27th August: Last night I visited the evening craft fair in St. Remy. It’s held once a week throughout the summer. There are just two more to go but already the crowds were thin on the ground. For the most part, the Parisians and all those other interlopers from the north of France have returned to their more elegant and sophisticated lifestyles. Here at Villa Glanum, the international journalists and TV producers have, along with the renowned publisher, upped sticks and taken the TGV back to the capital. ‘See you in Paris’, they shouted gleefully. You won’t see me I don’t reply.

Wednesday morning sees the main market in St. Remy. In the height of the season, people flock from all over Provence to savour the goods on offer that are packed into the tiny lanes and three squares. This morning, I drove straight into an empty space in the car park to discover that I’ve apparently gone native. Some French visitors struggling with the ticket machine mistake me for a local and ask for my help. ‘Don’t bother’, I tell them, ‘it never works’. Later, I heard the exact same advice given by the woman in the tourist office. More new arrivals in the car park ask me for advice about the market. I oblige. When my stint as tourist advisor is over, I make my way to a stall where, minding my own business, I am accosted by a woman demanding to know whether the dresses are pure cotton. The irate stall holder rushes over – ‘c’est moi’, she insists, ‘she’s just a customer’, nodding at me in a possessive and threatening manner.

I have a theory: I didn’t bring much with me in the way of clothes or footwear and what I do have now largely resembles rags. I have three pairs of shoes, two of which are going in the bin at the end of next week. Also headed for the poubelle are two nighties and a number of wine stained tops. My hair is bleached by the sun and I’ve a different coloured skin from six weeks ago. So, whilst I’m clearly not Parisian, I might, at a pinch, be taken for one of the poorer relatives from the South. One of the fatter ones.

The clothes stalls on the market have divided their goods into two sections: fin de serie and nouvelle collection. There are huge discounts to be had since last week: 50% or even 70% off the summer clothes. It’s another signifier of the onset of autumn. And it’s a good time to be a tourist if you’re in the market – in a manner of speaking – for a few frocks.

I’m not. I’m already weighed down with tablecloths, ceramics and old Tin Tin annuals; another reason for throwing my clothes away. Neither am I interested in the nouvelle collections which look as drab and dreary as they do every year. One minute it’s summer with all its vibrantly coloured linens and cottons, the next it’s bring out your widows’ weeds. Leonard’s still round the corner singing the blues. I’m hoping he’ll stay one more week for the delight of Bridget and Jane who arrive on Saturday.

This evening, I returned to the town. Specifically, to the Bar-Tabac des Alpilles where I make a huge decision that might surprise my friend, Marian – the acknowledged queen of cocktails. I will NOT take a glass of their superb house rose for the aperitif: I will have a Campari and orange juice. The waiter is apologetic: there is no orange juice. It’s another pigeonniere moment. Then, the dear boy has a suggestion: ‘shall I squeeze some oranges’, he asks? With the sun on my back and the temperature a mere 32C, this somewhat late-in-life discovery for me is sublime. I resolve to make the purchase that I’ve been considering for the last three weeks and stagger off down the hill tout de suite.

26th August: I wake to find an overcast day and, as the picture indicates, signs of an approaching autumn. The temperature has dropped to a sticky 28C. As the day progresses, this will rise but the clouds will not dissipate. I find this to be the perfect time for visiting chapels. Armed with a small but handy booklet highlighting a number of, as yet, unseen constructions of a religious nature, I choose Eyragues: they have a church, two chapels and an excellent cake shop

Eyragues is en fete: the fete of St. Symphonium. Readers might think that a saint’s day is the perfect time to visit venues of a spiritual nature. In France, a saint’s day is yet another excuse to shut everything. Like the church. And the cake shop. And judging by the hoards jammed in behind the barricades, it’s clearly the day of the bull. The poor taunted bull.

Sheep-like, I follow a passing crowd uphill. Like a human transhumance, we are headed in the direction of who knows where. I have my suspicions and, of course, we duly arrive at the arena. I push my way to an upper circle and watch as a solitary taureau is drawn into the midst of a multitude of adolescent gladiators.

