(listen to the podcast ici!)

Bonjour Paris,

I’ve got to keep this brief today – special occasion! It’s raining where I am and I reckon it’s the same where you are. It’s hardly been two days since I left you and I am okay, almost like for the first time, but I have no time to talk about the series of heartbreaks that visited my memory recently. The sneaky tears running behind my super cool diamond-shaped sunglasses while queueing to get to the Eurostar train back to London, and the private ones accompanied by a couple of sneaky cigarettes on the deck past midnight, were pretty soothing.

The annual summer swimming ritual in the Seine was done, courtesy to my best friend and daughter who turned 14 today. Taking her to her first ever festival was a privilege as I watched her face lit up with exploding joy when one of her favourite artists Tyler, the Creator came on stage. The last time I saw this almost identical reaction on her face was when she was six, seeing Elsa from Frozen coming on stage in Disneyland. She moved on from that fairly quickly – thank heaven! Funny, the two occasions were in Paris. Don’t get me wrong, she’s got a pretty good and happy life, despite being my child, but I bet the Paris connection to joy is creeping into her subconscious – I’m hallucinating again!

Where were we? Yes – Rock en Seine! As happy as it made me to see my baby happy, I wasn’t about to let her get away without sampling one of the things that made me happy, so the next evening off we went to a jazz club run by an award-winning Pakistani journalist living in exile in Paris – the DISSIDENT club. I told her this one had not been gentrified and was politically alligned with me – it seemed, anyway, with their pro-Palestinian city and antifa stickers all over the walls. She enjoyed sitting in the front row, sipping her ginger beer and listening to the bluesy trio a meter away from her.

We only stayed a couple of hours until midnight – that girl drinks fast and the club was running out of ginger beer and she was not about to order Coca Cola on my watch, but she told me she enjoyed it, as she always enjoys being in my little worlds, as if to get to know my soul even more even though I have nothing to hide. For me, her being aware of my methods and my madness is actually my carte blanche. Nah, I’ve just decided to be free so I tend to act like it, always.

But enough about her – just kidding, it’s her birthday. No, seriously. The rain has stopped pouring and so has my melancholy in the background of all this. The sun is out and I’m happy to oblige to get ready to have a nice lunch with the birthday girl, my son and my second ex husband  – somewhere nice, hopefully. I have not much more to say, Paris, except that I still have space in my heart for you and see you when I see you – soon, hopefully.

sherborne, le 30 août 2026

je t’embrasse !

do.