The man across the lunch table in St Maries de la Mer, one who knows quite a lot about a variety of things, informs me that the Camargue is an invention. I don’t necessarily disbelieve him but it’s hard to see how a wilderness can’t be natural. Re-wind.

The Camargue is the largest Mediterranean delta after the Nile. It’s famous for rice fields, flamingos, white horses, black bulls and cowboys known as the Camarguaise Gardiens. It’s also a mosquito-infested swamp which one must traverse in order to reach the seaside resort of St Maries de la Mer. It’s like a humid version of Cornwall: one drives across the tedium of Bodmin Moor to arrive at some non-descript joint on the coast where nothing happens until the population has been swelled by 50,000 holiday-makers looking for a beach and some sea-food.

And like Cornwall, it’s off the map. It’s a veritable wasteland that’s on the road to nowhere. Except that artists in their hordes went to Kernow and invented a whole genre of painting. Likewise, St Maries de la Mer has been a magnet for the artistic elite. Hemingway was here as was Picasso. Van Gogh manged to make the place look attractive and Dylan wrote ‘One More cup of Coffee’ in the town. Et pourquoi? Search me: it’s crammed full of tourist traps selling tat and nothing worth visiting.

Well, there’s the church. And that’s worth seeing because of the Maries. Weasel readers know all of those stories and although I don’t want to repeat them, it’s hard to write about the place without reference to assorted persons, commonly referred to as ‘the first family of Christianity’. This town used to be called ‘Notre Dame de Ratis’ – our lady of the boat and the place is still famous for the annual pilgrimage of world-wide travellers of gypsy origin who come to worship St Sarah. And then there’s Folco de Baroncelli – Marquis of said parish.

Baroncelli was born into an elite Florentine family in 1869. Unusually, his family spoke Provençal which was considered rather down-market: the language spoken by the poor people. He spent his childhood in Nimes where he developed a love of bulls. Nimes, like Arles, is one of the few places in the area to still follow the Spanish tradition of bull-fighting. And when I say ‘tradition’, I mean killing. But Baroncelli was a fan of the bulls. In 1895, he moved to the Camargue, home of fishermen and ranchers. Re-wind again.

Those famous black bulls were not, originally, an indigenous species. The first attempt to cross-breed Spanish bulls with wild French ones was made as far back as 1869. However, it wasn’t until 1909 that the bull prouvenço was officially recognised, by which time bulls had been moved away from Nimes onto the lower pastures of the Camargue and Baroncelli had also moved south to create the Mandano Santeco, which means ‘holy herd’.

Baroncelli, regarded as something of an unknown hero, lived to promote the region. He was a pal of Frederick Mistral who ‘rediscovered’ the provençal language, for which he was rewarded with the Nobel Prize for Literature. Mistral and Baroncelli started a newspaper called The Aioli with the express intention of promoting all things provençal, especially life in the Camargue. One of Baroncelli’s aims was to gain formal recognition of the Camarguaise cowherds who are latterly known as Gardiens. These days, you can visit any town or village in the South and see the Gardiens riding the white horses which belong to one of the oldest breeds in the world and are the last of the working horses still bred and ridden in France.

You’d be forgiven for thinking their riders had been admired for ever but it was only in 1909 that the Nacioun Gardiano was established to defend the traditions of the Camargue. And who was the inspiration for all of this? Bring on the Americans. Inspired by the history of the Wild West, Baroncelli met Buffalo Bill who had brought his travelling circus to Nimes. Bill journeyed down to the Camargue along with his ponies, his native Indians and a film crew which gave the place an international credo.

Baroncelli codified the activities of the Gardians thereby conferring an hierarchy onto the former cowherds. He introduced the Camargue horse races and, ever a promoter of minority rights, won the gypsies, who’d been travelling to the area since 1448 from all over Europe, the right to worship St Sarah publicly. Finally, he commissioned Hermann Paul to design what we now recognise as the Camarguaise Cross, inaugurated in 1926, which embodies faith hope and charity and completes the stories of the Camargue by combining the Gardiens, the fishermen and the Mairies.