The youth of Eyragues wave bandanas of various colours and shout abuse at the confused animal. The brave bull runs hither and thither as the lads try to touch the space between its horns. This is practice for later years when they will try to grab the ribbons from a similar spot on an older animal. For now, it’s just a prank, though not for the bull

As everything is closed and my car is temporarily trapped within a confusion of barricades, I wander back into the village. I locate myself behind the relative safety of some iron grids and wait for the next stage. More youths, sporting the neckerchiefs of their team, stand on the wrong side of the barricades. Beautiful female stick insects wait in huddles. They also wear bandanas, the colour depending on which young man they’re currently supporting. From somewhere, comes the sound of a gunshot followed by pandemonium: ‘Il arrive’, the cry goes up and people scatter as the bull runs through the village streets. It’s chased by almost every man in Provence including a group of lads who, inexplicably, have brought along a giant wheelie bin.

I escape the madness and follow a tortuous route to Verquieres. There are no chapels in Verquieres but my booklet advises me there is a magnificent pigeonnnier (which is French for dovecote). Naturally, Verquieres is shut. To be truthful, it doesn’t look as Verquieres has ever been open but, being an intrepid explorer, I manage to locate the only living being in the place. I ask him if he knows where the pigeonnier is and he starts laughing. I don’t suppose they get many visitors here. He says it’s very hard to find but gives me directions. I follow the directions and end up down the bottom of someone’s drive where I find a pyramid. As you do.

I also found this lion. After that, I found the owner of the garden I was taking photos in. Unsurprisingly, he’d come out to see who I was and what I was doing. He was very nice and told me the pigeonnier was in the neighbour’s garden next door.

The neighbour wasn’t quite as pleasant. I rang the bell on her gate which seemed to be the signal for the commencement of horrendous barking. I looked through a hole in the wall and saw the hound of the Baskervilles galloping towards me. Making slow progress behind the slavering beast came a small, cross-looking woman who opened the gate about half an inch. ‘Bonjour, my good woman, any chance of seeing the pigeonnier?’. If you thought the first man was surprised at the purpose of my visit to Verquieres, you should have seen her face. She regarded me as if I was as mad as the hound which, by this time, was frothing at the mouth. The gist of her reply was ‘no chance’. She must have seen the look of disappointment on my face as she clearly felt obliged to remind me that the dog wasn’t on a lead. Personally, I don’t think a lead would’ve done much. A ball and chain might just have worked. I was persistent. A compromise was reached: she would open the gate three inches and whilst she was busy kicking the dog in the jaw, I would push my camera through the opening and take a quick snap. Before the dog did likewise. I hope, dear reader, you appreciate my efforts to bring the unknown into your homes.

21st August: 

Dear Alphonse,

Many thanks for all the letters from your windmill. You certainly seem to have acquired a diverse selection of acquaintances down there in Provence. I first visited your windmill some years ago. You were out at the time – my fault for not phoning beforehand. Somebody relieved me and one or two others of a couple of euro and let us in to have a look around. I’d never been in a windmill before so it was very interesting thanks. Mind you, I don’t think you’d get into my home quite as easily if I was out, but then I doubt you’ll be in Poole in the foreseeable future.

At the time, I purchased a collection of the letters that had been translated into English. I’ve never seen anything else that you’ve written being offered in an alternative language. It’s the same with Pagnol: once you’ve read Jean de Florette and the ones about his parents, the appetite is whetted but there’s nothing else available. As for your pal, F. Mistral, forget it: I doubt they’ve even got his work out of Provencal and into French, let alone anything else. Anyway, I’m always suggesting that folk read your letters, especially if they’re planning a trip to the Fontvielle area. However, it’s tricky to know whether to visit first, then read the book or the other way round. The one makes the other more interesting. Similarly, as you might imagine, there’s a flourishing santon business based on all your characters. Same problem though: do you look at the santons, then read their stories or vice versa?

I took Leonie to Fontvielle today. She hasn’t read the letters so I had to encourage her with a comprehensive contextualisation. Plus the promise of being able to see the interior of a windmill. There were a lot of people there, all of whom had trudged up the hill in the intense heat in order to see the spectacular view of the paper mill and cement works at Beaucaire. Talk about a blot on the landscape. You wouldn’t be writing about the carriage from Nimes to Beaucaire these days as I doubt anyone would bother to take the journey.

Your windmill was shut. Shut for good, not just for lunch. When did that happen? I suppose you became sick of all those visitors. The French were on good form: I noticed a small child attempting to climb up one of the sails to the indifference of his parents. We got some nice photos though before descending the trail past the remains of other windmills and down to Chateau Montaubaun. We arrived at 12.25, just in time for Madame to close the doors in our faces before shooting off for lunch. That would be lunch that lasts until 3pm. As Leonie said, she could fly to Greece in that time. We declined the invitation to return later.

