A lovely woman we sat for in Paris in April (in the 3rd arrondissement!) asked us if we wanted to come back for a month in Sept/Oct. We had been looking to book our annual trip north, but until this came along we really didn't have a destination, so we almost took her hand off at the wrist at the chance to return. Lovely dog called Willie (though he's enormous and somewhat terrifying to look at). We also call him "Hey get off my foot" and more commonly, "Moses" as he parts people like Moses parted oceans. We really miss the Moses Service if we're out walking without him.

The month in Paris flew by, though it is a constant bugbear that young people are taking up smoking like their lives depend upon it (instead of the other way around) - it is getting worse not better. I'm sure the air quality index in Paris would improve if almost everyone quit their foul and polluting habit overnight. Be that as it may, it is still our 'first equal with Sydney' favourite city in the world.

Every visit to Paris serves up something new, depending on the season and where we are staying and of course our companion du jour from the animal kingdom. The 5 months since we left Paris has seen Willie slow down - in a good way. He was more than happy with a 30 to 40 minute stroll in the morning (when we picked up our baguette for lunch) and perhaps an 'around the block' jaunt in the early evening. We trotted to the butcher once a week to buy him fresh pork and he was eternally grateful that he wasn't on the dry food diet this time. It was our pleasure as he was such an easy critter to look after. We also discovered that the butchery / boucherie was also a gourmet food shop with excellent pre-made pizza - win win.

This time around Paris was definitely more finished. When we left in April it was 3 months til the 2024 Olympics and everything was getting renovated - roads, footpaths, fountains, buildings - everything. This time we got to see the freshly finished and renewed Fountain of Innocents - which has been invisible for a long, long while We also visited a great many 'new to us' areas as it was garage sale / vide grenier season. This meant my bargain hunting came to the fore - there is either magpie or pirate in my DNA. There is obviously nothing to stop us visiting new areas, near or far from the apartment - but these days I need a kick and a destination to launch me into doing it - and that kick is treasure hunting. We were new to the term 'vide grenier' and tripped over it when googling markets for our first weekend in the city. It translates to Empty the Attic - and they are generally held by individual communities twice a year in Spring and Autumn. So people take their unwanted stuff to the street, set up a table and swap stuff with neighbours essentially, ideally for some cash too - And of course the rest of Paris can come to the neighbourhood and shop! We thus found our first vide grenier at Place Montholon on a chilly September morning and really enjoyed the community atmosphere - lots of tables, lots of families, no commercial sellers and also music and food stalls on offer. I found a couple of silver rings which will be souvenirs of Paris for evermore. One was a complete fluke - we didn't get there until 9.30 am / 10 am which is quite late in the morning for these community garage sales, even though it's an all day affair. A seller had also arrived late and just put the ring in question out with a bunch of junk jewellery. Happy days. James sighed - he knew there'd be a lot of weekend vide-grenier hunting now that I had a taste of treasure.

And my oh my… the treasure that was found during the course of the stay. We visited our all time favourite vintage shop which happens to be in our 'hood and we walk past it every day. We bought 3 or 4 jackets here back in April and now, oddly, the owner is quite a friend. James brought a black leather jacket with him on this trip but had a hankering for a brown leather jacket - which we found here for €20 on our second visit. It's not as though we need any more haunts in Paris, but there was a rack outside a vintage shop near the apartment full of hand knitted, vintage, Aran cable jumpers for €5. We pounced and had a good look at the sweaters and found the main reason for the price tag was coffee marks and a couple of mending jobs. I bought one, James two and we carted them up to the apartment for some focussed attention with Woolite. They all washed up brilliantly, 100% clean and we absolutely adore people who spill stuff down their €150 brand new jumpers then throw them out… Happy to spend 15 minutes handwashing and now have 3 amazing souvenirs of Ireland - we well know that an extra layer of merino wool is just the thing for Ireland. But that's enough about actual vintage shops. Back to the Vide Grenier treasure...

