Although our trip was lovely overall, we encountered another disappointment in addition to my physical difficulties in using my scooter on the slanted sidewalks. So, I’ll share this with you just so that you know that travel regrets don’t always turn out so badly. Also, this is the kind of digressive adventure available when staying in one location for more than a few days.

(Photo: me at Musee d’Orsay tea room)

The second time I visited Paris, which was the first time I went with Richard, I was interested in buying some perfume and one of the places recommended was the store of Annick Goutal, creator of natural scents that were sold originally in Paris. We went to the store not far from the Tuileries Gardens, in a ritzy shopping district, and I found a scent I particularly liked and bought a bottle of eau de toilette. Over the years, they stopped selling it in the US and I also misplaced my bottle when we moved, two decades ago. So, I was intent on buying another bottle, despite the trend away from wearing scents, with many people being hypersensitive to them. (I find that I sneeze around very inexpensive scents or some heavy oils, but the better made ones don’t bother me even they don’t appeal to me. I’m told this is because some use too much alcohol. But I digress.)

I learned that Annick Goutal had died at a very young age and her daughter Camille now ran the company and changed the name to Goutal. Although the original store had closed, there were three or four locations in Paris, and one was not very far from our hotel! It was raining off and on, which is a little dicey for my scooter, but we figured if it started to pour, we’d duck into a café. We arrived dry and I parked my scooter just outside the store, grabbed my crutches and went up the couple of steps at the entrance. A kind young woman rushed to the door to open it for me. She was busy with a customer, so I began looking through the open display for the scent I so loved. I was not sure of the name but had looked them all up the night before on the Goutal website and thought I knew the right one. It was not in the display, though all the others I’d seen online were. I tried sniffing a few of them, in case I had the name wrong, but no. Uh-oh.

There was another woman, maybe in her forties or early fifties, at another counter and Richard suggested I ask her about it. I said to her in my most polite halting French, “I have bought an Annick Goutal perfume here in Paris in the past, many years ago. I think it was called ‘Charlotte?’” “C’est fini,” she replied and started to walk away from me; another middle-aged Frenchwoman was at the door. Richard said, “Maybe there’s a similar one?”  I turned to the saleswoman: “Un autre, similar?” “Non,” she replied curtly, then greeted the Frenchwoman, dismissing me. I looked at Richard, and we headed for the door. The nice young sales clerk rushed again to open the door for me, and I felt she gave me a look of apology, but perhaps I was projecting.

Outside, I said, “I wonder why she was so rude. Do you think it was because I was disabled, or she thought I looked unable to pay?” I was wearing my Liz Claiborne black raincoat and rather nice pants, but my scarf had sparkles in it so she may have thought it was tacky. Richard said, “I think it was just because we are foreigners. In the US, any salesperson would have wanted to show you whatever else they had… if nothing else, in hopes of a sale. And would have been more polite.” I felt so let down. Oh well, it was just perfume.

Richard was on the phone immediately checking the internet, and said, “It’s available online. We may be able to get it sent here.” That evening, I went online and found different sources, but it looked like it was risky timewise to have it sent to our next Paris hotel. I found that Amazon UK had it and could deliver it to our Edinburgh hotel the day we were to arrive there, or the next day at latest, and we’d be there a week! I was appreciative that Richard had been so proactive, that we were able to find the discontinued scent, and that our trip was long enough that we could get it while we were overseas, since it wasn’t available in the US. I know, rather a silly thing, but one of those wishes one carries for years with the thought, “If I’m ever there again, I’ll do this; or get that.”

Next installment: We are visited by Richard’s cousins.