La Rentrée is here,

and so am I! (And so is Jack.)

Photo: Franck Schmitt for The Gloss/NEFF

Firstly, a warm welcome to the five hundred or so of you who very kindly subscribed since my last post in April. (April!) I’ve been quiet in the interim as, much to my dismay, and like so many other unlucky folk around the world, the damn virus did not quite leave, instead inviting itself to pop in regularly and unannounced for the rest of spring and summer.

I know many of you are going through, or have gone through, similar experiences and I sympathise, and hope you’re feeling better or will be very soon. In my case, I was dealt a particularly annoying symptom alongside the crushing fatigue, headaches, constantly disappearing sense of taste and smell etc. - a horrible metallic taste, as if I had been sucking on old coins all night. The only thing which made my palate feel any better was anethestizing sorbet and ice-cream, preferably from the wonderful ice-cream maker in Mortagne au Perche, Herdis. Their Bergamote sorbet is sublime, and the lemon basil! Oh, and the orange flower water is gorgeous, which reminds me, I must get some more.

Anyway, it’s been a rather reclusive yet reinvigorating sort of summer, with a lot of time spent in the delicious company of my family and practically no socialising. I think, hope, pray, I’m now over the worst, but then again it might also just be la rentrée playing with my foggy mind. No matter. Onwards.

La rentrée is my favourite time of year in France - equal only to the Christmas run-up when everyone lets loose a little, and it’s often much more fun than the holiday itself. The nervous anticipation of “back to school” felt by parents and children in September, seems to ripple though the whole country, and there’s a sense of renewal which always feels exciting, far from the heavier expectations of New Year, which are always tinged with chilly deprivation, I find. Come the first of September, everyone is rested and/or bored, tanned, still in sandals, (virtual ones or not), and urgently wants to know, “quoi de neuf?”, “what’s new?” as if a couple of weeks in Cap Ferret had cut them off from the world like Matthew McConaughey in Interstellar.

It’s definitely a time for change, and there are plenty of those afoot in my life over the next couple of months, which I cannot wait to share with you. In the meantime, to make up for my absence, I’ve added all the recipes and writing published in The Gloss magazine since April, free for your perusal, including the new series with NEFF I mentioned in Spring.

My next newsletter, with news of my new book and of some beautiful new productions from talented French and Irish friends, will go out shortly after our next book photoshoot, which ends on 15th September.

See you then, and in the meantime, bonne rentrée! Tx