Watching the old lady wake up.

For the two months of summer, Paris is not really Paris.
A holiday truly is a holiday.
Those that dont shut up shop and flee to somewhere coastal, remain with the attitude that they have.
Streets become a bizzarely tranquil collection of shuttered doors, window holiday notices, meandering tourists and half-speed locals smoking and chatting.
Traffic clears.
The sun shines mild, and locals lunch long lazy and languid in the park.
Your favourite bars and restaurants are shut, and night music dwindles.
But the evenings entertainment explodes onto the canals and river, as every waterside stretch becomes a continuous communal bar...
Bring your own.
Play some music.
Picnic.
Dance... and find a new way home.
And then, as the month turns, you feel the atmosphere change as quickly as the weather.
30's become 20's.
The leaves are already on the fall, and the street-sweepers turn seamlessly to their removal.
The shutters leap frog each other to open, and you can feel the angst and energy return to the streets.
The rue you wandered down the middle of yesterday, reclaimed by cars today.
And everywhere the languid, half paced sleepiness of the past 2 months is giving way to a more frenetic pace and mood.
Theres still time in the sun to enjoy, but its more urgent now.
Every fleeting whiff of crisp damp air on the breeze is notice that time is running out. The whole city bustles with it. The tourists burning the last of their time, looking onward to elsewhere and home.
The locals after the holiday, after the summer... in the grasping now as their attention turns to the long months of dark and damp on the rapidly approaching horizon.
The persistent crescendo of horns on the crowding streets, the urgent sound of fading summer.
The old lady is waking up...
and like the rest, my mind is turning to something else.