Le vent d'Autan

......has blown for over a week now, knocking flower pots off balconies, drying sheets in minutes, dispersing the entrées maritimes and keeping the sky an eggshell blue.

Jennifer had the same effect as she blew into Orlando's barber shop with a bottle of lemonade and a box of caramel chocolates.  She slumped down into the chair next to mine, spun it round to face me and told me in an un-hushed  whisper about the fate of Mme Loze who lost her husband, then her daughter and now her grandson, how her own hair turned white over night when her husband died of a bee sting and how Laurent was  effortlessly segueing from the hunting to the fishing season.