It’s all over. And that’s official.

Summer, that is. In France.

At the beginning of September, the summer holidays are officially over. The schools go back, government ministers and civil servants return to their desks, even the social clubs start up again after their two-month hiatus.

And there’s currently a heatwave. As I write, the outside temperature is 34 degrees Centigrade. Cosy.

Incidentally, the exclamation mark in the title of this post is not egregious – they’re something I usually try to avoid – but for some reason the rentrée is almost always referred to as the rentrée!, Perhaps as an encouragement to feel positive about the looming approach of winter.

That being said, though, there may be some greater justification for that implicit enthusiasm here in la France profonde, because it means that all the Parisians have buggered off back to where they belong. This can only be a good thing.

For our purposes, however, on this occasion you may take it that we’re referring to the rentrée of news despatches from Faire-Le-Dodo (87) after their five-plus year hiatus. So, as promised, here is a quick round-up of what’s been going on.

Let’s be honest: not all that much.

Of course, global events haven’t completely passed by without having some impact on life here.

Most notably, the insanity of Brexit has left its mark. It seems that most of our British friends have given up the struggle and returned to the UK, typically giving up a nice house with garden and an agreeable lifestyle here for a static caravan somewhere in rain-lashed Britain (the disparity in property values remains extraordinary).

Not us though. On the basis that if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em, Madame and I have recently acquired French nationality – a process that only took about three and a half years. I might write about it some day.

And then there was the pandemic. Fortunately, it’s direct impact here wasn’t that great. Plenty of people (including Madame) caught a dose of it, but as far as I know there were no fatalities directly attributable to Covid.

Lockdown and social distancing did for the two village bars, though. Both The Frog and Fromage and The Surrender Monkey Bar and Bistro – Faire-Le-Dodo (87)’s premier nite-spot – never reopened after lockdown was lifted.

Gone too is L’Effrayant Bar-Tabac, although that was due more to the retirement of it’s doyenne, Madame Degenoux. Fortunately, it’s still possible to get a cheeky glass of rosé at nine o’clock on a Sunday morning, as the licence was transferred across the road to La Petite Superette et Salon de Thé, which coincidentally (not) is run by Madame Degenoux’s two daughters.

Actually, you can’t get a cheeky glass of rosé at nine o’clock on a Sunday morning any more, because as of last week the Superette is now closed on Sundays (as well as Mondays). Given that the place was always heaving on the morning of the Lord’s Day, the commercial logic of this change is clearly irreproachable.

What we may lack in drinking-holes, though, we can make up with petrol stations. A spanky, all-automatic new one opened last year and the price is only about 10% more than you might expect to pay at the supermarkets.

And that’s about it for news from the bustling metropolis of Faire-Le-Dodo (87).

But what about our own little corner of the commune: the little settlement that we call Tranquility Base? Well, we’ve certainly lived up to our nickname of ‘les permanentes’, but the handful of holiday-home owning Brits are seen less frequently than before (Brexit again).

However, there are a few more French people who have moved into the handful of houses that were standing empty five years ago. Some of them are a bit odd, and not always in a good way, but with our own Brokedown Palace being tucked away off the ‘main’ (i.e. only) road, we don’t see much of them, and don’t really feel that we’re missing much.

And I am still the only deadhead in the hameau.