Night Walks

I know I keep going on and on about it but please bear with me. When I was in Paris I stayed in the stunningly beautiful, and huge, Hotel Concorde Saint-Lazare: it has 266 bedrooms:

The foyer is listed as being of special historical interest as it's so unusual and glorious and it too is huge - - you could fit our house in there, probably a couple of times:

It's all marble floors and pillars and mirrors and gold - - not usually my kind of thing, but beautifully done and I loved it.

However, one of the things I enjoyed most was wandering round about - - and just nearby is the station, the Gare Saint-Lazare. Parts of it are very swish and new but then I found this, all very run-down and deserted at night, and I'm always rather drawn to such places - I think many people are: that's one reason why the American artist Edward Hopper's painting Nighthawks has always been so popular.

At the end of the station, where I was standing, and entirely unnoticed by almost everyone, was this:

A war memorial, to railway workers killed in the Second World War.

It didn't look much from a distance, but when I looked more closely I saw that it was actually very well made:

Though sadly forgotten - with two hideous grey modern pipes across its front:

And then, at the bottom, I noticed this:

Amongst the sculpted leaves, a real red rose.

Somebody, at least, had remembered.