There comes a point in every single girl’s life when it seems like every other bugger on the planet is getting married and having children.  Personally, I was entirely unprepared for all the ways in which the changes in my friends’ lives would change my own, an example of which was how I chose to celebrate my birthday this year.  In order to avoid the inevitability of my being the awkward odd number at my own birthday celebrations, I chose to run away to Paris with my mother for the weekend.  And what an excellent decision that was.

November in Paris is gorgeous.  Skies transform rapidly from clear blue to angry grey, trees vary from bare and spindly to golden and luxurious, and the temperature is just right for wandering around wearing cosy winter clothes without needing to strip each time you reach a restaurant or shop.  I suppose all of these things are true of November in London, too, but – you know – it’s PARIS, so it’s more gorgeouser than London.  (Note: I realise that’s not a word, and I don’t care.)

Of course, it wouldn’t be my blog without a good smattering of photographs of delicious food.  And booze.

Birthday lunch:

Birthday dinner (a…..MAZING):

Oops, we accidentally had to kill time before getting the Eurostar back to London:

So aside from eat, what did we do?  In a Parisian nutshell, we walked a LOT, we looked around the beautiful Panthéon and its crypt, we failed to find the Catacombs, we bought beautiful scarves from a fabulously chic Parisienne in the Latin Quarter, we walked along Rive Gauche, we stumbled upon a stunning foodie shop, we walked a bit more, we avoided the rain by spending two hours on a tourist bus, we took surprisingly good photographs of the stunning sights from the bus, we accidentally went into the Gents’ loos in Ladurée, we lost a Remembrance poppy, we shopped on Champs-Élysées, we stayed in a lovely little boutique hotel in a fairly grotty area near Gare du Nord, we (actually, I) resurrected a few bits of my A-Level French and we came home with very sore soles and very happy souls.