Spring in Paris is a delightful time, conjuring dreams of romance and stirring the blood of even the jaded and the old.
On the boulevards, the hemlines are higher - but the Frenchmen leaning over pavement tables, talking about sport, feign indifference - until the breeze carries a breath of perfume towards them.
On Boulevard San Michelle, a place for good food and a haunt for students, I meet my French friend and business associate Francis du Pont for breakfast.
He tells me about the debilitating stress he went through when his American market collapsed and that he sought advice that led to his taking a voyage that left him as free of anxiety and motivated as the swallows flying south for summer.
He spent a week on a luxury hotel barge, exploring the French countryside.
He had a lovely cabin, with a porthole, and top-class service and pampering from the five-star chef and his staff.
After lunch each day, he had a siesta, then spent the rest of the afternoons visiting the villages and boutique wineries with the friends he had made on board.
Inspired and needing a break from long working days, I booked a trip on the luxury hotel barge La Belle Epoque.
A week later, I left Paris with nine other people on the barge's bus for Auxerre on River Yong, where La Belle Epoque lay.
We bounded aboard and were welcomed with a champagne party. Captain Nick Jones told us the fares included guided walks, tours, meals, wine and accommodation and tht we needed money only for tips and shopping.
The shapely, 40m barge had six double cabins, private toilets and showers, a sauna, a Jacuzzi, hairdryers, libraries, a lounge and diningroom combined, and 12 bicycles for our use ashore.
Anyone not up to the daily walk could tag along in the barge's minibus.
We puttered along beautiful rivers and stopped for lunch in quaint villages, without fail finding appealing or historical places to explore.
In shorts and sandals, I chose the sundeck for a buffet lunch, which I, too, followed with a siesta.
Refreshed, I had tea and scones and on one particular day followed our tour guide to a castle that was the setting for a 1 000-year-old market now selling antiques, metres of crisp breads, bright paintings, farm eggs and jams with chunks of ginger just the way my Irish mum made them. I would have loved to have bought more - even Border collie puppies.
Later, much later, after a wine-tasting, we chirped back to the barge and rolled aboard.
At home, I had given up trying to read a book. But now, on the barge, wonderfully relaxed, with time to kill and a cube of sugar dipped in Normandy Calvados to hand, I sat on the sundeck, opened a book and drifted into a deep sleep.
Over the sunset cocktails and candlelight dinners, we passengers talked about all we had seen and done that day. After dinner, we studied the French Milky Way and it seemed made of vanilla ice-cream sprinkled with diamonds.
As night approached, we often saw flotillas of geese nudging their chicks along - a signal that it was time for us to make our way to our cabins.
One morning, we were jolted wide awake by the Model T Ford shrieks of a farm cockerel. Dale, my Aussie friend on board, suggested we go exploring ashore on bikes - and, with luck, shed zillions of calories.
We discovered an ancient orchard, full of apple, walnut, olive, quince and pomegranate trees that some people told us had been planted in Roman times.
On our last night on board, we dressed up for the farewell dinner, an extravagant feast, and later said our goodbyes to our new friends.
Many of those friends re-main in touch and I am overjoyed that Dale and his wife are coming to South Africa.
Recently, a barge route has been reopened through the heart of the Burgundy wine-lands and the beautifully revamped barge, L'Impressionniste, has just been launched as a luxury floating hotel. She is a real beauty.
I long to roll with those good times again.
Just think of it, floating down the river on L'Impressionniste, shedding cares, soaking up peace and sun, a swallow flown north for the summer.