Tahiti

As my only and very right commenter put it, yes, I'm off to Krakow this weekend to sing for my band's final gig - my friend S's brother's wedding. So my journeys are not at an end just yet. In fact it'll be followed rather closely by a trip to the States for yet another wedding in Boston in mid-October then hopefully the last trip of the year will be to London for, yes, another wedding.

It seems to be all change at the moment. I have one friend getting promoted to the dizzy heights of business in Hong Kong, another leaving Dubai for Hanoi, another getting knocked up with twins no less, and yet others getting married left right and centre. With childish moans I'm crouched in the corner whining "when is it my turn?"

Paris is lurching back to life after the August population penury, which I have to say I always love. We missed most of it because we were busy cleaning up and decorating the tower in Chablis, but I caught the last week and it was so nice to not have to share your metro seat with a flabby thigh or laptop corner. People occasionally half-smiled at each other instead of the grumpy, "come near me and I'll bite you" looks that are usually so generously shared among Parisien metro-users. But now we're all back and even grumpier than ever because we're no longer on holiday and it's a good eight weeks before the toussaint holiday on November 1st.

One rather spritely metro driver came on the PA the other day while I was on the line 13 at 8am and said "Right ladies and gentlemen, we're off again, next stop, Tahiti. Not really, but you can always dream...". It wasn't particularly funny, but I smiled up at whoever was there and I swear no-one else even blinked an eyelid. If he had said that in any other place on earth I'm sure people would at least have smiled, but in Paris we're so engrossed in not socialising that I think sometimes we forget to live.

Anyway, the train didn't end up in Tahiti or anywhere remotely similar. It regurgitated me in Clichy which is somewhat less enthralling, but at least I didn't get sunburnt.