The wind blew and the Luxembourg garden, one of her favourite places in Paris was quite empty. It was the middle of February, quite a cold day. She had taken a large striped umbrella along to get some shelter.
When she got to the hothouse wall, she chose a chair in the corner and wiped it dry. She pushed it against the wall at an angle. It had been raining earlier in the day, and it was still drizzling, but she was used to this sort of situation and would rather go out, whatever the weather, than stay at home.
She dragged another chair to face the one she would be sitting in and wiped it dry as well. Then, she sat down, opened the large golf umbrella, took out her book, a library book, which had a plastic cover, and protected by the umbrella, started reading.
It was pretty cold, but she was wearing a parka, and her thick gloves protected her hands, although they did not make it easy to turn the pages.
The umbrella filled several purposes. It kept her sheltered from wind and rain, but also from the staring gazes of passers-by.
She had quite a few friends, who loved taking walks in the garden and when she was intent on a good book, she did not want to be disturbed. The umbrella was more efficient than a “do not disturb” sign, she was just hidden from everyone’s looks.
She thought, with satisfaction that no one passing by could even know whether she was a he or a she and settled, quite comfortably for her reading break.

She read for a long while and decided to leave because she was starting to feel uncomfortable. Those chairs were not meant to welcome strollers for a long time. She remembered a time when you had to pay a fee for your chairs. Old women, called “chaisières” would pass by, give you a ticket, in exchange for a few centimes.
That was years ago, when she was young, and the game was to avoid the “chaisière” at all cost.
Nowadays, it was probably cheaper to let people have the chairs for free.
For a while, she wondered who had paid the “chaisières”. Jardin du Luxembourg belonged to the Senate, so whoever paid for the upkeep of the Palace and its gardens, also paid for the people who worked there. Come to think of it, she thought, I am probably paying for the upkeep with my taxes.
It was getting chilly, so she got up and decided to walk across the garden, and have a cup of hot chocolate at Café Le Rostand, which would probably be full of people, considering the weather, but where they made a pretty decent hot chocolate.
This is actually part of something I started doing some time ago, on http://750words.com/ I am writing daily, most of the time, just rambling on and on. Sometimes, I just have no idea what to write about, so I go to Virginia de Bold’s great prompt site, First 50 words.
And when I really get stuck, I try to remember a photo I took and write a description of it.
So this is part of this morning’s 750 words. The rest, as the owner of the site puts it, is between me and me.