About Julia McLean

I should be well into a quiet retirement by now but life is too interesting. My excuse for travelling around is to perfect my research for the articles I write for a local magazine about the Normans and their conquests and their beautiful county. I also write for a local English newspaper about customs, food and places to see in Normandy for the immigrant Brits who cannot speak French. I am trying to get a book on Normandy published and while I am waiting I am planning a cute cookbook with my paintings as illustrations.

Before ending up in Normandy 30 years ago, I took a degree in foreign languages and became a teacher. I have taught French in Great Britain and Canada, and English as a Foreign Language in France. Good communication is important to international understanding!

I have written and painted since I was very young. My mother used to save my melodramatic radio plays to read out to dinner guests who would burst into peals of laughter at my innocent accounts of dastardly deeds below stairs. My father painted as a hobby and taught me some basics but my painting took more the form of interior design especially when we were renovating the six houses we lived in over the years – the first in Toronto’s Cabbagetown.

We live between Honfleur and Lisieux, places where I persuaded local artisans to teach me bakery and charcuterie. With this superior knowledge, I ran a cooking school for three to four years in the 17th-century farmhouse we renovated. We have just finished another cottage on the property where we will live and continue to brew cider, keep Black Balwen Sheep and ‘cultiver notre jardin’.