APRIL IN PARIS, MY NEW DIGS
I was too busy getting used to my new digs today to write. It will take me a while to settle in in imagination, but in a little over a month you‘ll find me settled in at 15 Rue Yvonne Le Tac in Montmartre, Paris. Unfortunately I’ll be on the fourth floor. But I didn’t pick this Airbnb for the steps, I picked it because it looked like a comfortable place to sit and write each morning before wandering around Paris during the afternoon. I started practicing walking up stairs today to get ready and by the time I actually move in I will have a spring in my step and sail right up.
On the aerial view I‘ve located my new address at 15 Rue Yvonne Le Tac at the magenta circle. Just down the street to the left at the pink dot above the street Rue Des Abbesses in a park is the Metro station from which I will journey all over Paris.
From the Metro station up Rue Ravignan and then left on Rue Garreau is a triangular white building by a park, Hotel Tim, where I will stay two nights waiting for the previous tenants to move out. I‘ve stayed there before a couple of times, once with Kathe and once with Susie so it holds a sentimental attachment.
There is a beautiful little restaurant nearby with a red front where I will have breakfast my first day in Paris. In the upper right corner of the map is the large white Sacre Coeur Basilica with its views over all of Paris. The streets of Montmartre are lined with restaurants of all kinds and beautiful little shops and bakeries and small grocery stores.
My room is modern with high windows and good light. There is a work table that can be moved in front of the window, a pull out sofa that makes into a double bed with a real mattress according to the web site.
There is a small kitchen with microwave and stove and refrigerator and a pleasant but small bathroom. It looks perfect for me. If Susie can come, and she wants to, she will come from the 15th to the 24th of April. I‘ve offered it to my brother, Richard, but he is in the process of selling his house and can‘t come. And I offer it to anyone else who can make it here, a free place in Paris, for which, alas, I don‘t expect any takers. I‘ll be here from March 30 to about May 1st when I will go on to Lincoln, England for two weeks.
BILLYBABA’S WANDERING 