Happy publication day!

Today is the official publication day for S's book, The Implausible Rewilding of the Pyrenees, so we went out for lunch at La Bonbonne in Saint Laurent. It has rather quirky opening hours, so we rarely manage to get there. Which is a shame because it has a beautiful terrace with a zen garden feel (extra -- there are carp in the pool), and the food is excellent. It's all small plates for sharing, so we had some goat's cheese and roasted pepper salad, salmon rillettes, pulled pork buns with coleslaw, and Greek meatballs in tomato sauce. Somehow we found space to share a crème brûlée. And now we have fixed in our minds that it's open on a Monday lunchtime, which is very unusual, so we might get there again soon.

We dawdled pleasantly over lunch, the weather was so unexpectedly lovely. Later I went to my French book group where we discussed my choice, Un Homme, ça ne pleure pas. Or rather the other 15 people did ... I eventually managed to get a word in edgeways towards the end. They were quite shocked when I put forward my view that French literary authors don't do dialogue (this author, who is also a screenwriter, does -- it's almost all dialogue). None of them seem to have registered that this is the case with almost all the novels we've read. Next month's choice is Where The Crawdads Sing. I haven't read it and will be a bit embarrassed if it has no dialogue.

Home for a glass of fizz!