Strumming & Humming in Paris

Our last stop, Paris!

Joining the street performers at The Trocadero was something I had wanted to do since visiting Paris 20 years ago! So it felt very special indeed, humming and strumming whilst gazing down at The Eiffel Tower, negotiating the traffic to stroll under L’arc De Triumph, finding the Cafe Rouge where I did a short set before running at top speed to catch our bus out to the cheaper side of Paris, Clichy, where we were staying. As we ran along rue de la 'something or other' I turned to my left and found

I was walking down the street alongside Paul O’ Grady! He looked beautifully tall and sleek like a Siamese cat. I didn’t speak to him, I felt like it would have been an invasion of his space.

We missed our bus and sat catching our breath on the steps of the Grand Opera House when a black limo and police pulled up. A very important looking woman got out followed by TV cameras. We got up and moved around the side of the Opera House and stood by some railings.

I could hear singing and chanting coming closer, and with that, 100’s of people of all different ages and from all different walks of life, came down the road together with banners, protesting against cruelty to animals. They stopped to do a street performance in the middle of the main road. The front row stopped quite literally in line with me at the break in the barriers. Some teenage girls were in the front and were beckoning me to join them, ‘Vien ici!’ and before I knew it I was in the front line chanting and singing with everyone else! I really got a sense, as in Amsterdam, that people are coming together to make change happen. There is something very powerful indeed about people power.

And so my dream tour concluded with the bundling of everything back into the bus and back to old Blighty. It took me about 2 weeks to settle back into being home. Off course, it always lovely to walk through your own front door, make a cuppa, snuggle into your bed, but there is something equally as soothing in being away from the structures of everyday life, no phone, no internet, just music, travel, writing and song. I can feel in my blood and in my bones that it won’t be long before the next adventure!

There'll be blue birds over .....