Paris!

We broke our cardinal rule this morning leaving the comfort of our bed when everything was in single digits, time and temperature.  We were on a mission, we had places to go.

I'm sure if Lars and Britt in the yacht behind us had actually heard Mr P splutter into life, they would have rolled over from their slumber with one half opened eye out of the window and seeing what they thought was fog, returned to their repose without further ado.    In front of our fog machine though, a glorious clear day was beckoning, and through good luck, animal cunning  and the kindness of a large peniche captain who arranged himself in the lock to fit us in, our timing was so perfect that the last lock brought us onto the Seine and central Paris just one hundred and fifty seconds before its lunch-o'clock close.

Half an hour later we were moored in our new home for almost the next month, fifteen boats from the Arsenal Metro Station, close to the heart of Paris.  The monument at the Bastille looms large in our sky.

Our emotions are a little taxed for no reason.  We feel as though we have completed some sort of major journey, when the reality is that we have done no more than having taken a long, comfortable drive through the countryside. 

It matters not, we are here, watching Parisians worshipping the sun and the clear blue sky, watching us watching them.  

Photographing us photographing them.

We are in Paris, but we have brought our home with us.  We don't feel like tourists this time, perhaps that is what we are coming to terms with!