Thus, my friend who tells me the Camargue is an invention is not wrong, for Baroncelli created the social identity of a swampland. Sadly, the end was not a happy one. In 1942, his farmhouse was requisitioned by the German army. In 1944, they destroyed it when they left the country. The ashes of the inventor of the Camargue were eventually laid to rest on the remains of the place he loved.

Not so many years ago, I passed the last six weeks of the season in the South. At every turn, I seemed thwarted by unexpected changes to plans that had been made months in advance and, eventually and unexpectedly, with nowhere else to turn, found myself ensconced in a small outhouse – euphemistically described as a chalet – adjoined to the Hotel Villa Glanum just outside St Remy. This was a time when the heat of high summer had dropped to a bearable heat but still warm enough to warrant a long aperitif at the Bar-Tabac des Alpilles. A time when the cicadas had run out of things to chatter about but, late-in-the-day tourists, thinking I was a bronzed local, still remained to ask me directions to who knows where.

The market, unspoiled by the hordes, managed to offer exceedingly realistic prices on goods they wished to rid themselves of. A time of which, against all odds, I recall feeling solidly a knowing part of something elusively called ‘The South’. And having experienced all this, the opportunity to visit again in early September was too tempting to turn down. Who wants crowds?

A year after Brexit, things have changed. Perhaps I’m making correlations where none exist but the place is very quiet. Their economy is, once again, booming but at whom is it directed? Not the Brits, I fear, for we are few and far between and our economy lessens our spending power by the day. The Tuesday evening artisanal market is as quiet as the cicadas who have given up their notorious provençal accompaniment. There’s nothing worth wasting sacred money on; the days of spontaneous spending have long since passed.

On the other hand, a lack of holiday-makers lends an air of latent authenticity to the place. One is able to envisage a time when the not-so-demanding travelling classes graced the area with their presence. Almost a time to feel smug in knowing one can eat and make unexpected purchases at bargain prices. There’s always a sense of the South. The trick is in discerning what this means.

What is regarded as an irritation in Lyons is nothing short of a curse by the time it arrives in Avignon. Thus, in our increasingly noisy prop plane, we are blown into town by the force of the mistral. Having descended dramatically, many miles north of our destination, we fly alongside the mighty Rhône as if we might be a lonely WW2 bomber, returning from a bridge bombing sortie, in an attempt to reach HQ before the enemy. In this instance, the windy enemy, hot on our tail, was also by our side. The pilot did his very best but, nonetheless, we arrived buffeted and shaky; feeling the need to make post-hysterical comments with folk we’ve never seen before and will never meet again in order to disguise the fact that we’d just shared a near-death experience.

The planes of yesteryear carried no such leisure-seeking passengers as, directed by lone pilots, they flew up the Rhône looking for trouble. On 19 August, 1944, an allied bomber left the river and flew along the railway track until he arrived at the station in Pierrelatte, where he deployed bombs and grapeshot to destroy what he had mistaken for a German military train.

This was the infamous Ghost Train which had begun its journey to Dachau, from the south-west, some weeks previously. To begin with, there were 900 doomed souls aboard. Naturally, these mostly comprised those unfortunate enough to have been born into Jewish homes. However, other passengers included Italian anti-fascists and French communists with the entire cohort emanating from 23 countries. Since the inception of the journey, the train had been stopped and its route reorganised many times. On the way, its sorry cargo, having had their space-taking dead friends and relatives disposed of at various points, had been fed by both the Red Cross and the Quakers and stopped by a squadron of allies at Remoulins; all of which begs obvious questions regarding the continuation of its relentless course northwards.

By the time the Ghost Train arrived at Pierrelatte most of those aboard had been entombed in the carriages for 10 days. Their number now totalled 700. When the bombing and grapeshot began, the German soldiers ran away. Those aboard, still in possession of clothes of a recognisable colour, contrived a makeshift tricolour to wave at the pilot but to no avail – they were not seen.

