Continuing my Things I Learnt In… series, Paris!

• Supposedly, approximately 600 people go to hospital each year with dog related injuries, not including that old getting bitten excuse. This is why I’m a cat person.
• If you don’t understand something, think about it some more. If you still don’t get it, don’t worry - it’s just French.
• There is one skyscraper in Paris. It boasts both the fastest elevator in Europe, and the best view in Paris - the latter because you can see all of Paris from the top… but not the skyscraper! This skyscraper is also the reason there is only one skyscraper in Paris: they learnt from their mistake.
• There is a coffeeshop in Paris famous for once being the haunt of some famous socialists. Because it’s famous, an espresso there costs €6. I’m not quite sure that that’s what Marx had in mind…
• People in Paris are sociable! Having spent so much time on UK public transport, it was mildly un-nerving to have someone look me in the eye and smile at me on the Metro.
• Everytime I go somewhere new or somewhere I’ve not been for a long time, the travelling bug infects me a little more - next stop, Bruges!

It’s true, you read it here first.

Unlike the rest of my flat, and possibly most of Derby, I actually quite like today’s weather. It is dark and wet and windy and it smells wonderful.

The sky is a solid dark blue - you would think it was cloudless, but the rain is coming down hard enough that 30 seconds in it will soak you to the skin and the wind strong enough that my umbrella was so bent you couldn’t recognise it as an umbrella before I’d even got half way to the library this afternoon.

I love it.

I probably wouldn’t have come in if Taff hadn’t shouted down to me that she had Green & Black’s Maya Gold hot chocolate in the kitchen and would I like some? - but she did, and I’ve probably never moved so fast in my life.