These days, the years evolve around 'times' when an annual event occurs, usually to do with a school calendar.
Once one annual ritual has passed we move on to the next. It’s predictable in nature and carried out with military precision; la Rentrée, Toussaint, Noel, vacances d’hiver ( when everyone skips town and heads to snow capped mountains), mi-careme, finally arriving at Paques when church bells go silent from Easter Thursday until Sunday when the bells grow wings and fly back to deliver chocolate eggs to the gardens for French children.
Not so long after the delivery of chocolate, the air starts to fill with the scent of Spring. And, then you start to see it. The streets start to line with removal trucks, doors open, for two days men become little beavers, packing up houses and apartments, filling the truck before moving on. It continues for several weeks as the school year comes closer to an end before finally going silent.
Then it is time to say goodbye, again. I’ve been lucky in that the removal vans have been impacting on other people’s lives for the last four years. My luck ran out this year and it caught me with a wallop. Not one, but three wonderful friends are saying au revoir to French soil. One will return, but two won’t and the company of all three will be missed, greatly.
Knowing that the day was arriving where we’d soon be saying goodbye, I passed a wonderful morning with one of these dear friends, wandering the streets, cameras slung, doing what we both love to do so much, taking photos to add to memories of her time in France. Whilst the friends will be gone, along with me the memories will remain. But it just won’t be the same.
At the same time, GirlsguidetoParis ran a photo competition. Happy to participate with the above photos, it was fun to be included in the 'special mentions' and featured on the GirlsGuidetoParis homepage.
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