Chapter 3 Happy Highways

So it appears you can revisit “happy highways” when you’re sober and alone. Even a full night’s sleep is not necessary, as after dancing all night, all I manage is an hour in the early morning sunshine on the banks of the canal.

I buy bread from our favourite Boulanger, the one on the left as you face east on Boulevard de Magenta. I eat it as I walk up Rue de Lancry, crossing the Canal du Saint Martin, scarcely believing that we used to send little 7 year old Jessica all this way to buy bread. At the bar L’Apostrophe (was it called that then?) I turn left into Rue du Hôpital Saint Louis, noting that a rank of Parisian Boris bikes now sits outside the front door to our former apartment block where Sam uttered his first word: “Non!”. As I reach the Canal again I turn right onto Quai de Jemmaps passing, on the corner, the École Maternal that Maxime and Tegan attended. I remember fondly a school trip I took with them on which Max discovered her liking of Pont L’Eveque cheese and Tegs sang about Un Souris sur un Tapis Gris.

As I reach the bridge I note that we haven’t done as much as we might have to eradicate poverty. In the 20 years since I was last here, tents and other make do homeless shelters have sprung up in the corners of the Quays. I turn left crossing the bridge and head up Rue Eugene Varlin and the Ecole Élémentaire (I’m sure it was Primaire in those days) where Jessica learnt her French in the tough three months that she was there. I double back and head down Quai de Valmy turning left into Jardin Villemin. It is bigger than I remember and there are people on the grass. I’m sure that wasn’t allowed back then, when “Pas dans le Pelouse” signs seemed to be on every patch of green. I pass through the playground clocking the modern equivalent of the little slide that Sam used to ride his trike down while the “très prop” French parents would remark: “lll est costaud cette petit mec!”. Who knew then that he would return to France 12 years later as a second row forward only to find out that the French have uncontested scrums till the age of 16. The air of the park has changed. While the parents are now much more scruffy the playground now sports a colorful safety surface rather than the sand of our day.

I leave the park and the memories of my young family through a gate I don’t remember that opens directly opposite Gare de l’Est. I make my way past the station up towards Gare du Nord which I pass on the eastern side side along Rue du Faubourg Saint Denis. I have no memory of this being an area whose shops and restaurants have a strong connection with the Indian sub continent. As I reach what New Yorkers would call a highline I turn left onto Boulevard de la Chapelle following the metro till it disappears underground. For me there is a strong commonality between Paris and New York in that at their core they seem much more homogenised, more urban in a way, than London. Perhaps it’s because they are geographically bounded; Manhattan by the East and Hudson rivers and the 20 arrondissements of Paris by the Périphérique Intérieure.

As I keep heading west the atmosphere becomes slightly edgy as I pass sellers of counterfeit cigarettes and mobile phones of dubious origin. It calms again and I duck into a Chinese restaurant for a beer and some noodles. Refreshed I head north to the Sacré Cour. I pass by the swarms of tourists quickly but I still manage a couple of snaps on my phone. I head to Place du Tertre for one final memory. It must be nearly 50 years ago now that i was here with my parents, my mother passionately recounting the tales of the artists that lived here at the start of the 20th century. How poor were Van Gogh, Toulouse-Lautrec and the others and how much their art sold for in the early 70’s, never mind now.

With my trip down memory lane complete I must find Cid and Molly and gather together our stuff (to be fair this is mostly Molly’s stuff but that’s a whole other story!). Molly and I must then head south to Melun to rejoin Dot (the car) and Sylvain (a whole other story too!) before our onward journey south on Monday morning.

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