Make the most of this picture – it’s the only one you’re getting in the strange tale I’m about to recount. Anyone recognise the joint? It’s the place in Van Gogh’s painting, The Night Cafe…look it up if not convinced.

Last evening, I went to Arles with the lovely Anais, my old French teacher. She’s not old – I mean I’ve know her since 2007. We went to deliver a plant (a large sage) that she’s been looking after for her friend Andrew, as you do. Place du Forum, where the cafe is, was absolutely heaving: the world and his wife, and possibly everyone else’s wife, were promenading, drinking, eating and generally living the bonne vie. Toute du monde passed this way. Amongst the melee, I noticed a man, not in fancy dress, walking through the crowds with a large white parrot on his shoulder, both unconcerned, plus all the beautiful people with not an overweight person amongst them.

Andrew and his friend Jean-Luc arrived and we had drinks at the bar. When chatting, one to one is ok: I established that Andrew is a tour guide and Jean-Luc is a musician with some sort of specialism (?), but it’s tricky for me to understand everything when everyone else is French, especially when it’s noisy. Hopefully, I kept up and even had a couple of proper conversations. I don’t mind – it’s good for me, but I was at a loss when, after an hour or so, they all got up, saying we were going elsewhere.

‘Elsewhere’ turned out to be down a little street, round a corner, and through an ancient, inconspicuous doorway into some sort of turret. (Let me remind you that Arles is ancient.). First, Anais and I were invited down an old stone spiral staircase to see the cellar with its barred door and fifteenth century well. It looked like the kind of place white slave traders might keep their women. After, we ascended two, or possibly three, flights of stone staircases, arriving in a very small apartment. It was explained to me that Jean-Luc is a specialist at playing music with plants – he gives talks on this at conferences: he’s an expert.

Those two fellows procured an innocuous potted plant which they watered profusely in readiness for the demonstration. At this point, hungry as I was, I gave up all hope of ever eating again and decided the only way forward was to immerse myself in this experience. Jean-Luc produced two speakers, a strange box and a number of electrodes which he plugged into the box – and into the plant.On pressing a few switches, sounds were suddenly emitted: the plant was singing. The lights on the box were flashing and the notes were clear and loud. Instantly, I knew what it reminded me of, and although I had some difficulty explaining in French, Andrew knew what I meant: it was just like the sounds and lights in Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Mais oui, he exclaimed, c’est vrai.

Jean-Luc took up his guitar and proceeded to play along with the plant: he responded to its notes and it replied to him. It was incredible, bizarre. I thought about all the people down below going about their well-dressed business. And I thought of myself up in this ancient tower undertaking this strange experience. And although I was starving, I considered myself exceptionally lucky.