Blue Dress Hot Mess

Series: The Paris Diaries: 13/02/25-14/02/25

Notes for the confused reader: Gabriel (Gabe) is a dog, not a child. This is a collection of pieces from my notebook, typed up; as such, some is written in real-time, some with the benefit of hindsight. It is fragmentary, but so is my mind. If something says (FA) in brackets, read: French Accent.

I am in love with Paris, and everything it brings. It’s quite nice being in love with something which cannot, literally, ever go away. I pity those who are in love with Venice. I thought yesterday that I agree with Linda in ‘The Pursuit of Love’: that it would be impossible to be truly unhappy here. I think now that I agree with Fabrice; emotions in Paris are heightened. It is as though one walks around with one’s heart and head under a microscope. Nothing is impossible except a state of apathy.

I have been to Carrefour, avoided the drunk man on the pavement, and made friends with the man on the checkout; I have been complemented on my French (probably out of politeness rather than truth), and I have eaten an almond pain au chocolat. I have seen oysters sold in street stalls, and danced in the shower as the sunshine streamed in through the sky light. I have been stopped (again and again) by people in the street – this is what it must be like to be famous – but it’s never for me, it’s always for Gabriel, who seems to have taken his newfound City-Dog identity entirely in his waggly little stride. And I have fallen so hard-and-fast in love with Paris that nothing can stop me now. My desire to run around the city and see it all, all, all, is second only to my desire to live here forever. I feel like I might do something stupid, like walk out of the door in only my knickers just to prove my love. A visible manifestation of me baring my soul. La petite Anglaise; stupide.

It is Valentine’s Day, now. I am about to take myself (and what a hot date I make, full of cake and grinning like a maniac at nothing in particular just simply at being in Paris (FA)) to the cinema. Bridget Jones must be seen, in English or in French. Since I’m in Paris (hadn’t you guessed?), I am going in French. Ding-dong is surely the universal exclamation of women in lust. (If it isn’t, it should be. It is the perfect wordy-version of a ‘fluttering fanny’). Am I foolish to hope some similarly lonesome young Frenchman (FA, therefore pronounced ‘Fronch-mann’) might have chosen this very après-midi for a popcorn-fest of his own? Perhaps I will spill my drink and oo la la just happen to become ‘Folle de lui’. Or perhaps not: when I booked my ticket, only two other seats were taken. I mean, come the f*** on, Fronch-menn, where else would you rather be this jour d’amour?

Paris has a distinctive smell. People talk of dog poo and rubbish bins, but I don’t get that scent. Instead, I stepped off the train at the Gare du Nord yesterday (was it really only yesterday?), and smelt it all over again. Like the very first time. (I was about 10, then, and wore a beret). It does not hit one immediately, nor does it linger long: Paris smells like dry cigarette smoke. And of the dregs at the bottom of a glass of red wine. That is all.

In one’s first few breaths one does not taste it. Then, like burying your face into the shoulder of an old gentleman’s coarse tweed coat (providing, of course, you know this old gentleman well – perhaps he is your grandfather), it hugs you – tightly, squeezes, cigarettes and red wine — and lets you go. It is no longer a stifling hug; it is a memory. And its scent pervades now, everywhere, so that you become immune. A local not a tourist. Part of the smoke. The one behind the cigarette. Until the next time, that is. Until the next time you step off that train in the Gare du Nord and wait, wait for your tweed-wrapped embrace. Eager as a child, certain as a dog sitting patiently for his master.