Author Archives: JJS

🇬🇧 or possibly the next ten days I missed last weekend’s recap, and I’m going to go ahead and pre-apologize for the next ten days too, because in approximately three hours the small kiddies and their parents touch down in … Continue reading →

In which we wear white gold and nearly miss a worldcup match If Part 1 was arrival and Part 2 was Versailles doing its Versailles thing, Part 3 is where the plot thickens: a covert operation forty guests deep, a … Continue reading →

Nostalgia, Charged by the Hour In which a shopping mall proves more faithful than expected, a market delivers on old promises, and a rendez-vous looms at the edge of every sentence like a tide coming in. A foreign bed is … Continue reading →

An Arrival in Three Acts In which a small car becomes a medium car, a dry streak becomes a damp one, and a secret is guarded with the discretion of a man who has clearly never kept one before. There … Continue reading →

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 →

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 →

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 →