oh my goodness! I haven’t come across those yet 
Could you give me an example please @vero?
good grief… I have enough difficulty grasping M and F French words already without any transgender stuff…
I feel the need for a nip of sloe gin… hic… 
yes quite so are they prunelles or the thing captain endevour said?
NNNOOOOOOOOOO 
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There are only 3, amour orgue and délice, they are masculine when singular and feminine when plural 
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Oh give me strength
I think I can cope with that… those words don’t often figure in my vocabulary…
ah… maybe amour… but plural amour ?? … how much amour can one girl cope with…
Entre mon chien et mon voisin c’est le grand amour, cet enfant est un amour etc. But je repense à mes amours passées.
Le nouvel orgue du temple est très beau but les grandes orgues de Notre Dame sont merveilleuses.
Ce gâteau est un délice but ces délices fastueuses du Grand Siècle.
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True story, one of our UK clients thinks the Blackthorn bush in his garden is a Blueberry! 
I so want him to try one.
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Some great recipes coming out, thanks for sharing everyone.
Regarding waiting for the frost/freezing sloes, I think a lot of this is giving the sloes time to mature sufficiently, rather than bursting them open. I have picked sloes early - we had an incredible crop last year around here, with sloes appearing in August, and I did a batch in September, freezing the sloes to make them soft. The product was drinkable, but rather sharp and without the usual richness. We made 3 more lots later in the season (final batch in January this year!) and they are much better, with full flavour and less bitterness. I have applied the first batch to residual fruit from a later harvest in the hope of recovering it somewhat.
I’ve also made an apple vodka using apples from behind the house, and the Austrian in me wants to make apricot brandy and rhumtopf at some stage (neighbour has a tree that produces miniature apricots that they never harvest).
It’s excellent, seeing it written like this… makes sense
and I can hear the words in my head as I read them here.
Cheers Vero.
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We’re learning too - thanks Vero.
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Oooh, I’d be looking for a recipe for Kirschwasser 
From our limited experience there is an over abundance of sloes in our area. 40 mins North of Niort. Every hedge row has millions.
We are converting as many as possible into sloe gin, sloe cordial (for the non alcoholic version) sloe jelly which is great with some cheeses.
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Excellent - I don’t know if the bushes grow in the Morvan, but it gives me hope that IF we move full time in the future there will be availability.
not many sloes left on our tree after the first frost. Blackbirds are a greedy lot - so are my chickens.
Have to pick no later than October to stand a chance…
I suspect that Scotland runs ahead of the southern parts of the UK in terms of fruits ripening.
I understand Scotland is wonderful for raspberries! Talking of which, apart from fruit borne on what I consider as weeds (sloes, brambles) we had almost no fruit at all this year except for autumn fruiting raspberries, which have been magnificent. I picked the last few last week! (This is in Normandie)
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It may be that plants alternate, so one year they crop well followed by a rest year? We’ve seen this with sloes, where the bushes that were so productive last year have almost no fruit this, but those which were bear last year are productive now. I appreciate cultivated varieties are often more regular croppers than that.