…we’re all hunkered down at the place of employment. Hunkered? Or should that be bunkered down? No, bunkered sounds as though we’re securely hidden away. Must be hunkered then. Although that still sounds as if we’re hiding but the only thing we’ve temporarily succeeded in hiding from is the interminable rain. And it is temporary. It might be cosy in my nice warm office, and I might’ve retrieved my winter slippers from their summer resting place in the middle drawer of the desk, but any minute now another sodden student will appear in the doorway dripping their way in for an hour’s support of some form or another. And I will, hopefully, rectify their life for 60 minutes.

I drive home via the surgery. For reasons too tedious to mention, the surgery has become my second home of late. The only reason I’m mentioning the place is because, like my students, I’ve been given an allotted time to arrive. And like my students, I will be damp and dripping all over the carpet. The similarities pretty much end there. I might have mentioned elsewhere that in France doctors’ receptionists don’t exist: you make your arrangements directly with the GP. I’m like a French GP: students make their plans with me. If they can’t keep their appointments, they generally let me know. Not some formidable intermediary.

So, it’s bucketing down. I’ve allowed myself a generous half hour for a trip that should take, at the most, twenty minutes. But, as I said, it’s raining and, this being England, where you might’ve thought they’d got used to a spot of the watery stuff, the rain means that traffic is at a standstill. My car is reasonably new, modern and sleek. Makes no difference: it’s a Ford. I’m old enough to remember the days when, if you were in possession of a Ford, you had to begin your day half an hour prematurely in winter because you knew the car wasn’t going to start. ‘Oh, just leave me alone’, the poor, cold, little engine would splutter. I’m not designed for early mornings’. The engineers finally overcame this insanity.

Trouble is, the seasons have changed. We only have two of them now: grey or bright; raining or not raining. The Ford doesn’t have to worry about fighting arctic winters any longer so now it complains about precipitation. I switch the warm air to a place where it will make my slipperless toes feel nicer. Toes are comforted but now the car’s steamed up. I can’t see a bloody thing. I open the window but that only makes things worse. Now I’m wet and chilly as well as unable to see out. I sit in the traffic and switch the air to a place where it will clear the windscreen. And I’m instantly cold again. And all the while the clock is ticking.

I’m on the phone to the surgery. Despite the fact that I’m not moving, I disguise the fact that I’m on the phone. I lean casually against the window, phone cupped surreptitiously to my right ear as though I’m momentarily relaxing, and whisper to the GP’s receptionist:

‘I’m afraid I’m caught in traffic. I might be a tad late’. I deliver this news as if I’m a beautiful, but brave, butterfly who has been momentarily trapped in a collector’s net from which, any minute now, I shall be free. ‘How late will you be’, screams the oberfuhrer? ‘Oh, I’m just in Poole’, I lie. ‘About five minutes?’

Oberfuhrer says something unintelligible. ‘Did you hear that?’ ‘Absolutely’, I lie again.

Afterwards, I collect my prescription and, as a necessary treat, purchase a bright pink lipstick. I arrive home soaked and put the kettle on. The kettle boils just as I’m pouring a glass of wine. I look out of the window and I think of the south of France.

None of the previous quotidian would have happened in the South. Chances are, at this time of year, they are experiencing a horrid Mistral that will wear them down. It will make them cold and irritated. It might even cut their electricity supply. They will have to go into Avignon for respite. And when they’re within the city walls, they might have to duck to avoid flying debris. They will have to partake of an early aperitif before hiding in the confines of the Utopia cinema where they will watch a film shown in the language in which it was made. They will exit the Utopia and go to Le Cid for a quick, people-watching expresso. They might then be blown to a restaurant for a very long dinner.

I don’t want to live in the South. Winter’s a pain. They’re rubbish at doing Christmas so there’s nothing to look forward to. I like the ever diminishing English seasons. I like pub quizzes and I like my students. I like visiting my friends & family and I miss them enormously when I’m not here. I like my cosy office and my warm house. I like seeing deer at the end of my road. Jonathan Meades says every man has two countries: their own and France. It’s October and I miss France.

They’re constructing a something or other at work on the place where the car park used to be. This year’s new cohort of students, having chosen their place of learning based on promises of beautiful beaches and sexy nightclubs, as opposed to the site of potential literary and academic achievement, must be even more confused than those from previous years: not only do they have to find their way around the campus, they have to do so via a building site. The poor, temporarily friendless things sit in the sun glued to their phones; their sympathetic parents listen to the cries of distress emanating from offspring who have only just discovered that independent living is not all that it’s cracked up to be.

Meanwhile, staff who, selfishly, want to abandon their cars within reasonable walking distance of their office, now have to arrive at work about ten minutes after they left it the previous afternoon. There is a replacement car-park. The fact that it’s called a ‘park and stride’ gives the reader an inkling of its proximity to the university. It’s in a place that used to be a field with a herd of white cows. Still, good for those who want to become or stay fit. It won’t be a good start to the day when it’s cold and raining and windy and snowing.

