03/04/23 10:32

Back in Gregg’s on a Monday.  Although it’s Graine D’artiste in the 20^th.  I have fruit rouges tea and a pain au Suisse.  A total change from my regular petit dejeuner.  I think I went different as a celebratory breakfast for finishing the Paris marathon yesterday.  My time was 4:58:25 coming in 45, 618^th out of 50,800 entrants.  Last year was 4:47:55, coming 28,957^th out of 34,365 people.  11 minutes slower this year, however, I feel like I was vastly under-prepared in comparison.  This year, I had hardly any training after my 13-mile run at the beginning of March, less sleep, an altered pre-diabetic adjusted diet and because of the dreary mornings, a lack of actual moving.  The ups and downs of the Seine didn’t help my legs and my trainers honestly weren’t supportive enough.  The grip on the sole where I strike exceptionally heavily has already gone.  And that’s with only a month of running.  Still, the Instagram Live videos seem to have gone down okay, which I’m pleased about.  It allowed me to not only focus away from the pain, not only letting my mum know I was okay, but it also showed that I need to research so much more of Paris – touristic and residential.  In short, more reasons to come back here.  Such a shame.

Sitting here with my tea, I’m wondering if a boulangerie is different to a café, whereby I could simply get more hot water.  I’m not about to ask, but it’s something to enquire about at a later stage.  A similar question – one I suspect I will ask Oliver at a time much in the future – is whether expats get used to, or in fact, use the French keyboard layout.  I do it when I’m on Duolingo or if my phone accidentally slips into French keyboard layout mode.  I’m nowhere near as fast as I should be but having autocorrect certainly helps. We had dinner last night and the previous evening at a restaurant called Chez Papa.  At Dad’s is pretty much a spot-on name.  The food was so hearty, with a not quite traditionally Parisian touristic menu.  We discovered it by accident.   We came out of the Metro and entered the first restaurant we saw.  Neither of us particularly liked the feel of the place so we turned on our heels and headed out.  At the next corner, I decided to do what I used to do in Paris and take the road less travelled.  Which was pretty deserted, aside from an illuminated launderette.  In the distance at the next crossroads was the lighted beacon of Chez Papa.  And it was there that we dined like royalty.  Or republicans.