On the first day

After more than two years away, it’s time to get back in touch with the locale. This is the immediate view outside my front door – beautiful blue skies and sunshine but oh so cold. Allegedly, it’s 14C but the ongoing mistral adds a piercing chill factor.

Someone who’s also left home whilst renovations take place is staying in Le Cabanon – my usual abode. I tiptoe past (although I don’t think he’s in) and come across the bug hotel.

Here’s the current view behind the pool: a well-kept olive and cypress tree guarded by a familiar woolly backside.

In the past, this field has been inhabited by horses but it’s empty today as I take the short cut, past the remains of the old windmill, to the village.

I visit the town hall (or equivalent) to locate the little journal which gives details of up and coming films at the Utopia cinema in Avignon. (Films are shown in the language in which they were made, so you can see English, American or Australian films for example). I spot this beautiful creche in the window – not a brilliant snap because I had to take it through glass and that black thing in the background that looks like Darth Vader is me. I love the French creches and I’ve struck lucky: I learned that this is the last day it’ll be on display because, in this tradition, the creche remains extant until 2 February to commemorate the day Christ entered the temple.

As with the one outside my door, many trees here have been pollarded, which is a means of pruning by trimming the crown. They look a little strange to the untrained eye but, by summer, they’ll be back in all their leaf-covered glory.

I spend a long time wandering around and manage a visit to the cemetery. If you’re interested in local social history, a French cemetery is an excellent place to hang out. The memorials all have photos and descriptions of whole families so you can discover who was in the Algerian war or whose relative was saved by a miracle at Lourdes – and these are just examples from a tiny unknown village. So lovely to be back.