How many shades of gray are there? When I look up to the winter sky in Paris I can think of many: pewter, pearl, slate, stone, dove. You get the picture. When I first moved here I was disheartened by the long, unbroken stretches of gray days that befall Parisians during the winter season.  This is, after all, northern Europe.  I missed (and still do) those invigoratingly cold but sunny days in Canada where temperatures drop below zero, but the sky is magnificent, blue and cloudless. Not so here. Just endless gray and cold, but not freezing days.  No ice. No snow. No drama. Just dull, boring gray.

That’s what it’s like today. I’m stretched out on my chaise longue, huddled under a blanket, a mug of creamy coffee at my side. I’m going to save my pennies, I’ve decided, and try to go to Barbados at the end of this year. The last time I was there was in the 1990s with my parents. Barbados isn’t cheap, and flying there from Europe is costly. My sister has the timeshare there, inherited from our parents who purchased weeks 51 and 52 way back in the late 1980s. But she has not once invited me to stay there.

The beginning of January is like a bottle of fizzy Perrier gone flat. All the sparkle and effervescence of December gone, we start a new year in a shroud of gray and uncertainty. Will Brexit go through? Will Trump be quelled? Will the gilets jaunes prevail? Will world poverty be eradicated?

Back to Barbados, and because I haven’t much else to report right now, here’s a popular blog post I put up in March of this year –

https://julietinparis.net/2018/03/15/the-north-point-surf-resort-abandoned-hotel-in-barbados/