Fontvielle was also pretty much closed. So much for the rumour that there’s a good lunch to be had in the village. We went to Arles instead but the food there was also sadly disappointing. I continued a fruitless search for a particular poster by Lelee which my friend at the evening market in St Remy tried to sell me for 150 euro the other night. Today, I met a woman who claimed to work with Lelee’s editor. She said the poster is unobtainable. Actually, I found one on l’internet but it’s 3,200 euro so I won’t be buying that. Leonie pointed out that the one for 150 euro is not so unaffordable after all. I bought a postcard instead.

Anyway, that’s all for now. Keep writing.

Cordialement, Donald

17th August: Our hosts have left for the Cevennes in the footsteps of Robert Louis Stevenson. They’re engaged in a spot of reccy before making any sort of decision that might involve a donkey. We’ve been left behind to guard the cats: Opus, Calico, Molika and Galileo. I’m not a big fan of cats. That might be an understatement. On the other hand, Mrs Proust has now been replaced by Leonie who has arrived tout suite from Lake Garda. Leonie’s undergoing a culture shock. They do things differently in Garda. I’ve seen the photos. It’s not quite as rustic down there. Or anywhere really.

Yesterday, Karil took me to Chateaurenard to collect the new car from a French rental agency. It was a good plan. Just a shame that, even though my paperwork said I was to pick up the vehicle in Chateaurenard, they omitted to tell me that they close on Saturdays. Europcar, Avis and Hertz also play this game at Avignon Airport on Thursdays. Tourists disembark clutching their booking documents only to discover nothing apart from a telephone for the TGV station. First timers don’t know that the TGV station is miles away on the other side of town. And as Avignon Airport is a shed with two doors, there’s no taxi rank and no means of getting to the TGV station. What a hoot!

Karil had a brand new, unused sat nav in her car in preparation for the Cevennes sortie. She felt sure it would locate my missing rental car which was, apparently, somewhere in Avignon. There were a couple of tiny problems: firstly, the sat nav woman whispered in French. We couldn’t turn up the volume. This meant we couldn’t have the air con on because the noise of it drowned out the whispering French woman. Neither could we have the windows down because the sound of the traffic…blah, blah. Karil persuaded the sat nav woman to speak in English so we could just about understand her. The trouble was that the English sat nav woman gave directions in feet and yards. Karil only does metric so we kept missing all the turnings. ‘Why didn’t you turn down there’, asks the irritable navigator? ‘Because we haven’t got there yet’, replies the remarkably calm driver. It took nearly two hours and four phone calls to find my car. ‘Call yourself a serious business’, demanded the driver who’d been saving her wrath for the couldn’t-care-less twelve year old behind the counter?

Karil’s not calm about her cats: there are an awful lot of rules involved, mostly pertaining to food and doors. Galileo is losing weight so must be fed with the soft food several times a day. Molika only likes the juice from the soft food and only in the morning. I don’t know when and to whom Molika mentioned this alleged preference. I mistook Molika for Galileo with the second bowl in the afternoon. Molika did an excellent impression of Usain Bolt and gobbled the lot. I put the third bowl in the garden because Galileo, apparently, likes a picnic. So does Molika.

Leonie and I went out for an ice-cream. The cats have to be inside. I gathered up armfuls of Opus and Leonie got ready to do the thing with the doors. We herd the cats behind one door which we then shut making sure the front door is already closed. The door which is now shut has a cat flap in it but Karil has assured me that this only works one way. I fail to grasp this feat of feline engineering. Once the door with the cat flap is shut, we then close another door. When this other door is shut, we re-open the door with the one-way cat flap so the cats can get to the ‘kitty toilet’. We then re-open the front door and rush outside.

Did I mention the ‘kitty toilet’? Don’t worry – it won’t happen again. Off to do the watering now if I can remember which plants are involved. As I said, they do things differently in Garda.

Monsieur Martin, frequently in a state of semi-undress, drives past Pascale’s house on his tractor most days. He lives down the lane with his short wife, an impressive number of small speckled ponies that are often accompanied by several attendant Little Egrets and a dog that begins to bark every evening just as the aperitif arrives.

