I just cannot work out why I love Paris. It smells horrible, is dirty, noisy, and expensive. And when the light is green to cross the road, that DOES NOT MEAN that no-one is going to drive over you. And these are not crazy drivers – it’s just the way it is here.

You may see a green man on the sign, but that means that the main section of traffic is not going to run you over. It does NOT mean that the traffic coming round the corner or turning across the main junction cannot have (according to them) clear passage over the black and white lines that you, innocently and potentially fatally, believe to be safe to walk across.

The differences between our cultures are, in the mere act of crossing a road, irrevocably at a variance. But I would rather spend four nights on my own in Paris than in London any time.

Sitting in a little bistro recommended by some nice French chaps in the street, exhausted from two and a half days of a business seminar that makes you cry – (anyone who has done Anthony Robbins type seminars will know what I mean) – well who wouldn’t be physically and emotionally spent? So when some tall Frenchman of Algerian extraction sauntered across for the usual chat up lines, he got a fairly amicable resistance due to my totally positive state of being, and we ended up chatting about, well…. business.

It seemed ironic to me that after immersing myself in learning some of the real life lessons of the vastly experienced Keith Cunningham (how many lessons get taught and advice given by people like him who have `eaten their own cooking’?) and coming up with some fantastic ideas on how to progress my own business, to then find myself hearing the age old story of dishonest business partnerships, having to sell the extra homes and a commitment not to venture into the business world again, from an entrepreneur who had his fingers badly burnt.

“I am too old – 40 years old” my new friend Fafa explained. I countered that I was over forty before I ever began my business and that failure – for whatever reason – is an inevitable part of any learning curve. My new friend Fafa promised to show me – and my boyfriend who I insisted would be coming with me next time I visited– the sites of Montmartre. His parents own a restaurant so I didn’t take much persuading – and we swopped emails and Facebook addresses.

I returned to my garret of a hotel which has cigarette smoke ingrained into the very fabric of the carpet and upholstery. Clearly the laundry lady is an inveterate smoker as even the fresh linen reeked of stale tobacco. But everyone I have encountered outside of the usual tourist zones is so friendly and kind that I can do nothing more than fall in love with this worn out city – the same way I did more than 10 years before.

I cannot know what will happen with my own business ventures over the next few years, but one thing – no, two things I am sure of. One, is that the culture of those businesses need to be as open and honest and welcoming as the people I have encountered in Paris over the last few days. The second thing, is that whatever Angel protects me as I scoot across the wide main roads even when the pedestrian light is green, better be the same one guarding over me wherever else I may venture.

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