, but have yet to qualify for so much as a free cinema ticket. Unlike in England, where my parents jetted off for an all expenses paid week in the Channel Islands courtesy of their Tesco Clubcard, loyalty is not a quality for which you are handsomely rewarded in this country. Quite the opposite. My S’Miles card’s only function is to serve as a painful reminder of the fact that to amass that number of points, I must have spent an awful lot of euros in this godforsaken place.

Next, I insert my bank card into the chip and pin reader. It beeps in an ominous way, and I sigh inwardly.

“CARTE MUETTE,” reads the screen.

The checkout lady takes out the card, and rubs it on her grubby uniform, before shoving it unceremoniously back in the card reader.

“CARTE MUETTE,” repeats the screen, unimpressed with her polishing abilities.

In the interests of clarity, the checkout girl states, in a monotone voice: “votre puce est muette, Madame.”

This could mean one of two things:

1. My flea is a deaf-mute; or
2. The chip in my card is not working.

Out of the corner of my eye, I am aware of fidgeting in the ranks of shoppers queueing behind me. It is only a matter of time before the low, discontented muttering starts.

“That’s odd. It worked just fine in the bookshop down the road two minutes ago,” I venture, trying to maintain my composure.

“Well it isn’t working now.” comes the helpful reply.

Rifling through my bag, I sigh inwardly as I note the absence of my chequebook or sufficient cash to pay for my purchases. Dentally challenged checkout girl rolls her eyes and suggests I go and withdraw money from the cash machine on the ground floor of the shop.

I start to feel more than a little flustered. And cross. I am convinced, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that it is her card reader which is malfunctioning, not my card. We are surrounded by tills and card machines, but rather than offering to try a different machine, the onus is on me to go on a cash withdrawal mission. It’s ludicrous.

Leaving my half-packed shopping bags behind, I stomp resentfully upstairs to where the cash machine is located. It’s not working. A presentation rack of cheap, no-brand Christmas chocolates has been placed in front of it; the screen is blank. The nearest hole in the wall is 100 m down the road.

I wanted my Thai soup. And my naan bread. But not that much.

Time for a € 10 sandwich from Lina’s.

I feel my hackles rising. Having paid € 21 in entrance fees for the bioparents and I to take Tadpole to the mini-zoo in the Jardin des Plantes, my ungrateful child is not paying the animals any attention whatsoever. And this after chanting “go see the animals!” at least seventy four times during the métro journey to Gare d’Austerlitz.

Granted, the antelopes and wallabies are not very inspiring, lolling listlessly in the grass, not even twitching so much as an ear in our direction. And there are only so many different breeds of owl that one can look at, silently roosting in their cages, without having to stifle a yawn.

Nonetheless it is galling to see that Tadpole is more interested in giving dolly (Tico l’Ecureuil) a ride in her pushchair.

“Look over there!” I cry, in the patronising, over enthusiastic tones of a children’s television presenter, attempting vainly to draw her gaze towards a couple of stampeding ostriches who have just been let back into their enclosure, after being mucked out. “What big birds! Aren’t they funny?”

“Non mummy! I pushing the pushchair!”

My shoulders sag. I decide it is futile to try and show or teach Tadpole anything, and instead we just stroll around the menagerie, enjoying the warm sunshine.

The reptile house is more entertaining, not least because we have to leave the pushchair outside the front door. Tadpole, Tico and I marvel at the snakes, baby lizards, crocodiles, turtles and tortoises. The giant tortoises are a resounding success, reminding Tadpole of the Miffy postcard on her bedroom door. I explain, patiently, that it won’t be possible to ride on the tortoise’s back, regardless of what Miffy gets up to in “Miffy at the zoo”, and I manage to head off a tearful temper tantrum by pulling a banana out of my bag to divert her attention.

Fed up of the animal kingdom, we head up to rue Mouffetard to grab some lunch. The sky is a unlikely shade of azure for the month of October, and as I push Tadpole along the cobbled street lined with stalls selling ripe cheeses and all manner of rustic looking farm produce, manoeuvering past a man and woman who are doing a slow dance in the street accompanied by guitar music outside the café where Juliette Binoche was filmed by Kieslowski in Three Colours Blue, I feel a little stirring of my long dormant love for this city I live in.

That night, I manage to cajole Tadpole into eating a few leaves of iceberg lettuce, “just like the tortoises”.

All in all, it wasn’t such a bad day.

Autumn has arrived in Paris. The trees which line our avenue, partially obscuring the view from our fifth floor balcony when fully clothed, are beginning to shed their large golden brown leaves, making it more of a challenge to steer the pushchair clear of any déjections canines which may be lurking beneath.

I am slightly embarrassed not to be able to say what type of trees they are, but as I have mislaid my childhood “Spotters’ Guide to Trees”, I’m at a bit of a loss.

Tadpole insists on walking through the leaves, listening to the crackle they make beneath her Startrite shoes, pronouncing them to be “crispy, jus’ like cornflakes!”

