September 2026

Roommates...

Ah, life in the countryside—out in the middle of nowhere—is wonderful! But sometimes we have roommates: a hare, likely born in our rock garden, where he’s made a cozy spot to sit and ponder (for what else is there to do in a resting place but ponder—as La Fontaine would say?). He’s hardly afraid of us anymore; he’d practically eat right out of our hands. Then there are the female roe deer we sometimes spot grazing less than a hundred meters away. One day—she must have been suffering from the heatwave, which left them with nothing but desperately dry grass to eat—I saw one venture right up to the base of the rock garden, just ten meters from our terrace... unfortunately, she was there to snack on our lovely coreopsis flowers. That part wasn't so great!
As for the vegetable garden, there have been a few wins and plenty of losses: turnips and radishes—meh! The tomatoes were a total bust this year; the lettuce is coming along; and we’ve had a good crop of zucchini (especially the blossoms, which are delicious fried in batter). But the real star of the show has been the red kuri squash—and since we love cucurbits in all their forms...

The big event of the summer was the near-total solar eclipse that stirred up excitement across the country, and especially in Spain. We’ve been lucky enough to see total eclipses before—once in northern France (back in 1999, I think) and, most notably, in the Tuamotu Islands in 2010, when we were all alone on Amanu atoll. The best part about this year’s eclipse was that, to watch it, all we had to do was set up two chairs just a few dozen meters from our terrace. With the proper glasses, of course—an absolute must. ...and hard to photograph without a special filter… yet, inexplicably, the silhouette of the sun—partially eclipsed by the moon—was projected for a moment… onto the hairs of my beard!

This week, a family outing: dinner at a small Michelin-starred restaurant in Châtel-Guyon that serves cuisine heavily inspired by Japan. Then we’re heading up to Paris for a few days to see if all those hailstones caused too much damage there. We had a few concerns here, but nothing too serious, despite some ominous-looking skies.

Have a great September (listen to the song by French singer Gilbert Bécaud), who composed « What Now my Love ? » and « Let il be me) »

Antoine