Monthly Archives: June 2026
June in the rearview mirror
🇬🇧 which is fitting since I just sold the mirror June, I hardly knew ye. Which is strange, because you’re allegedly my favorite month and we go way back — same week as my birthday, same week as the summer … Continue reading
40° and Counting: A Mediterranean Survival Story
A Mediterranean Dispatch · June 2025 41.5° in the Shadeand Not a Drop to Drink A tale of friendship, rosé (for others), excellent sausages, and the quiet heroism of the designated driver. When the météo announces 40°C in Carcassonne, you … Continue reading
When the Universe hits “Repeat”
Some people measure a life in milestones: first steps, first kiss, first job, first grey hair. The Universe, apparently, prefers calendars. I was born on Sunday, June 21st, 1953. It was the first day of Summer, Father’s Day in France, … Continue reading
Avignon
Thirty Years, One Baby, and a Belt I Couldn’t Find In which our correspondent drives two and a half hours to celebrate a marriage that has outlasted several monarchies, meets a granddaughter who has been on the premises for considerably … Continue reading
The week that was 24/2026
It began, as the best weeks invariably do, at a table. Les Grands Buffets in Narbonne — that magnificent, slightly delirious temple to the French conviction that more is not enough, and that what is needed is considerably more — … Continue reading
Le Mans 2026 – Day 5
Home, glorious home Nine o’clock. On the dot. Bags packed, gîte left in a condition that would not disgrace a TripAdvisor review, and four slightly battered but thoroughly happy Le Mans veterans pointing the Audi Q5 south toward civilisation. The … Continue reading
Le Mans 2026 – Day 4
The morning after the night before There are mornings when you spring out of bed refreshed and ready to conquer the world. This was not one of them. Emerging sometime around 9am, I felt less like a seasoned motorsport veteran … Continue reading
Le Mans 2026 – Day 3
The plan survives contact with reality (mostly) Race day The words that make every other day of the year feel like a rehearsal. I had, as is my custom, a plan. A proper one. Not the kind scribbled on a … Continue reading
Le Mans 2026 – Day 2
McLarens, andouilette and a Bourbon under the stars A thousand classics, one monumental disappointment at the pit lane gate, and the sort of evening that makes the rest of it worthwhile. Cloudy skies greeted us when we surfaced, but the … Continue reading
Le Mans 2026 – Day 1
The long road to La Roche Racan There is something almost meditative about setting off at 9am for a destination that involves forty-eight hours of sleep deprivation, petrol fumes, and grown men arguing about lap times at three in the … Continue reading
I do it my way 