This largely biographical story, written in 1928, charts French author Colette’s retreat from her Parisian life for her first summer alone, in her Provencal home.

She needs to lick her wounds after a messy second divorce and to be back in the garden, held in the arms of the natural world, with her animals and at peace, and she means to renounce love forever. She's 55 and, for the first time since she was 16, will live without her life depending on love.

But an unexpected encounter with her long-deceased mother, through finding her letters, leads Colette to a bruising reality check. And they negotiate an acceptance, of sorts, of each other’s deficits – and assets.

The temptation presented by a beautiful neighbour, Vial, 20 years her junior, tests Colette's resolve to the full. She could have him. In all her middle age ‘gigantic mermaid’ glory, she still has the power for her age to lay claim on his youth. She creates a ‘cover’ as matchmaker, setting Vial up with the pretty Helene, also holidaying here among the beau monde, but in reality she is toying with them both as she considers her options. Abstention is alien to her, as her mother reminds her. She is trying to learn a new way to live. And not succeeding.

Cast includes:
Colette...………...Frances Barber
Sidonie…………..Siân Phillips
Helene...………...Elle McAlpine
Vial...……………...Timothy George

Writer: Nicholas McInerny
Director: Marina Caldarone
Sound Engineer and Design: David Thomas
Prod Co-ordinator: Sarah Tombling

A Pier production for BBC Radio 4 Show less