It’s stretching things really, to call this place Paris. I’m staying in Noisy-le-sec. It’s a little busy urban satellite of Paris. A commune if you will. And very very crowded. The name suits it. It really is very very fucking noisy. Right now I’m sitting in the evening sun on a little stone bench. Behind me three men angrily and loudly gamble. In front and to my left, children play by the busy road. Men and women stroll around in pajamas and cultural outfits. Others parade the latest fashions.
This is my bedroom window – on the first floor.
HGV at all hours. The binmen early twice a week. Car radios with the lights off. Biker gangs. Arguments in the night. This town is alive with people but dead to nature. A pigeon got stuck in our oven chimney for over 24 hours before a builder let it out. Now it sits above the door, scraggled and reproachful.
Somehow it feels like community, but with all the shouting that community brings. If you look up, the sky is blue. But the streets are filthy and busy and fraught. People know us now though, the rosbifs who roll home late and leave early, often in hi-vis. We are in the build phase. It has been a steep learning curve but I’ve climbed it and man it is never too late for a dog to learn new tricks.
There’s a bit of wannabe gangster going on in noisy as well. I’m not dressing smartly as I am mostly in a warehouse and a jacket would stick out like a sore thumb. The burger joint opposite us is called O’Snoop, as the guy looks like Snoop Dogg. When he’s not flipping burgers he’s screaming around town on his big bike. Like many areas that feel rough, it’s actually friendly. Sure there’s need and addiction. But as goes the travellers mantra: Trust is almost always better than mistrust.
There are burnt out cars by the road and others overgrown in lots. Parking is tricky. Everyone has a vehicle. Try and get this place switched over to electric it’ll never take on. You’d have improvised cables stretching across the road. It’s easy to forget how obedient the majority of people are in England and America. You can lose touch and start thinking “Yay, no cash is great and everyone in electric cars,” without realising that the world will be on fire in a week.
AlBarclay 