Talking of snow, the sports department have emailed their latest offers to non-healthy staff. At reduced rates, we can learn how to snowboard or ski. Could be useful when we’re trying to negotiate a path from the ‘park and slide’ in November. Alternatively, we can practise cycling as long as we don’t mind going somewhere else to do so and be segregated by gender.

Two days into the new term and sickness, directly or indirectly, is rife in our department. Some of it’s serious stuff. Some of it’s just about doing repair jobs. Back from hotter climes, and having had head and facial hair dealt with as a matter of some urgency in order to distinguish myself from Star Trek characters, I’ve been to get my feet seen to. Flip Flops should be acknowledged as a health hazard. My unattractive plates have been exfoliated, washed, scraped, moisturised and placed in enormous white heated boots. I looked down on them and thought I could quite easily pass for a Smurf.

Others arrive back from holidays looking fresh and ready for anything. By lunchtime – or what would pass for lunchtime were there an opportunity to escape and have lunch – they look as frazzled as they did last June. In the paperless offices, paperwork has formed mountain ranges that zig-zag across desks and the ladies’ loo has already, at record-breaking speed, been designated as ‘out of order’. Groups of the disconsolate begin to form amid rumours of yet another restructuring, reconfiguration, rethinking etc. etc. We console ourselves with the knowledge that, at least, we have a job. I’ve been in this educational game for 25 years and I can tell you, rien ne change. Bring on the pension.

I’m sitting alone, taking the final aperitif on the last day of my seven week sojourn in Provence. I’ve just been bitten, hopefully for the last time, by a mosquito. I’ll be home this time tomorrow

People sometimes ask me if I enjoy taking holidays alone, especially for such a long period, way down in the South. Well, on my own apart from Karil & Peter and the Kiwis with whom I’ve stayed at various stages. And Christine, John and Anais who I met up with again along the way. And Beverley and her family who entertained me during the second week. And new friends at Villa Glanum. And Sylvie, Leonie, Barbara & Richard and Bridget & Jane who all came out to see me. Some of these kind folk shared my birthday. Thank-you one and all. What’s it like being on holiday alone? I’ve absolutely no idea.

28th August: Autumn has passed and winter must’ve occurred overnight as Spring, witnessed by these crocuses outside my door, was in evidence on this day which started and ended in some confusion. I am awoken at 7.30am by the piercing shriek of the telephone in my room. I stumble out of bed to quieten this unwanted intrusion. ‘Hello?’. The person on the other end is clearly under the impression that they’ve phoned the baker. I am berated for not delivering the bread and croissants. It’s always tricky sur le telephone but I think that’s what she’s saying. I ask if she can speak English. ‘Of course I can speak English’, she shouts in French. ‘But why would I want to?’. ‘Because I’m English and I don’t understand what you want’, I shout back. There is a heavy silence at the other end. Then a meek little voice says ‘excusez-moi’ and silently hangs up.

An hour later, I go for breakfast. ‘Bonjour. Ca va, ca va. Are you alone? Still?’ I feel I’ve somehow let down the woman in charge of breakfast. ‘Someone phoned me at half past seven’, I tell her by way of practising my French conversation. ‘Oh, c’etait vous’, she replies happily and launches into a tedious story about having to call the boulanger three times. And how, on the third time, she dialled my room in error. Within that ‘c’etait vous’ I detect a note of relief and a missing word or two: ‘it was ONLY you; thank goodness I didn’t shout at any of the important guests’, for example. We have a good laugh – at whom , I’m not sure.

There are reasons why some people don’t revisit a place: they’ve seen everything they want to see; it’s never the same after the first time and so on. Then there are reasons why folk like me go back time after time: I want to see it all again; there will be new discoveries; if it’s not the same, it will be better.

I climb to the highest point of Glanum. I don’t like heights and there are certain places I don’t like being alone. Like places where you can fall off a hill unnoticed. But, when I get to the top, I remember why I made the ascent. From this tiny pinnacle, looming over this small town, I indulge the widest of panoramas. From left to right I see the Cevennes, La Montagnette, Avignon – including the Popes’ Palace which is, today, sparkling in the sun -the mountains of the Vercors and the Vauclause and Mont Ventoux. And close at hand, but behind the forest, the Alps.

And seemingly in the middle of this ancient landscape, and under the biggest of skies, sits the church of St. Remy. Vincent immortalised it under the nightime stars. He had never seen it – it’s a picture from his perfect mind.

In the afternoon, I am poolside hiding behind Little Dorrit. I’m reading it on Kindle. No-one can tell if you’re changing pages on a Kindle. I’m not. I’m spying on other guests. The woman who’s staying next door to me is making a huge fuss about taking a photograph of a passing lizard. A very small lizard. She’s managed to wake up everyone who was taking a quiet siesta and who are now under the impression that a rare monster has been spotted. It occurs to me that she wouldn’t be quite so excited by the two inch long specimen had she seen the size of the thing I spotted on her wall last night.