It won’t be long before an army of little green men bring out the heavy artillery of leaf blowing/hoovering contraptions, working around the clock to clear the pavements. Men with futuristic looking machines on their backs, powering leaf blowers which blast the debris violently into the gutter. (Tadpole doesn’t like the noise these make, and shrieks, eyes like saucers: “regarde! it’s a big hairdryer mummy!” Hairdryers are Very Scary Things. Apparently.) There are green hoover trucks which drive up and down the roads, sucking up the blown leaves from the gutter with a huge serrated tube. In parallel, more traditional, labour-intensive methods are used involving sweeping brushes and huge green plastic bags.

In the mornings, on our run to the childminder’s house, it feels rather like an obstacle course negotiating the blowers and the sweepers, in addition to the usual pavement power washers and the sprinklers set up in the park, so that they slowly rotate and catch passing pedestrians unawares.

With all this frenetic, noisy activity going on, much of it at dawn, when it really would be nice if it were quiet enough to get some more beauty sleep, you’d be forgiven for thinking that the pavements might actually be clean.

Sadly, the little green men are no match for the combined forces of the Parisian pigeons, dogs with scoopless owners and cigarette butt tossers.

Living in Paris is a dirty job, but someone’s got to do it.

I take a seat in the métro, and adjust my ear buds. I rather like the journey to work in August. Most Parisians have sloped off to the beach for a few weeks, so the carriages are empty but for a handful of tourists. And I do enjoy tourist-watching. I wonder, idly, what it is about being on holiday that saps people of whatever dress-sense they may once have possessed.

I smooth down my gauzy skirt. I love the way it moves when I walk, but as it is so floaty as to be barely there, I can never quite shake off a feeling of paranoia when I wear it. If you are a girl (or a transvestite for that matter), you will be aware of the perils of the skirt/shoulder bag combination. A perfectly demure knee length skirt can and will end up skimming the top of your thighs on one side when you have walked not 200 metres, as a thoughtful passer by (female) pointed out to me the other day.

A doddery old man gets on at Gare de l’Est. He looks about eighty years old, has a small, wiry build and wears fairly non-descript clothing, except for a sleeveless beige jacket with lots of pockets, which I have decided to call a safari jacket, for the purposes of this post.

Ignoring the swathes of empty seats all around me, he sits down in the seat next to mine. Except he doesn’t. He sits down half on his seat, and half on mine. On my floaty skirt, with the whole of the left side of his body touching mine. I was already leaning against the window out of choice, but now I am pinned to the wall, whether I like it or not, unable to move.

I wonder what to do.

First, I cast about for a sympathetic person to roll my eyes at. The lady opposite avoids eye contact and pretends not to notice my predicament.

Maybe, I say to myself charitably, he just sat down clumsily, and this unnecessary proximity is purely accidental. Any minute now, the man will move further onto his own seat, muttering an embarrassed apology.

The metro pulls out of the station. The man doesn’t move. Instead, he appears to lean in closer.

Maybe, I say to myself with increasing desperation, he hasn’t noticed that he is sitting almost in my lap. After all, he is staring into space with a very vacant expression and could well be senile. In which case, this is all perfectly innocent, and nothing I say will make a blind bit of difference anyway.

The man buries his elbow further into my right hip.

Two more métro stops go by as I dither, rehearsing suitable lines in my head.

Sarcastically: “Would you like to sit in my lap?” (Too dangerous. He might well take me up on the offer.)
Politely: “Would you mind sitting on your own seat?”

I opt for a different approach, which involves standing up abruptly at the next stop, pulling my skirt from under his leg sharply, and shooting a disdainful glare over my shoulder as I flounce over to sit on a nearby strapontin.

I breathe a sigh of my relief, but am still not really 100% convinced that Mr Safari Jacket was intentionally doing anything lecherous. I may well have been overreacting.

When I arrive at my destination, I realise that Mr SJ has vanished.

Odd. I don’t remember seeing him get off.

As the metro pulls away, I spy a girl through the window. She is sitting at the far end of the carriage against the wall and is cringing away from a little old man wearing a beige safari jacket.

I feel vindicated, but also rather depressed at having my suspicions confirmed. Clearly it is a waste of time giving anyone the benefit of the doubt these days.

I have a phobia about walking into bars on my own.

The painfully shy teenage girl who lurks somewhere inside, squinting anxiously out at the world through National Health glasses, takes control of my body in situations of stress.

I phoned, still a few minutes away on foot, and checked precisely where he was. That was the first time we heard each other’s voices.

At the entrance to the bar I took a deep, ragged breath and forced my reluctant legs to carry me forward, past clusters of strangers positioned at intervals along the zinc bar. His friends spotted me first, and smiled welcomingly; he was standing with his back to me, but saw the change in his friends’ expressions, and turned. I think I said his name, and mumbled something about how his hair was shorter than on the pictures I had seen. But the first few seconds are all a bit of a blur.

