“J’espère…J’espère…” I said, appearing to be full of hope but painfully aware that I was without hope.

“Tu espères?,” asked the gorgeous French doctor called Guy (pronounced Ghee).

“Oui, j’espère…. I hope…” I said, slipping into my native tongue.

“En Français,” Guy urged.

He was so handsome and he looked at me so encouragingly that I didn’t want to let him down. Unfortunately, neither my French phrase book nor my English/French dictionary were of any use at all; the first being inappropriate because I had no wish to talk about the weather or the direction of the railway station, and the latter because the print was too small, and besides, it couldn’t help me with sentence construction. Quite early on at the party held by my brother-in-law Glyn and his wife Roly who live in Le Conquet, Brittany, I had realised that the French contingent would not be enthralled by my conversation in school-girl French for I remember little more than the nouns concerning ceilings, floors, crockery, cutlery, tables, windows; and the verbs “to be”, “to put”, “to play” and “to go” (and I’m not even too sure about those).

“J’espère… tu ne pense pas que je suis la fou,” I said.

“Tu,” Guy corrected my pronunciation (apparently I said “two” not “tu”, which is altogether different).

“J’espère… tu ne pense pas que je suis la fou,” I said again, this time attempting the correct pronunciation.

“La fou?” the good-looking doctor’s brow furrowed in bafflement.

“Oui, la fou – you know, mad,” I said, making a circle with my index finger in the air beside my head.

“Ah, la fou – mad – yes,” Guy recognised the words but seemed not to understand my meaning (by which time I had forgotten what I was trying to say anyway).

A silence followed.

“Tu es tres beau,” I resorted to the first thing that came into my mind.

“Moi?” he smiled and kissed me on both cheeks for about the tenth time.

“Sally, ca va?” another Guy (this time Portuguese rather than French) came up beside me and kissed me on both cheeks.

“Ah, Guy-two (ghee-two, to distinguish between the two Guys),” I said delightedly, “Tres bien.”

Guy-one slipped off to slip his arm around another waist while Guy-two slipped an arm around me.

“Parle moi en Francais (speak to me in French),” handsome Guy-two said, looking dreamily into my eyes.

“Il est le plafond et le plancher,” I laughed pointing to the ceiling, then the floor.

Guy-two seemed inordinately pleased at my prowess in speaking French. Meanwhile my husband Chris beguiled the doctor’s wife Gael, and Clementine and Laurence, with his schoolboy French to similar effect. We had a lovely weekend in beautiful Brittany.

Yesterday there was something in the air that my lungs didn’t like, so much so that I had an asthma attack in the night (and smokers think I’m over-reacting when I say I can’t take cigar smoke!).  I’m not generally an asthmatic – just around cigars and things that make me allergic – and you’ll be pleased to know I was fine after taking my inhaler.

There was something in the air today that made me feel a little wistful. At the time I was in the heart of the countryside, at Rosie’s farm, and Inca and Malachi were out for a walk with me. Inca, the younger and more impetuous of the Black Labradors, raced ahead while Malachi, ever faithful and true, stayed near me unless I threw a stick for her to catch. The older dog never seems to mind that I stop now and then to take photographs, or simply to enjoy the view; in fact, I think she likes it because I talk to her and signal that I’m ready to go on again by running my hand over the back of her head and ears (what soft ears she has). I think she feels we are kindred spirits for we appear to like the same things (although it would be fair to say that I’m not so keen on putting my nose down rabbit holes!). I wondered if, like me, Malachi had noticed the difference in the air.

It was sunny and warm. There was a gentle breeze, slightly cool and not unpleasant for walkers in the countryside, and there were bees and butterflies flitting from one side of the path to the other; but the hedges were not as verdant as the last occasion I had been on the same route, for the green was in the process of giving way to yellow and brown. Thistle heads, no longer purple, were waiting soberly for the inevitable – a stiffer breeze to whisk away the shocks of white and leave them bald. No more the tall spikes of magenta foxgloves, the red campions, or the blue periwinkles; even the cow parsley has become “sparsley”. The ferns were browning off or had already wilted with heat exhaustion. It felt like summer was nearing its end and autumn was in the air.

Malachi and I were a bit sad. We like all the wild flowers. I don’t much like walking in Wellington boots, although Malachi and Inca have no objection to larking about in the mud (another area where we differ!). We found some blackberry bushes and I picked all the ripe berries I could reach without getting stung by nettles and shared them equally between us. Coming back we took the higher path to the orchard and noted that the trees were laden with apples. We remembered that we love picking apples.

“I expect the mushrooms, too, will come up soon,” I said to my faithful friend.

And when we fed the chooks (chickens) the old porridge (glad someone likes it – I don’t) and stale bread I had brought along for them we were delighted to find a fresh egg. I kept this for myself and added another two from the basket in the farmhouse kitchen. Upon arriving back to our home in Dawlish I found Chris sunbathing on the terrace. I don’t think he’s noticed that autumn is in the air.