If you choose to research Pierrelatte today, you’ll find numerous references to the Gustave Jaume School and nothing to explain the origin of its eponymous title. On 19 August, 1944, Doctor Gustave Jaume became a hero. Alerted to the carnage at the train station, he arrived to treat and safely transport the wounded. With his help, and that of friends in La Resistance, those deportees who were able, were accompanied to the safety of the Spanish border, via Nimes.

As with so much in France, few are aware of events at Pierrelatte. If you go to the train station and look carefully, you’ll find a small plaque on the exterior wall offering a limited account of history. We also know that on that infamous date, the sun was oppressively hot. No-one knows whether the mistral was blowing along the Rhône.

We’re off to the Eighteenth Century Street fair. Set in the heart of Dorset, in a village boasting a desirable private educational stronghold that looks like a castle – Milton Abbey School – and thirty six identical thatched cottages, there will be plants and craft stalls and Morris Dancing and all sorts of rural activities and entertainments. Except that it’s July and it’s monsoon season.

Shall we, shan’t we, will you join the dance? Well, in a word, no. It might brighten up? You know it won’t but I’ll go if you want to. Now comes that other polite familial dance. Who really wants to go? I make a move – I’m not that keen on getting wet but mum will be disappointed. Dad joins in, even though he’s not going: ‘your mum doesn’t really want to go’.

Plan B.

Me: let’s go to all the shops that dad won’t take you to.

Mum: done.

First stop is B & M Bargains. It’s a risk because they don’t normally allow entry to folk devoid of tattoos but their fat balls are super cheap as is their weed-killer. And it turns out that the price of Vanish falls far below that of comparable establishments. Well, it would if there was anything comparable. Frankly, I don’t know how people exist without Vanish. Hanging my washing on someone else’s line once, the man of the house asked his wife why my clothes were whiter than hers. If you knew the man in question, you’d be surprised that he’d even noticed. Especially as he was French. Well, like other sad Brits who take their tea-bags abroad, I’m seldom seen in foreign parts without a handy slab of Vanish soap.

With a basket of goodies, I lose mother in B&M Bargains but find her again clutching a large bottle of Lenor – mango scented – and head for the checkout where we receive excellent service due to our ability to say please and thank-you.

After this, we head off for the new tip shop – Renaissance. Not that long ago, there was a shed at the local tip in which Linda sold discarded goods for pennies. She did so well that they gave her an old garage on the business estate for a couple of years with even more unwanted things. Here’s the rub: Linda is an undiscovered interior decorator. She dressed that garage as though it was a professional emporium for the shabby chic seekers and she sold things for next to nothing. All those upscaling, eBay selling craft types swarmed the place and in not being greedy and selling goods for a few pounds she made the council a small and unexpected fortune. Now, they’ve given her a proper shop which is huge: materials, ornaments, furniture – you name it …

I say to Linda, do you remember when you were in a shed down the tip? Now look – you have your own department store. Linda replies sadly, yes, life was so undemanding in that shed. I made too much money for them.

Boot full, we’re off to Home Sense which is a sort of satellite of TK Max. I lose mother but end up with a collection of goodies. But mum, when I locate her, is hungry, and so am I. Earlier, we might have envisaged ourselves eating tasty local produce in the rain drenched Dorset interior. Now, we head off to Sainsburys for cottage pie and egg and chips. The rain is pouring down and we congratulate ourselves on not having ventured further afield. We have a look at the sale and mum purchases a cauliflower before heading back for a cup of tea. Sorry Milton Abbas but we had a lovely time.