Finally, I go to the Bar-Tabac for the aperitif and an early dinner. I want to get it over and done with asap because they’re having a musical soiree later. The Nugget Heads are guesting and I’m not much inspired by either their name or their warm-up. It’s all very pleasant and uneventful until I get back to the car park. A woman stops me to let me know that she’s lost her car. Might I know where she’s left it? Hang on – I’ll have a look in my crystal ball. I make my suggestion du jour and she leaves happily. Call me cynical but I have the distinct impression she was English and we have had this ridiculous conversation in French. Oh well, another day tomorrow.

24th August: I moved again today. The other evening, when I was still at Karil’s, before Leonie left for home, it rained. We moved the table and chairs into the remise and took the aperitif whilst waiting for Karil to appear with one of her excellent pasta dishes. Looking round and looking up, I spotted a pile of wood resting in the eaves. ‘What’s that pile of old wood for’, I asked as part of the pre-dinner intellectual conversation? ‘I’m going to make a harpsichord’, replied Peter. Yes, of course you are. Ha, ha, ha. Have another drink.

‘A second harpsichord’, he continued. He wasn’t laughing. Leonie and I look at each other wondering whether this is some kind of rare Swiss joke. Peter asks whether we want to see the first harpsichord. We do and we duly follow him into the dining room. As we eat in the remise during inclement weather, the term ‘dining-room’ seems anomalous although it is where the jam and honey are kept. Sometimes, it’s referred to as the library. There are a lot of books in here. And a harpsichord. You might think that I would’ve noticed a large musical instrument previously, possibly when looking for the jam. It’s a big wooden thing leaning against a wall. In fairness, this is a residence with lots of unidentifiable objects leaning against walls.

So, there it is and here is that enigma known as Peter. Last night I was finally honoured with a private showing of many of the beautiful pictures he has produced: Switzerland, Tuscany, Les Alpilles. He doesn’t seem to have painted for ten years and I’ve no idea how long that pile of wood has been in the remise. Shame.

Now I’m having Sunday lunch on the terrace at Villa Glanum. It’s an alcohol-free day. The Coca Cola bottles have names on the labels – friend, princess and so on. Mine says celibataire. Optimistically, I consider whether this means celebrity although I have my suspicions that it might be similar to the English word. I ask the waitress. She is embarrassed. I help her out. Does it mean someone without a lover? It does. Ah well. C’est moi.

15 August: When I consider the Assumption of the Virgin Mary – which I do more often than you might imagine – I always reflect on the wonderful candlelit service and procession at Frigolet. I forget about the practicalities of this religious day on which this increasingly secular country insists on shutting its doors.

I first learned a potentially salutary lesson in 2007 when, abandoned and alone in Portes-les-Valence, I awoke from a deep siesta and went in search of cigarettes. It seemed that whilst I’d been snoozing contentedly, the four horsemen of the apocalypse had ridden into town and closed the place down. A solitary survivor, I wandered the streets, anxious and distraught, to discover that the only place open was the funeral parlour. This seemed appropriate if everyone else was dead and I silently applauded the owner’s foresight.

In those distant days, I’d never heard of the Assumption, let alone realised its impact on the economic welfare of France. I’d only just come to terms with lunchtime closing, Sunday closing and Monday morning closing. These days, you can find shops open on a Sunday or a Monday morning but Assumption? No hope.

When the Virgin Mary was done with an earthly life, her body and soul were assumed into heaven. This is not the same as the Ascension when Jesus went up under his own steam: assumption means that Mary was taken up. Interestingly, or so the fundamentalists remind us, there is no mention of the Assumption in the bible or early teachings and the notion was only declared as part of official Catholic dogma in 1950. I hope I’m not upsetting my reader – I have no view either way; I just can’t find anything that tells me WHY? I’ve been reading, which is how I know that St Epiphanius mentioned that as there was no account of her death, no-one knew if she had even died. And if you’re still following this, that surely means that we don’t know whether she was dead or alive when she was assumed. Some people think Mary died in Ephesus and others think she was in Jerusalem. She had a tomb in Jerusalem which might be a clue. On the other hand, when the tomb was opened, it was empty.

This morning, I woke to find myself in the house of the almost-walking wounded. An unknown and unseen insect has attacked one of Karil’s ears. The ear in question has taken on the colour and size of a tomato sufficient to feed a family of five on a saint’s day. This glowing orb has dispatched tentacles into Karil’s left cheek which she is reliably informed is three degrees hotter than the right one. Infusions, diffusions, anti-this, contra-that must be administered. Karil anxiously reads the accompanying literature to determine whether alcohol must be avoided. She can find no mention of this and, greatly relieved, returns to bed. Peter, meanwhile, has had another bad night. He puts his headphones on and goes to sleep.

I have no car today so I take a walk to Noves. It’s about two miles there. I still haven’t learned the lesson of the Assumption and refuse to believe the place won’t re-open after 3pm. On the way, I notice that the apples are finally being harvested and I take this industrious scene as an indication of the entertaining delights that await me in Noves.

Wrong: Noves is shut with one important exception: the scruffy little bar on the roundabout is open and I enjoy a refreshing Coca Cola prior to the two mile return journey back to my billet.

Here’s a photo of the now derelict train track that was once used to transport the harvested fruit. I feel it typifies France on 15 August 🙂