Leslie Lewis & Gerard Hagen "Jazz from Paris"

We are seeing more and more nice days in Paris of late. Perhaps we can dare to hope for springtime in Paris this year. To go along with the nice weather, our work routine has been pretty mellow this past month. The "yellow vest" protesters have not caused any problems for us. The protests seem pretty crazy on television, but unless you happen to live in the protest area, or had your business torched, you wouldn't know what was going on. We have been working in town and have been enjoying a day or two each week without any scheduled work. That free time has allowed us to see some friends and do some things that we have been putting off for too long. The timing is good because later this month we are going to be on the road for almost three weeks. You may remember that sadly Leslie had to retire "red" her well traveled suitcase. I am happy to say that after an exhaustive search we have found a great replacement. "Yellow".  But not just any "yellow", it's a Lipault "yellow". Which means that in order to justify the price the color is called "mustard". The problem is that I can't get myself to use "mustard" as a nickname for a suitcase! "Yellow" is just in time for the up-coming gig in Grenoble followed by the jazz cruise to Malta, Italy and Greece. When we return we have close to 30 dates booked during May and June in Paris.  Around then the school will go into the final stretch of the spring term so things will be extra busy into June.  

Last year in July and August we traveled around 6,000 kilometers, the summer before that, our work in the U.S. and Europe meant that we traveled around 17,000 kilometers.  This year, with the exception of a couple of dates in July, we will be traveling only for vacations. I wish I could schedule our road work in a more balanced way, but for now we just go when and where the work is. That's fine. We are very happy and grateful to have work, but this year we get to stay busy working in Paris and so we are looking forward to having a more relaxed summer. 

In June we will be meeting some friends from California in Porto City, Portugal  followed in July by one of Leslie's dream trips to Milan and Lake Cuomo in Italy. Later in August we hope to be able to spend some time with our friend Lois at her beach home on the Atlantic coast in La Baule, France.