Brown leaves and brown legs - au revoir August

Today, as the more alert amongst you in possession of calendars will know, is the last day of August. For those of us resident in Paris, this is the week when life returns to normal. Like that final scene in Jacques Tati's magnificent comedy Les Vacances de Monsieur Hulot, France's beaches have been abandoned, families have returned en masse from their four weeks (or more...) away, and office cleaners are already having to vacuum up small blizzards of peeled skin.

The city itself is in a similar state: piles of brown leaves are already growing high in gutters, discarded by trees either parched by last week's gonzo temperatures (38 degrees in the afternoon, no lower than 30 degrees at night...) or simply confused - as we all are - by what time of year it is thanks to climate change. Either way, there is an incongruously autumnal vibe to the place

People are notably a similar colour, and hemlines and shirt sleeves are that much shorter to show off that hard-earned tan. These are as much attempts to display some form of receipt for holidays received, of course, but beneath the first-week-back demeanour there is also a palpable sense of disappointment. Breakfasting on coffee and a croissant this morning in my local cafe - with people-watching still the pre-eminent spectator sport in Paris - I could readily see the reluctant gait of the relaxed and bronzed heading for the Métro with a palpable gloom hanging over them at the prospect of an inbox full of reply-all horrors.

I've blogged before about the joys of working through August in Paris, of having the office, cafes and even the dry cleaners almost to yourself. It is truly liberating when everyone disappears. Paris may be nicest in the springtime, as Francis Albert once sung, but it's even nicer when everyone's out. Your mornings don't begin abruptly with impatient drivers honking their horns in a pointless attempt to shift a parked delivery truck. There's a knowing civility about the place, as those left behind get on with their lives in the knowledge that they have a seat on the Métro while those who'd normally occupy it are sitting cheek-by-jowl on the Côte D'Azur, dodging the burkini police.

This has been my last August in Paris. By this time next year I'll be back in London, where the holiday season is marked only by a slight lightening of the Underground crush as families with their 2.4 children take off for the pre-requsite British fortnight. I, too, will be considering what I do for my summer holiday: perhaps, perversely, I should spend two weeks in Paris? At least it'll be quiet.