A Sunday in Paris

Spring has arrived and the Paris weekend brocante's begin to crop up. Today I'm feeling wistful and wishing I was in Paris. On a Sunday and heading to the local brocante (garage sale/flea market) near the corner of my friend's apartment. This flea market is one I've never been to and in my mind I'm chafing at the bit to go.
I imagine getting in the tiny lift from my friend Anne's fifth floor apartment, taking Zouzou her four year old with me and somehow fitting the stroller in. We make a game counting the lift numbers as we descend then voilà arrive on the ground floor.
Somehow I unwedge the stroller out, make sure Zouzou's wrapped up tight and we head out the hallway doors, to another hall then buzz the door and out into the March cold. I can see the clouds over the Montmartre cemetary, the leaves budding on the trees lining boulevard Saint Ouen, the people hurrying as they always do on Sundays.
..down to Cafe la Rotonde for the newspaper La Dimanche, then down the blocks past the optometrists, the bakery to buy her a pain au chocolat.


Now we've reached rue Ordener cordoned off for the Sunday flea market. If there's any flea market I should have gone to it's this one, in my 'hood' well my friend Anne's hood and where I usually stay.

There's something revealing at a brocante run by locals...you know the history, the past of these people you've passed in the street...or their relatives or how how they loved Crimson or Pink Floyd before they became bank managers.

Or their grandfather's old medals...

Wistfully Cara - Tuesday