roads of stone

Rain. River. November. On the long-awaited day that Paris came closer to London.

As I step on to the platform under a damp grey sky, there’s a farewell party in full swing around the station.

After thirteen years, the last Eurostar will depart here in a few hours’ time. And in the morning, when the first train arrives at a gleaming new St Pancras across the Thames, Paris will be just two hours and fifteen rail minutes from London.

‘Fog in the Channel – Continent Isolated’. So read the famous newspaper headline of yore. Not any more. This rapprochement is almost complete.
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Ville de lumière
J’ai besoin de toi
Gold - September 1986

The City of Light lies at her knees. It’s eight o’clock on an autumn Friday, and the streets of Paris are grid-locked. Frozen.

Emerging up the ramp and out of the Earth at the Gare du Nord, there’s chaos all around us. Sporadic, half-hearted toots echo from the crossing streets, but it makes no difference.

As a vision of Nicolas Sarkozy’s France, it’s dark and disappointing.

It wasn’t meant to be like this. A family celebration in Burgundy had called us here, and we’d tried to do it properly. Ecologically.

To take the train from London, bundle an exciting metro ride across the city to the Gare de Lyon and board a southbound TGV. To travel serenely, and greenly, across the evening and arrive in Dijon as sharp as mustard.

So much for plans and good intentions.

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A year after her case went public, Petite Anglaise has won her case in Paris.

Fired in April 2006 for her online writing, Catherine Sanderson recounted her story to Colin Randall of The Daily Telegraph. The news appeared three months later and exploded across the internet and the global press soon after.

That story intrigued so many people last summer, leading to an avalanche of traffic to the site. A brief moment of fame, which could have ended right there.

It didn’t. Because those new visitors to Petite’s pages found a human story of her life and loves in Paris, told in a frank and humorous style which enchanted readers and inspired new writers in equal measure.

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Kicking down the cobblestones on a warm and sultry morning, there are just a few marble steps to climb ahead. And already, blue sky is rent by cool bronze metal, still tepid in the hazy sunshine across the river. From here at the Trocadero, the Eiffel Tower stands framed amidst the Champs de Mars. The green baize stretches far into the sun, with only the black morning menace of the Montparnasse Tower revealing the modern face of the golden city beyond.

If a million strands are bound together to make a life, then the thread of Paris runs through much of mine. (more…)