It’s been a busy week. First easter. Then a friend from Sydney popped in for 3 nights, then the following day Michelle’s father and his friend arrived for 10 days… we’re 2 days into the visit, it’s 18h45 and everyone is exhausted. Anything horizontal that isn’t the floor has been occupied (hence I’m sitting up at the computer) – my feet are ready to drop off.

It’s been a balmy 27 degrees today, following a week of mid 20’s and the forecast continues to look good. We’ve been doing a mad scratch pulling out summer gear and stashing winter coats but there’s always that niggling fear that it isn’t going to last, but we certainly have been enjoying it so far.

Today we started with an exhibition on the Treasures of Uzbekistan. A 3 day exhibition with local artists, tour operators and government representatives it was held not far from us and Maddy & I stumbled upon a flyer the other day. Would you believe the event was sponsored by Thales, Michelle’s company, who is also organising our trip to Uzbekistan in September and they didn’t even think of letting us know? How’s that for organisation.

We then wandered up the Rue Montmartre, rue des Martyres, passed Pigalle and the Moulin Rouge, rue Lepic and up to the Sacre Coeur where we stopped to visit in the shade of the marble before eating a lovely salad for lunch near the Place du Tertre. The descent was less dramatic. We stopped at au Soleil de la Butte for a pitcher of rose in the sun chez Ahmed, took a short wander around the markets near Chateau Rouge where you would be forgiven for thinking we were in Morocco, then headed straight down rue Poissonerie to our own rue Montorgueil where we did our groceries for a antipasto followed by carpaccio de beauf for dinner tonight.

as I said, my feet are killing me…