I know now what was going through his mind when he first saw me, but at the time I was blissfully ignorant, and thought I was probably a bit foolish to have attached such an inordinate amount of importance to this meeting.

Later that evening, the fact that there was a knee-weakeningly strong connection between us was acknowledged, but not acted upon. I will remember standing on the corner of the rue Oberkampf for the rest of my life, my whole being in turmoil, struggling desperately to come to a decision. His arms were wrapped around me and I clung on for dear life while a million conflicting thoughts swirled, slightly drunkenly, around in my head. I motioned to a taxi, which drew to a halt on the opposite side of the road, and, even then, I didn’t know whether good sense and morality would prevail, and I would clamber into it on my own, or whether I would give in to the demon perched on my shoulder, whispering in my ear that I should sieze the opportunity. Go back to his hotel, or forever rue the day.

Finally, I broke free and flung myself into the taxi, before I could change my mind. As it pulled away, I looked back in anguish. Would I allow myself to see him again? Would I ever find out how it felt to be kissed by him?

I knew that this meeting could potentially alter the entire course of my life, if only I chose to let it.

Paris is rapidly losing what little hold it still had over me.

I spent most of the return train journey dangerously close to tears. Saying goodbye to my lover after another idyllic weekend is becoming more and more of a wrench, even if I was, simultaneously, looking forward to seeing Tadpole after four days away. To add insult to injury, my ‘reserved’ seat had been double booked, meaning that in the absence of any other vacant seats, I had to spend the entire trip sitting on a fold down strapontin in the area between two carriages. There didn’t appear to be any air conditioning - or any oxygen for that matter - and my attempts to read a book were thwarted by my head dipping forwards at regular intervals as I fought a losing battle to stay awake.

I arrived back in the capital late on Sunday afternoon, at my lowest ebb, and began the interminable journey home to collect Tadpole. The métro was humid, and packed with sticky, scantily clad bodies. The connections involved what seemed like hours of trailing along corridors, heaving my bag up and down flights of stairs, and hurrying down moving walkways, all of which were heated to an uncomfortable temperature - which a Delia recipe would probably refer to as a ’slow’ oven. When I emerged from the exit onto my avenue, drained and dehydrated, I was greeted by the choking fug of car exhaust in the cloying, syrupy air and the familiar wail of sirens which form a permanent soundtrack to this city.

As the lift rose to my floor, I felt for keys in my pocket. They were heavier than usual, weighty with the recent addition of keys to my lover’s home. I closed my eyes and imagined that the lift would obligingly deliver me to his front door, instead of here, where only an empty flat awaited me. Devoid now of Mr Frog’s presence, cleared of all his belongings. Strangely though, it doesn’t feel like it is Mr Frog who is missing. Even though my lover has spent only one day and one night here, he has left behind his imprint, like a watermark, in every room.

As I waited for Tadpole and Mr Frog to arrive, and for the kettle to boil, I slid down the wall until I was seated on the soothing, cool tiles of the kitchen floor. The tears finally came.

If home is where the heart is, I mislaid mine in Rennes.

I abhor Paris in the summertime.

As soon as the temperatures begin to rise, my spirits correspondingly sink into my flip flops. An oppressive mantle of velvety, pollution-filled air descends on the city of light, consenting to recede, for a couple of hours only, shortly before dawn. There is only one thing worse than Paris on heat, and that is Paris on heat experienced from the unique vantage point of chez petite. My apartment, although it is packed full of original features (warped floorboards, fireplaces, a stove, bucolic scenes painted on panels and doors), is located on the fifth floor, beyond the reach of the shade giving trees which line our avenue, and has only south-facing windows.

The highest temperature ever recorded inside the flat was 40°C. This was in Tadpole’s bedroom, when she was a mere three months old, and the time was 11.30 pm. I did not enjoy her first summer one little bit. My not-so-fond memories of the 2003 canicule involve a scantily clad, half-crazed-with-cabin-fever petite sitting in semi-darkness, shutters firmly closed, windows only opened between the hours of 4 am and 9 am, engaged in one of two activities: DVD watching, or breastfeeding.

This week, with temperatures soaring into the lower 30’s, it has been increasingly difficult to get a decent night’s sleep. The conundrum is this: sleep with the windows open, and resign self to being woken up periodically by the clamour of traffic on the busy thoroughfare below (because not only do the windows face south, but also onto the street), or opt for double-glazed peace and quiet, and resign self to slow death by poaching. Possibly with a whirring fan for company, which manages to do little other than stir the sultry air round and round. Noisily.

And just when you thought things couldn’t get any worse, try adding the high pitched whine of an elusive mosquito with a voracious appetite into the mix. I can’t find a plug in mosquito repellent device for love nor money – the local shops helpfully stock only refills for people who didn’t leave their plug in apparatus in a hotel room in Mauritius or a gîte in Morbihan. Petite, nul points, Vampiric invisible mosquito, six points.

And quite how I managed to get bitten there, I will never know.