Paris in the Spring

No we can't take it home as a souvenir.

Seized by the joie de vivre that often grips a writer in the short gap between royalty statement and tax return I decided to grab the Evil Monster Boy and leap upon a Eurostar bound for Paris. Arriving in the evening we booked into a Hotel near the Sorbonne and hunted out supper at the Pre Vert where we did the whole English oh-my-god-didn't-know-food-was-supposed-to-taste-this-way thing under the amused and patronising gaze of the French patrons.

The next day involved walking a tremendously long distance to find that the Eiffel Tower had a queue as long as it was tall and that your supposed to be SILENT inside Notre Dame before selecting another restaurant for even more food. After that we retired to the hotel and slept the sleep of the stuffed.

Before heading for Paris I, as a matter of course, had informed my French publisher J'ai Lu that I'd be popping over on the off chance that wanted me to sign some books, do some paperwork... I dunno. What I wasn't expecting was a day whisked around Paris to be interviewed by 2 flavours of internet TV many bloggers, a really delicious meal on a restaurant on the Seine and a fun signing in Paris's only dedicated Fantasy book shop - Librairie L'Antre-Monde. There I met lots of people who were nice to me despite my inexplicable ability to speak French. 

The next day me and the Evil Monster Boy headed for the Gare du Nord where we bid tearful farewell to the city of light, culture and enormous lunches. We vowed as our train headed into the long culinary darkness that is the Channel Tunnel that we would return with a larger vocabulary.