There’s no way to adequately capture Cancale in words–When you live in a lovely place, no travelogue write-up ever seems to do it justice. The wharf! The jetty! And over there across the water…The stark stone façades, many now tarted up with souvenir storefronts and restaurant patios, follow the shoreline curve. A haphazard mix of pleasure boats and fishing vessels are moored in the harbor. If the tide is high, the boats bob and sway on the waves, bows pointed into the wind. If the tide is low, they lay scattered about the floor as though left there by some careless child. (This part of the English Channel has some of the highest and lowest tides in the world.) At low tide, you can also see the oyster beds, acres and acres of what looks like a wide, blackish reef, but is in fact a vast matrix of shelves and basins that hold 30 tons of France’s yearly oyster production.

My house is on one of the back streets – “les rues arrières” – one block back from this ever-changing show.