On the merry-go-round

One of the things that strikes us as being typical of the French lifestyle, is that people seem not to walk without the company of at least one dog, usually well behaved, and in the event that there are no dogs to be had, then grandchildren of seemingly equally well behaved disposition seem to suffice.

We have confessed on these very pages on previous occasions, to having borrowed a dog perhaps more than once in order to feel more entirely at home.   Having not had a suitable dog come our way of late, other measures have been taken, and so it is that by the time we would normally not be contemplating rising from our warm and cosy berth tomorrow, we will have in our possession, not one but two real live grandchildren fully equipped with jet lagged parents ready to take care of the tasks that grandparents have neither duty nor disposition to undertake.

To that end, amid a slowly building crescendo of excitement and stress, we, or at least the one who is the far more industrious of the two, spent all of this morning scrubbing, washing and finding lint in odd corners of things, generally to be ready for "them", while the other found a dark corner of the harbour in which to hide and conduct an impromptu masterclass in rope splicing and knot tying.    

Paris meanwhile seemed not to notice our own little fuss, and continued to turn up the wick on the temperature, and the party that has pervaded the place since the sun came out.   Cheryl and Ian dropped in from Toowoomba at the moment the cleaning was finished,  and promptly marched us off to do some sensible walking and eating and thanks to Toby and Jan's half-used day tickets on the waterbus, some sight seeing too.

Tomorrow we will be off the swing, and well and truly on the merry-go-round.