'Those Cold Days of February'

Cold days indeed!  I've just returned from a stay 'doing the Continental' around Holland and France.  The band almost froze to the bandstand in a few places, especially when the heating pipes for clubs and dancehalls froze up! Happened in Paris in the Latin Quarter at this small cafe we played at for two nights.  Trying to play tenor guitar and ukelele with frozen fingers is tres difficile even with fingerless gloves!  But we survived, and still had a great time.
But the sight of snow falling in huge flakes as we walked the streets of Paris, over the bridge near the entrance to the Metro at St-Michel and on towards the, by now, half-misted face of Notre Dame.  We went inside just to get out of the cold and were arrested by the ethereal voices of the cathedral choir singing hymns, resonating up and up. Incredibly moving; we ended up staying till the end, even though only one of us is Catholic, albeit of a somewhat lapsed persuasion after having joined our band.
Whilst doing the rounds of club gigs, we met a young gypsy guitarist, originally from Germany, by the name of Django Reinhardt of whom I'm certain we'll hear more, much more. We also met some great chanson singers including the marvellous Madame Mistinguett and the timeless Monsieur Jean Sablon.  M. Sablon even sat in on one of our sets to sing some of his favourites, done in our style of course. A fine singer and a true gentilhomme.
In Amsterdam it was even colder, and frigid enough to freeze some of the canals to a thickness amenable to skating.  We saw the locals flock to the canals in droves when this happened and I could have kicked myself for not having any film in my Box Brownie when we were watching them.  Bernie, our drummer, had done some skating on the local rinks back home, so he borrowed a pair from the hotel staff where we were staying and took to the ice. Not without some pratfalls for all his experience.  Gave the other band members and myself a little light entertainment, I must say.  
Still, it was such a wondrous sight of all these people, and Bernie, skating over what a few days before was a reasonable stretch of water that, when I looked around at my friends' faces I could see there wasn't one of us didn't ache to out there with Bernie having the same fun and joy.  Oh, we stepped foot on the ice here and there, but it was distressing when one of us occasionally slipped and fell, and much less gracefully so.