13 March, 2016 (Paris) Part 1

This is Day 3.5 officially, although it feels more like Day 2. I've spent the last 24 hours laid up with the rotten onset of a head cold.

Now before you judge me for being a big sook about it (a head cold for chrissakes? In Paris - really? That's all you've got to complain about?) I should clarify by letting you know that I never really get these things. Not the weak-limbed-can't-think-can't-walk-swollen-glanded variety anyway. I usually get a bit scratchy in the back of the throat, pop a couple of paracetamols and bid farewell to the lurgy in six-ish hours as if it were a slightly annoying but nonetheless swiftly passing low-pressure system.  

But not this time. This time I'm sick. Batton-down-the-hatches-we're-in-for-a-rough-one-boys sick. In Paris. On my first real holiday in nine years. 

"Ah, hah!" I hear you shrieking (maybe only mumbling, but my ears are pretty clogged so I'm being optimistic). "Well that'd be why then!"

Yes, yes. Thank you. That would be why. 

In fact, I've fibbed a little. My husband and I took our honeymoon to Daylesford (in country Victoria) seven years ago. I was frantically trying to start a new business at the time (after 18 months non-stop of the craziest amount of work I'd ever done, plus just a - you know - minor wedding chaser, because I thought that would be a smart and relaxing thing to do), and the moment I hit the B&B, I collapsed into a pathetic heap of allergy and infection without skipping a beat. I was not only mentally completely ill-equipped to rest (all I could think about was my bloody business plan and how to win over difficult-to-secure suppliers), but I was physically a complete and utter mess. The honeymoon-schmoneymoon was cut short: from seven days to five. I got home to the welcoming clutches of my laptop and the incessant rumbling of Melbourne's city trams, and breathed a massive, if somewhat halting, wheezy sigh of relief. 

So, no. In case you hadn't guessed: holidays - I'm not great at them. I'm a crazy workaholic 99.9% of the time - the remaining 0.1% I'm a pile of helpless, unrecognisable bleuch. 

And this bleuch is currently holed up in a quaint little pied à terre (okay, okay an Airbnb) in Montmartre, trying desperately to ignore the left behind to-do list that isn't getting any shorter, and the mournful whimpers coming from the direction of my inbox. 

I'm trying so hard to just rest. Read. Write. Eat.

Oh, also the Palais de Tokyo. There's that.

[ More soon. ]