The ponies are of a miniature variety; their purpose is unspecified save to make more spotted ponies which can then be sold to someone who may be of restricted growth. And the dog is a nasty but unfortunate creature that belongs to a son who keeps him locked in a shed. Madame Martin never steps outside the front or back doors of the house which her husband constructed for her security. Madame Martin is a recluse: badly treated as a child, she was forced to assume a position of disproportionate responsibility as the bottom prop in a large family of acrobats.

She was rescued by Monsieur Martin who, as a younger man, happened to pass a summer in the big top with a troupe of performing poodles. Madame Martin, despite being afraid of dogs, was, nonetheless, swept off her tiny feet by promises of a new life wherein canvas was replaced by bricks, and poodles substituted with small ponies; in a place where she could get everyone off her back. However, history doesn’t shed its load so easily; which is why, according to Monsieur Martin, his wife spends her hot Provencal days inside the house. Apparently, she passes her time making confiture from the various ingredients which her husband grows in the garden that she only views occasionally through a grimy window.

Madame Martin has a bad back: the weight of her family caused this disability. She finds it difficult to walk and, never a tall woman in the first place, she has, apparently, shrunk in size; and continues to do so. Perhaps marrying a woman who is vertically challenged is what inspired the half-naked, but not unsympathetic, Monsieur Martin to invest in a selection of equally small ponies. Possibly, it was a thoughtful attempt to lessen her feelings of torment caused by a larger world; although why he married such a woman when the only possible benefit was a constant supply of home-made jam is unclear.

When not in the kitchen, Madame Martin likes to watch television, especially with her son, Christophe. The son departs at an early hour to pack potatoes into sacks somewhere or other and returns home to spend the rest of the day indoors watching French TV with his mother. To my mind, there’s not much difference between the entertainment value of a sack of potatoes and French TV, but, each to their own. There’s little in the way of alternative entertainment in the tiny hamlet of Cabannes. Still, it can’t be easy for Monsieur Martin who, having saved his wife from an overbearing family and fulfilling all his promises, has little to shout about apart from a spoonful of home-made Reine Claude every now and then with his breakfast. This is probably why he was so keen on Sophy.

Sophy, who was once Christophe’s girlfriend, also lived down the lane. Monsieur Martin liked her very much in a paternal sort of way. This was largely due to the fact that she didn’t make jam and had no interest in French television; preferring to be outside in the Provencal sunshine with the semi-naked Monsieur Martin, the small speckled ponies and the Little Egrets. Sadly, this happy companionship had no future. Sophy was also shrinking.

It was difficult to say when it began – more a question of Monsieur Martin suddenly noticing one day how much weight Sophy had lost. He sent her off to Noves to see young Doctor Giraud, a man so slight in stature as to seem of little consequence. The good doctor promptly prescribed a course of medication entirely without efficacy. Sophy refused to gain any weight and became smaller and smaller. No amount of Monsieur Martin’s home-grown, oddly shaped, but uniquely tasty tomatoes and aubergines as crooked as a French politician could adequately sustain the young woman. Surprisingly, his enormous courgettes also appeared to be nutritionally deficient. Even the sun-soaked natural sweetness of Madame Martin’s confiture held no obvious redeeming properties. For Monsieur Martin, the situation was une catastrophe: Sophy, who was also shrinking in height, became too tiny to help with the ponies and Monsieur Martin was eventually forced to reduce the herd. In number that is.

For a whole year, under her caring father-in-law’s supervision, Sophy continued to visit Doctor Giraud until, one day, the ever-diminishing young woman disappeared completely. Like Madame Martin, who had yet to vanish into oblivion, Sophy was not seen in public again; her disappearance unnoticed by two of the three who lived down the lane. Unlike Madame Martin, however, she was not ensconced in a darkened kitchen filling pots with jam or hidden away in front of television game shows designed for the small minded: she was recuperating in bed in Noves – with Doctor Giraud.

Gradually, with the kindly doctor’s help, but sadly unknown to Monsieur Martin, Sophy regained her strength and general interest in life. Soon, she was seen out and about in the village; which is more than would ever be said for Madame Martin. One day, Sophy was even spotted jogging down the road to Cabannes where she paused briefly to look with some longing at the remaining small speckled ponies in the field. She didn’t turn down the lane though. That way laid desolation where no-one was on top. Far more fun to be under the doctor. ©