Summer 2016

As French Lessons returns for another summer season, it welcomes a new member to its family: Yoko. Bringing a puppy across borders isn’t for the faint of heart – but it does bring fresh insight to the quintessentially French approach to the art of bureaucracy.

Bellevue’s air-conditioning is again on the fritz, but this time the repairman doesn’t fire us. Instead, along with an ingenious and swifter-than-merited resolution, he offers French Lessons an unconventional glimpse into the inner workings of the European Union.

French Lessons pares down its pen this week in recognition of our neighbour, Nice – and in tribute of the French spirit to Restez Calme et Tenez Bon. Keep Calm and Carry On.

French Lessons receives an unexpected gift: an out-of-the-blue email that introduces us to the earliest residents of our seaside home, Bellevue. After years of research and forged connections, often from unlikely places, we introduce readers to the family who may have been Bellevue’s first occupants.

As French Lessons treads into the middle of the Côte d’Azur’s acclaimed summer season, we pause, catch our breath, and revel in a jumble of what makes the French Riviera so dazzling, so bewitching. But spoken or not this summer, one topic seems to cut through all the fun.

Securing a rendez-vous with a dog groomer in the Côte d’Azur summertime is harder than it ought to be. But French Lessons eventually uncovers an available spot at a local salon de toilettage – and a delightful woman who gives Yoko her first haircut à la française.

In the recent theatre of French labour protests, the world watched the country’s unemployment woes unfurl into the streets – but what about the unemployed themselves? In typical French Lessons fashion, Jo shares with us – up close and personal – how tough it can be to draw the benefits.

What’s the most dazzling thing about the Côte d’Azur? It must be the ultra-swish megayachts anchoring in its sun-drenched, Mediterranean bays. French Lessons invites you onboard one of these floating palaces to holiday with us – or at least to glimpse the bits we can share.

Debilitating shoulder pain has brought us into conversation with the area’s – and the world’s – survivors, experts and sympathizers. From magnets to gels, exercises to injections, and a machine called nothing less than LIFE itself, we catalogue – French Lessons-style – an amusing (if painful) series of summer advice.

Security angst and the burkini make the Côte d’Azur’s Summer of 2016 go down in the record books as being truly bizarre. Of course there were bright spots, too: C’est la France! Enjoy our end-of-season grab bag to close out French Lessons’ tenth season running.