There are bunks dotted around the shop, so that when the customers go home we all camp out in our makeshift castle, in amongst the words of the greats, hoping that some of their ability will rub off on us poor, hapless novices.

This is it. I can feel the beginnings of a wonderful adventure. These people have already seen more of the world than I have even dared to imagine. Noah hitchhiked his way across America, can you believe that? Past the Grand Canyon, through the desert, over the plains and then caught a boat from New York to Ireland. He has no idea what to do with his life, I’m not certain any of us do, but he doesn’t care. He doesn’t care that he isn’t doing what his father wants. He doesn’t care that he barely has two francs in his pocket. He doesn’t care that tomorrow the sky might fall on his head, because today is the only day worth living.

Oh, and did I mention he is a cowboy? A bona-fide cowboy who grew up on a ranch, with the swagger to match. Be still my beating heart!

As I said, he will be my undoing, of that I am sure.

Gigi, on the other hand, has been seducing me with her own stories. Stories all about the colors of France. Of lavender fields in Provence that she danced through naked with a farmhand she cannot quite remember the name of, but says everything else about him she will never, ever forget.

She told me about the light on the Atlantic Coast, so gentle, so subtle, compared to the darkness that drops over Paris like a stone when the day is done. About a man she met, with skin as dark as a conker, who fed her seafood fresh off the back of his boat, then took her skinny-dipping under the stars (and then they did all sorts of other things that I feel myself blushing about as I write). She is most definitely not a good girl from back home—Mother would have a fit if she knew!

Gigi says she wants to be a chef, to discover all the tastes the world has to offer. To find inspiration for her food in all the people she meets (and loves) along the way. To write a book that makes people think about food as more than just a necessary part of their day. To see it as art, as pleasure, as indulgence.

She is leaving in a few weeks and wants me to go with her, all the way to the Mediterranean, and then who knows where? But Paris is bubbling over with possibility, with ideas, so I don’t know if I shall. Because I need to write my own story, to find my own raison d’être.

Tomorrow I shall go exploring. I will walk along the banks of the Seine, stand under the Eiffel Tower, eat pain au chocolat and simply drown in all the absolute magnificence of this place. I’m hoping my muse will show up, somewhere along the way, proceed with an idea about what to write. Because at the moment all I have is the picture of a place in my mind. A house at the edge of the sea, where an old woman lives, trapped by her memories, too scared to go outside.