Packing Up and Moving On

We have only one more week in Paris this spring.  At the end of the month we leave this apartment and begin a three week odyssey around Italy, and after that ten days in Amsterdam, Antwerp and Normandy.  We'll be back in Paris for a couple of days at the end of May and after that we fly back to Berkeley for the summer.

It's been odd around here recently as a result.  I've been packing desultorily, trying to pack up the winter things, which will stay here awaiting our return in late August, and some of the rest, which we will take to California in June, and deciding what to take with us for the very peripatetic month of May.  Decision making hasn't been helped by the changing weather; although the sun's been out every day the jacket index has its peaks and valleys.  One day it's shirtsleeves, the next it's scarves.  I'm not complaining, it's been glorious, but some things have been in and out of the suitcase three times.

After eight months here it really feels like moving house.  Oh, we don't need to move furniture, but we've accumulated kitchenware, books, lamps, etc.,  and where to put it all, not to mention two huge suitcases full of coats, boots and sweaters, has been a concern.  Friends have offered shelter for our stuff, but Paris apartments are small or up three flights of stairs or long cab rides away, caves are full or damp.  We had planned to leave some here, some there when last night a new acquaintance who runs a gallery down the street offered her enormous cellar area.  Yes!  Now all we need to do is wheel it all a couple of hundred feet and pick it up when we get back, when we'll be renting another apartment not far away.