Every Thursday or Friday we'd take a look at Sortira Paris website (Going out in Paris) and see where the markets will be - sometimes close - just a 15 minute stroll from the apartment, sometimes 6-7 kms away - that one was a metro outing. Sometimes we'd spend half a day at one market. Sometimes visit three in one morning. Undoubtedly the very best vide greniers were the community centred ones with no commercial/brocante sellers. The only downside is that I'll never be able to pay full price for anything again (barring a Euromillions win coming along). I made several additions to my costume brooch collection, some silver earrings, a pair of amber earrings (big money €10!) and one day, feeling the occasional chill, a stunning cashmere sweater from Zadig & Voltaire. It was perfect and again quite big money for a vide (€10) but it was only when I got it home and looked it up that I realised these things retail for at least €345 - me? I just adore cashmere, knew it was a good brand and am allergic to paying full price for anything (and anything that's not a natural fibre).

Sometimes treasure is not just a pair or two of silver earrings, a designer jumper or a stylish vintage brooch - sometimes it's actually treasure. I was looking through a pleather cosmetic bag from a fancy spa. It was in a large cardboard box of kids toys under a stall table. Inside the pleather bag I saw a little Murano glass and metal trinket/pill box. It was sweet and a keeper and destined to join my collection of little boxes and bottles. There was also a bunch of tangled up costume jewellery, plastic kids bangles, things hung on string all knotted together in a big pile - I was obviously taking up space as I was trying to untangle one little pendant in particular - so they sold the whole bag for €1. Which was an excellent price for a small Murano trinket box. We slung it in our shopping bag and pottered onwards. Late in the day, once back at the apartment, I returned to the task of untangling the Gordian knot of junk and found, amongst the wool and string and plastic and general rubbish, a small 18K yellow gold pendant (the piece I was investigating), an Italian branded Pomellato 18K white gold pendant and a small 18K white gold and multiple small diamonds pendant on an 18K gold chain. It is probably the best treasure hunt I have ever been on. Absolutely ruined me for all future treasure hunting. Funnily enough, the following weekend I was flipping through a rack of junk jewellery bits and pieces when the stallholders had a laugh and said "Ahhh - you're in the right section, that's where we keep the gold and diamonds." Keep laughing Chuckle-heads - I just said stranger things have happened…

The following day dawned grey and cool. There were a couple of community sales on the far side of the canal and we trundled over to visit the area for the first time - relatively close to home. It was slightly drizzly when we left home but we couldn't be bothered popping back upstairs for brollies - so kept going and the rain was well set in before we finished at the first market - we really felt for the stall holders as the previous day had been brilliant blue sky and sun all day. We've had our own stalls at car boots in the past and rain is just the worst thing on a market day - getting everything wet or damaged is no picnic. Aside from anything else, almost no customers, no one was selling anything and after we spent our €4 odd in coins, no one could change a €20… ended up visiting a bakery, thankfully open on a Sunday morning, and bought an artisanal baguette for lunch. Cashed up, I was happy to buy a little amber bracelet and a silver ring. The purchase of the day however was the first thing we bought with the few coins we started out with - a cameo brooch that was in the drawer of a old ballet dancer jewellery box. There were other bits and bobs of jewellery in the top, nothing interesting, but, being incapable of leaving a stone unturned or a drawer unopened, I took a look. I have a small but growing collection of cameo jewellery and this one was a bit grubby but a nice size and I figured it was probably gold plated - so much jewellery in France is plated. The cameo was definitely carved from shell so a bit of work was in that alone. I asked the man who asked the woman and the brooch was €2. We didn't think much more of it and tucked it in a pocket to rattle around with other bits and pieces for the rest of the morning (really need to take small, individual bags with me - but don't want to jinx my treasure hunting with expectation). The second market was even further beyond the canal and a good chance to see another area. After a good 3 or 4 hours of exploring in the rain, we trundled home with our Artisanal baguette and pulled our little pile of treasures out of the zipped pocket and onto the dining table. It was a good time to learn how to clean a cameo - but only after I had a much, much closer look at it. It felt, looked and smelled like gold and as it turned out was hallmarked 18K and French. French marks are famously tiny - having found the marks however and oriented them in the right direction, it didn't take too long to decipher them. Not old, based on the style of the carving - perhaps 1950s or later - but still, a stunning addition to my collection.

