After 36 long hours and two transfers in Singapore and London we arrived to a heatwave in Paris. We’d rented a traditional old Haussman apartment in Montmartre with lofty ceilings and full length French windows overlooking an avenue of cobbled streets and Plane trees which rustled softly in the breeze. Despite being only a 10 minute walk from Sacre Coeur and the bustling Place du Tertre our street was quiet and mostly full of locals rather than tourists and we quickly fell into the rhythm of life in Paris enjoying coffee and aperitifs at the local cafes and finding the Metro a brilliant way of getting around despite our rather amateurish French. Contrary to popular opinion the locals were friendly and helpful and not at all arrogant!

We had a couple of days to do our own thing before our youngest son joined us from London, our first reunion since he moved there nearly a year ago. We were genuinely impressed with a digital immersive Van Gogh exhibition at the Atelier de Lumieres, an old foundry built in 1835 and converted to a large digital media space in 2014 where we saw his paintings projected onto the vast walls and set to fabulous music both classical and modern and featuring the significant periods of his life and works. Highly recommended even to non art lovers.

We continued onto lunch (which is always a good idea in Paris) and thanks to a colleague of the MOTH who lived in Paris for a couple of years we enjoyed a tapas style lunch in a tiny bistro near St Germain. Little tastes of delicious morsels beautifully presented and washed down with chilled rosé. Suitably refreshed we hit the streets keeping to the thin line of shade provided by the buildings as the temperature rose into the 30s. Not the best sightseeing weather but plenty of reasons to stop at quaint pavement cafés and watch the world go by which is my very favourite thing to do! I had never been to the Galleries Lafayette and with another recommendation to try the jamon from black pigs raised on walnuts available in the food hall there the MOTH actually agreed to venture to a shopping centre with me! Not that you could classify it in the same genre as Westfield as it is an amazing building, more like an opera house than a shopping centre!

The next day heralded the arrival of Tom and we were so excited to see him after all this time. It was as if he had only gone yesterday as we chatted about all things old and new and wandered up to the Place du Tertre for some lunch. He loved the bustling square and all the quaint alleyways as much as we did and as everyone was trying to avoid the heat we all fought for seats in the shade and all drinks had a compulsory side serve of ice! The temperature was only in the mid 30’s but Paris is just not set up for the heat – no aircon or ceiling fans and we were just lucky to have the beautiful full length shutters on the outside of our windows which we opened and shut according to the time of the day to try and keep things as cool as possible.

The boys found a lovely spot for our evening aperitif, outside in the shade but looking straight through and down a steep street towards the golden orb of L’Opera. A slight breeze blew through and that, together with our cold drinks, kept us contented as we people watched and generally immersed ourselves into the local life.

We decided that as it was way too hot to walk around that we would use the metro and booked ourselves onto a hop on hop off boat tour on The Seine that we thought sounded like a cool option on a warm day. Sadly there was only room for about a dozen people at the back of the boat outside and the rest of us were forced indoors under the glass roof which acted like a greenhouse and rendered us all a sweaty mass of humanity. We hopped off to see how Notre Dame had coped with her big fire and was quite pleasantly surprised to see she was still in good shape despite the devastating interior damage. Things could certainly have been much worse and many millions of dollars have already been donated to return her to her former glory.

Nearby we paid a visit to the fabulous Shakespeare and Company bookshop. I had first visited here with my daughter in 2004 when she spent 4 months in Paris as a 16 year old and as it was winter she often spent hours at a time here curled up on an old velvet sofa reading one of the many tomes and staying warm. It is the bookshop of bookshops for it’s character and charm alone. I found Tom tucked away in a little nook enjoying one of the thousands of titles that are on offer to read.

Then on to a wonderful restaurant in St Germain ‘Le Relais D’Entrecote’ where the choices are steak or steak and the supply of golden fries is unending. Reservations are not accepted and the line to be seated is often unending too unless you go early. We were very lucky to score the last table inside in the (struggling) aircon and proceeded to spend a wonderful hour or so enjoying this well loved restaurant with its successful formula. Steak cooked medium or rare with their special sauce, preceded by a simple salad with walnuts and a buttermilk dressing and served with the crispiest chips and a bottle of their own bottled house wine from Bordeaux. Heaven!!

Over the next couple of days we explored our local area, ate in some amazing little places and enjoyed Sacre Coeur on a Sunday morning with all the bells pealing and with never ending views across Paris and we felt so very happy to be here in this beautiful city enjoying each others company.

We ate frogs legs and fresh creamy burrata washed down with gallons of cold rosé, breakfasts of buttery fresh croissants and milky coffee, the boys zipped around on electric scooters and we stayed up late with hundreds of other people trying to avoid the heat and generally enjoyed our time together. Paris is always good no matter what the weather and it will forever hold a special place in my heart.