Summer time… and the living is easy… so sang Ella Fitzgerald, and boy, was she right!

Summer holidays have for ages been a wonderful time to relax, enjoy time with family and friends, slow down on work and enjoy a quieter pace of life… and no one does this better than the French (in my opinion!).

What’s even better, is that the French have a glorious phrase that sums up the return to normal routine, school and work…. La Rentrée….

La Rentrée….La Rentrée…. just hearing those words makes me beam and give a little inner dance! Don’t get me wrong, I love a good holiday and switch off as much as the next chap, or chap’ess…but the very clever example the French have given us with their shutting shop for the month of August, is that it makes one look forward to getting stuck back in…absence makes the heart grow fonder, after all!

We have been buying (and selling) paintings in France since the very first year I began in this ‘game’, 1989. The simple pleasure and delight in sniffing round flea markets, brocantes and French auctions has been part of my DNA since that year and runs more richly through my veins now than ever.

But… I remember one year having bought a huge quantity of paintings from an auction in Marseilles in mid July…I could not organise a courier to collect them for a few more days - but having done so, I called them to say Mr. Courier was coming tomorrow - to be told they were closing that day and I could come back in September!

After much spluttering my end, having realised there was nothing to be done, I gave in, shrugged my shoulders and put it behind me. When in Rome, do what the Romans do…. when in France, do what the French do….

Ever since then, I have grown to admire the French attitude to time off…. to spending time living rather than existing, perhaps…. work is necessary and important, of course, but there are times when I ardently admire their willingness to down tools, take a proper break, not answer emails, close their doors…. and then when one returns….La Rentrée….one can return with recharged battery, new vigour and passion…. one can take time to pause, have a good think, make a plan of action…. to see the wood ahead, rather than just the tree.

La Rentrée makes me look forward to a new term…. a fresh chapter of the book, a new notebook to scribble in….dreams to be turned in reality…. La Rentrée is digging out wooly jumpers, finding that scarf…looking forward to kicking leaves and yes, dare I say it, getting back to a routine….

La Rentrée, we salute you!