This darker shade of grey

It’s been a hot couple of months over here, and although people do have other things to talk about (DSK, for example) they do like discussing the weather. And then the night before last, just when I was devoid of adult company after a weekend full of it, we had the most interesting, discussion-worthy weather yet. We had thunder and lightning and driving rain. But when I tried to discuss the intensity of it all this morning with the very unadult Wilf, I found he’d slept through it all. That was definitely the right thing at the time, but I could have done with a debrief over breakfast.

And this morning it’s raining a steadier, less interesting – but nevertheless very welcome – rain. The streets feel different. There are always rivulets of water running along the gutters (the French are serious about cleaning their streets if not about not sullying them in the first place), but to see everything in this darker shade of grey, so wet and so gleaming, is like walking out into another country.

And the rain made it so much easier to get Wilf washed, dressed, fed and out of the flat. He’s not a morning person – that much has already become clear – but today, first thing, it was all go. He had booted up, put his mac on, zipped it up, pulled the hood over his head, and was waiting by the door, all without the usual pushing and prodding from me. He had the look of a boy on holiday.

None of this is to say that it hasn’t all felt rather holidayish in the heat, too. The cafés have been in their element, with more of themselves outside than in, and while I’ve been trying hard to avoid actually sitting down in them (a mixture of budget restrictions and a feeling that I should keep moving), I do like the fact that they exist. And, even more than their existence, I like the fact that they understand that two people sitting in a café would sometimes rather look at the street than at each other. I’ve always liked that – it seems so very, very sensible.