June

Church bells raining over the neighbourhood. You really never need a watch or clock in Paris, there are always bells pealing or tolling, or a face to consult by leaning out the window in the morning (on the Town Tall, for instance). If you want to know the time, that is.

June is the busiest month? The square has been busy for three weeks now: a succession of events, from the mathematical games show, which drew a large crowd of kids and parents, to the Poetry Festival, to the (now) antique show, really just brocante. Once we bought back from a neighbour in the country, the sleigh bed my parents-in-law had given away. Another time, when I came home with a china lavatory basin and pitcher, my father-in-law turned to my mother-in-law and said one should never give anything away. We still have that; the sleigh bed got sold when we moved into the city.

It must be the last week of school for primary; the older kids are out for their baccalaureate exams. Soon everyone will disappear to the country or day camps and only tourists will remain. Yesterday, the newspaper says, a first mass was celebrated in Notre Dame, very small, priests in hard hats. My husband, who went to a concert at the Centre Pompidou last night, says that the quaies were absolutely packed with people picnicking when he walked home at close to midnight.

The weather iffy: sometimes sun, sometimes a downpour. I don’t go out without an umbrella.