The sun is shining today – well, maybe the word shining is an exaggeration. The sun seems to be out and the sky is more blue than grey. From the window I see that folks in the street below are hurrying around, bundled up. I’m sure in every woman’s handbag there is an umbrella – just in case.

George is upstairs working on his art. Today, I’m going to meet with one of the women from the writers’ workshop I attended. Susan Tiberghien, the author who ran the workshop, emphasized the need for having either a group of writers to meet with periodically or a buddy, without one can regularly work with — reading your work, listening to the other’s work, discussing, helping, critical thought exchanged. Though she lives in Geneva, she has a friend who comes from Italy once a month for that purpose.

Yesterday was the one week mark since we left Boston and since then, it has been icy cold there, with more snow expected today. I feel as though we are in the Caribbean in comparison!

Yesterday we ventured back to Le Bon Marché to buy the bedspread on sale we had seen a couple of days ago. The store was full of shoppers but there was a marked difference in the atmosphere. Nearing the end of the sale period, there were fewer of the great bargains to be had, though there were still a few. On the 3rd floor, we bought the bedspread, and then rummaged through sale items concentrated in one area – housewares, furniture, stationary, and an assortment of various odds and ends none of which we needed.

Le Bon Marche, the store itself, deserves a few descriptive lines, but my prose failed to convey its elegance and so I deleted those lines before posting this. The shoppers? They, too, have a certain air and elegance which is hard to describe. — an elegance, which even on a cold blistering winter, rainy grey day is impressive. You’ll have to come see for yourselves!

Later in the afternoon I headed for Café Malonga in the 6th.
For a meeting with one of the women from the workshop. She lives in Paris for this year with her daughter who is studying here. You can find her at her website and blog:

http://www.simmerandsips.com Enjoy!