Je suis une flaneuse

While A was busy with the exhausting Tony Robbins, I was out and about indulging in my favourite city activity - walking around checking out the people, the buildings and the shops, and stopping off for an occasional reviving coffee. I wish I'd had a pedometer. I must have walked miles every day without even realising it, I was so engrossed in the passing show. Until it got to late afternoon, that is, when I was so tired I had to head back to the flat we were staying in for a restorative nap.

One evening there was a programme on television about Paris, which I watched, being in a capital city kind of mood. And handily discovered there is a French word for precisely what I was doing, a word I managed to miss out on during French 'A' Level. It's 'flaneur' and there's no English equivalent, unfortunately. Roughly translated it means 'gentleman stroller of city streets'. How satisfying.