Market day in Brignoles. Walked quickly through the still closed chilly streets to a large open square to discover not a flea market but a typical English town market – cheap clothes , handbags and serviceable shoes. The foodie bit, however, was a lot better as they always are. Huge beef tomatoes, intensly aromatic parsley, Corsican clemeantines and several local cheese stalls. I bought a French blue cheese, various small round chevres a tranche of Compte. Then spied a linen stall and brought a yellow and blue tablecloth decorated with olives which fairly shouted ‘Provence.’. Did not feel like sitting over a cup of café noir on my own so walked back through the narrow streets and home.

Later I managed to lure Neil away from the piano with a lunch of tomatoes, avocados, basil and beautiful bread with salty butter. There are many ways to while away the time in france – potagers, antiques, potteries. A couple of years ago I drove all over Northern france looking at the amazing potagers – half work mostly pleasure and this time it was potteries. After about an hour and a half of real driving up and across a range of hills – steep climbs, steeper drops, I Ireached a huge vine growing plateau. Had not been aware of the sun as I was climbing through the forest, but now the warmth was amazing – the vines almost visibly pulling themselves up towards it.