Sunday.

This morning, after a fair bit of walking I found a place for my morning coffee and croissant but it was too cold to sit outside. I walked around the area a bit, then came back here before going looking in a different direction for lunch. Most places I passed were only serving Sunday brunch. I.e. coffee, croissant, bread , juice and some sort of egg dish.  I didnot want another croissant nor an egg ,  I wanted meat or fish and veg. Sunday brunch was not a thing in Montpellier. Ah well. I gave up . There may have been somewhere, but I had walked far enough and I did get potatoes and avocado with my egg.. And I did get to sit outside in the almost sun.  The joys of travelling 

In the afternoon I caught the metro in and then walked to the church at  Saint Germain des Pres. I pottered around a bit, then listened to an hour long organ recital. I donot know much about organ music, but the people there seemed to think the organist was good, judging by their enthusiastic clapping.  2 works by Bach and 1 by Buxtehude. I just sat , feeling the music all around me. I read somewhere recently  that we should try to do something each day that ' nourishes our soul' .  I am not sure what my soul is, nor how to nourish it.  But maybe, I thought as I sat there, sitting in a beautiful place that makes me smile with nothing else to do other than listen to music  , that might come close.   After the recital I came back here. I was intending to stop somewhere and have a drink and a nibble or 2, but all the places I passed were too full, so I had rice crackers for dinner. When I am tired, manoeuvring myself into a spare seat in a fairly crowded cafe is too hard.

I have just emailed my travel agent. There will be lots of strikes in Paris tomorrow, May 1st. An article I read said the disruptions to the airports may continue to tuesday. I will be  worried until I get to Frankfurt. So I hope he can get me onto an earlier plane. If that gets cancelled,  I still have some hope of making the connection. 

A few random things. It is funny how the universe works sometimes. Several days ago I saw a sign over a smallish shop saying it was a cordonniere.  I was on the other side of the road , wondered what it did or sold  but did nothing about it. The following day I was ambling along, somewhere else,  saw a cordonniere , crossed  the road, peered into the window and saw that it was a shoe repair shop. Trouble is, the guy inside saw me peering in and beckoned me inside.  I said I was just looking in my very poor French. He  spoke much better English than my french. He asked the usual,  where are you from, I said Australia, he said Sydney or Canberra.  Someone who knew that Canberra was a place in Australia. He had been to Sydney and Alice Springs . He said Australians are very nice people but French people got angry and went on too many strikes. 

I was looking out my window  a few days ago at the slopey roofs with push out windows in them . I could not remember the name.   'hansard' came to mind but I knew it wasn't that. That night I was reading my book , a detective story set in Paris. She described the roof of the apartment over the road using the word mansard. Thats what I was trying to think of.  I am quite likely to be reading a detective story set in Paris  while I am in Paris, but for  me to read the word the next day??