New Year in Paris - an old fashioned travel review

I'll happily confess to hoarding post cards, photos, birthday cards, wedding invitations and travel memorabilia. So after moving house this year, I was excited to see what was inside from old boxes of my 'paper stuff' which had been unopened for over 10 years (and packed almost 20 years ago). With 3 kids arriving in the last 12 years, there's been no time for wading through these 'too hard' boxes.

But I remembered that some of my very first published articles were hidden in those boxes, so I made time to open them up and discovered copies from 2005 of the New Zealand Times UK (and the South African Times) - the pithy, free newspaper published in London, available in Tube stations (I think!?). Regardless of the calibre of the publication back then, the Editor at the time took to my writing and published several travel articles while I lived there.

So - below is a travel piece I wrote about spending New Years Eve in Paris - having lived there briefly in 2004 as well. Serendipitously, I was blown away to read that I mention a restaurant (Chez Janou) which was recommended to, and then test driven by, my dear, long time Francophile friend @mariadoesdelicious. I had totally forgotten that I mentioned this restaurant. And obviously, the front page refers to the 2011 Rugby World Cup bid by New Zealand... I won't mention the most recent RWC result in Paris. I'm taking this reminder of Chez Janou as a sign that I need to get back to Paris!

It took a leap of faith to submit work to the Editor back then, and while I cringe in parts reading these articles now, it feels satisfying and a weird sense of 'coming full circle' to think that I'm head down now and aiming to publish a proper paperback novel. A law career came and went over the last 20 years, and sometimes kept coming back like a boomerang, but often we take a long and windy (and sometimes circular) road to be doing what lights the fire in your belly. I also acknowledge that I'm in a privileged position now - being able to write and create with the financial support of my husband. Good things can take time!