The Cross Breeze Is Vital

As the days get longer and warmer, I remember something that I'd almost forgotten.

The value of the "cross draft or breeze". If an apartment has windows only on one side (like our apartment on rue de Seine), the air doesn't circulate very well. So, it's warmer inside the apartment.

It's been warm for the last few days, so I've been testing which windows to open to maximize the air circulation.

There's an art to this, of course. You have to also keep the sun from beating in the windows that are open. The hot sun makes the room hot. The proper windows must be open opposite each other for maximum effect. When it works, it's quite nice.

I have one window that I can't open because I have a beautiful french lavender plant in the window box. Bees have been attracted to the box.

The bees then come into the house and by the time I find them, they are already mad. I can't kill them, of course, so I have to try to coax them out without getting stung. Quite a job.

So far, we've been successful at keeping the apartment cool, maximizing the natural breezes of Paris. As a last resort, if it gets too hot, we can resort to "the blaster hose". This is my nickname for a portable room air conditioner that we bought a few years ago. The maximum that it can do is circulate slightly cooler air, and it is noisy and has a huge exhaust hose that you have to put out the window.