NFN:

I have temporarily abandoned La Belle France. Due to an urgent need for funds I am keeping a presence behind the counter in my little shop in Burnham Market Norfolk UK. I have set up a new gallery where I propose to keep everything, old, french and very functional. The gallery (of course) is above the fishmongers, so while you are queuing for your kippers you can pop up and purchase a monogrammed
linen sheet. Please do not write, phone or email me when, tucked up under your new purchase, you are asphyxiated with a sudden rush of "Odour de Poisson " I cannot help it. It will wash out I promise...I do my best but the Fishmonger does not like the sound of the extractor fan. July and August are his meanest and most tormented months.
I have been here now for two weeks and I am missing home and whippets and more to the point good food.
Today I tried to buy an organic chicken in Tesco's and was told they don't stock them because they don't sell. Well that says a good deal about this county. I am lucky because I live off the fish while I am here but, still, one needs a little variety every now and then. I miss those little yellow, corn fed darlings, and my weekly markets. I  miss the salad man who picks his leaves fresh from the garden on friday mornings and mixes it up with flowers and mustard leaves. I miss my jolly bread seller who always keeps me a round and robust, rough, grained, loaf under his white linen clad table, and the little man with the gravelly voice who sells buckets of wild flowers and home grown beets. It hurts me that so much melody has escaped my attention in the gurgling water that ripples through the village fountain and sends me happily to sleep almost under my window each night. I loved it when, a couple of weeks ago, I saw a large black  lab leap into the fountain and then hurl himself out again, shaking an arc of heavy, water beads all over the passers by and set everybody screaming with delight!
I am having bad withdrawals. I need a market and some seriously interesting characters, and some seriously good fruit and veg. So I am driving back again on friday next and once I feel my wheels rolling again on french tarmac, I shall be reassured with the promise of more sensual pleasures to come.

I am intending to visit my friend Kathryn Ireland at her beautiful home in the Tarn. Totally different from the Cevennes. The arid and rocky landscape transforms into rolling countryside more akin to Tuscany.
Kathryn's house is full of laughter and, well... full of Kathryn, who is exceptional in her ability to create pleasure in all areas, and sends all her guests happily off to bed each evening on delightfully satisfied stomachs while visions of sugar plums dance in our heads! Apart from all this she is a wonderful textile designer and decorator and tomorrow I pick up my copy of her new book. Summers in France. I dare not appear without one! In fact I need to sell them in the shop.
Reading this back, it sounds rather flat and humourless. But I guess that is how I feel at the moment. I really can't think what keeps anyone wanting to live in the UK. Mid July, a cold and foreboding sky, deserted beaches, and everyone milling about wondering what to do......
Come to sunny France...let the figs season begin!!