There aren’t too many tracks out of Rognonas and the one that leads to Arles is a road well-travelled. Mistral was up and down here like a fiddler’s elbow; largely on his way to Avignon, apart from his childhood travels to a hitherto unknown school at Frigolet. Russell doesn’t like Frigolet; claims it’s brash and tawdry or other suchlike adjectives that I’ve made a point of dismissing from my mind. It’s also, apparently, not old enough. Later, he’ll tell me he doesn’t like Mistral either. Ha! Guess what I’ve got for his birthday.

We seem to be passing along the Arles road so frequently these days that even my companion feels finally grounded so I make an unexpected left turn down the lane that leads to the perfume museum. Although I want to purchase some Eau de Violette, the main purpose of this detour is to visit the gardens which are cloaked in a myriad of bees and butterflies. It smells nice too. The place looks particularly lovely today as it’s still dressed in the dreamcatchers that were part of yesterday’s wedding decorations. We wander along, searching hopefully for Russell’s bride who, it seems, has already run away.

And after this, and a minor incident involving the front of the hire car and a large boulder, we traverse a few more kilometres along the D570 before taking another left turn to my favourite venue in Provence: Chapelle St Gabrielle. Reader, you don’t need me to tell you about this place: it appears so many times in Donald and also in The Road that Runs. I’m slightly anxious. I want Russell to love Provence but I especially want him to embrace this place and all its conspiratorial history. He’s off doing that striding business again and I’m just sitting and soaking the goodness. Then he’s back: ‘I’m sorry, but this can’t be your favourite place any more’, he claims. And pourquoi pas? ‘Because it’s MY favourite place’. Oh deep joy. What fun we’ll have later with a couple of bottles of wine and an exchange of research. We know how to live.

And so to Arles. Again. This time we park at the top of town where I’m able to suggest a backwards glance at the place where the Yellow House once stood. The railway bridge, replete with running train, is as it was when Gauguin and Vincent passed their heady nine weeks just below. I hope certain people will be glad of a chauffeur, with a useful smattering of French, who also knows about this place because, let me tell you, not many people do. And the good folk of Arles have done nothing to mark the site, let alone commemorate it in any useful way. The only reason I know about it is because I once passed a day in this town with the partner who cannot be named; a man who, inordinately temperamental , verging on the downright moody, is the most wonderful guide one might hope for. He also knows the best places to eat.

We head off to the amphitheatre, which seems to please the American no end. It’s so hot. I sit on a bench where they once watched gladiators and recall another time I was here with that crowd from Trowbridge. It was hot that day too and a couple of men were painting the wooden barriers behind which the brave matadors hide. Suddenly, a large rat appeared in the arena and we shouted a warning. One of the decorators entered with his paint cloth and, treating the vermin as a small bull, began the matador’s dance to much cheering. After a while, he got fed up and hit the rat over the head with a shovel.

Russell wants to visit the Roman Theatre and I don’t. It’s my least favourite place. I don’t know why – it seems full of glaring concrete to me. His opinion is that it’s like a Roman junk store and we’d better get some lunch toute de suite. Good plan, although we manage to get a bit lost on the way: geographically, historically, spiritually and all other permutations. Eventually, he picks a place in a shady square but I’m hot, bothered and put off by the blackboard that advertises fish and chips. Not going there. Sulking. We go next door where I order a risotto of mussels and tellines (clams). I forgot to mention that Russell is the slowest eater in the whole universe. Well, there were so many bloody tellines requiring shell removal that the American had finished his lunch before I was even done with the preparation of mine. Lunch was superb. Of course, we’d already agreed not to have pudding. But then the waiter arrived and announced desert of the day was – Isles Flottantes! My most favourite thing to eat in the whole world. Even the waiter looked delighted at the expression on my face.

Finally, full of shellfish and raw egg, we must visit the Thermes of Constantine. Up the hill, down another, along this lane. Phone him up, Russell – maybe he’s still in the bath and it’s shut. So now, Constantine’s baths assume the mantle of my most hated place in Provence. Who cares. The travelling companion is happy and we were able to walk back along the Rhône. And later, a late afternoon in the pool, a bottle of the pink stuff and an infusion of bonhomie.