We have always had the Marie Curie Museum on our 'to do' list in Paris. It is one of several museums run by the City of Paris and we've been to the others but who knows, the Left Bank has always been a bit far, we've been a bit busy, whatever. This time we made a point of visiting and it was utterly fascinating. As museums go, small, but perfectly formed. This is a family with 5 Nobel Prizes amongst them. That's 6 more than we're ever likely to get! Incredible that she discovered Radium, worked on its uses to treat cancer amongst other things and essentially saved the world from itself. Until Marie came along… there was, quite literally, no treatment. It is hard to believe now, but the good of the treatment was such a WOW! of its time, that people believed using Radium for skin cream, to infuse in water and drink and in every part of life - must also be a good thing. Even worse for all the (mainly) women who died as a result of painting radium onto the faces of watches and watch hands to make them glow in the dark. The past is certainly a different country. We very much enjoyed this visit.
Whenever we happen to be on the Left Bank and meandering home, we inevitably walk through the Luxembourg gardens. One particular Sunday, returning from a garage sale, it was so busy it felt like everyone in Paris was in this one spot. The parks and gardens of Paris are many and varied - some tiny, secluded and just for us and some huge. If the weather is even approaching fine, we'll take ham and cheese with us and possibly a thermos of coffee and pick up a baguette along the way - then pick a park for lunch. Even the Tuileries with gazillions of tourists can be a peaceful place to put our feet up, enjoy lunch, bask in the sun and listen to the tinkling droplets splashing from a fountain.

This is the first time we've had the chance to visit Paris twice in a year - best part of 2 months in total and we count our lucky stars on a regular basis. We enjoyed our usual haunts - the covered passages, the fresh markets, the vintage stores and museums. We visited an exhibition at the School of Jewellery and hope to be back in Paris for the Pearl exhibition in 2025. We also hoofed it to the Eiffel Tower and discovered the Isle of Barges on the walk back - a new spot for us, but one we will definitely revisit. Another day we made it up to the Arc de Triomphe and back along the Champs Elyssees with a park picnic (park-nic?) along the way. We always walk along Rue de Rivoli and through the Louvre Museum grounds. We bought loads of gourmet frozen food at Picard and some excellent north African eats from a stall we've been supporting since 2019. So reguarly that one of the stall holders not only knows us, but knows our favourite dish. It's a funny old city - just when we think what is there left to see - there's something new. We are travelling on a budget - heaven help Paris when the eventual massive lotto windfall arrives - there'll be just so much more to do with a massive pile of dosh.

We have the possibility of coming back once more in April/May 2025 - but that is a while away and by no means certain. It seemed like the month just whizzed by and it was packing up day in no time - with of course all the extra bits and pieces we've picked up along the way. We have essentially given up on the grief of economy class and luggage limits and now use our assorted airline points programmes to get us from A to B in relative comfort along with whatever bags we happen to be lugging. Due to the new jacket and three new bulky jumpers, we did what we always do in Paris and bought a spare fold up bag. Having the space and the extra weight available, we also bought some booze and piled it into the bag - safely wrapped in 'new to us' jumpers of course. Ireland's minimum unit pricing on alcohol adds to the costs of a simple bottle of wine horrendously. So the business class strategy saw us flying on Air France direct from Paris to Dublin on 20 October. Impressively, the day before we left, 3 peple told us about the Atlantic storm about to hit Ireland and wished us well. Fortunately (though it didn't seem that way at the time), the only points flight available when we booked was at 7 am. Which meant getting up at silly-o-clock and checking in the moment they opened the counter at 5.30 am - to allow time for a cooked breakfast and champagne in the lounge of course. And a hot shower with Clarins toiletries - lush. The day before we left I'd taken another look at flights and there was one available but an hour later and via the UK. The thought made us shiver and it's lucky we weren't silly enough to take it for a saving on taxes as we wouldn't have gotten in to Dublin Airport later in the day due to the wild storm - and could have been stuck in the UK - or diverted to Shannon as many flights were. "Go Early. Get There." would be a good slogan for flying to Ireland in winter.