Notre petit potager a poussé beaucoup.

This weekend’s trip took in the nearby towns of Manosque and Sisteron.

Manosque was picturesque but a bit deserted – I guess that Sundays in August for you.

After a bite to eat it was on to Sisteron – a cliff top town with some impressive views.

The cathedral was built by Pierre de Sabran on his return from the second crusade.

He brought back a piece of the true cross with him which used to be housed in nearby Lurs.

Pierre was also bishop of Sisteron.

Sisteron was also the birthplace of French poet Paul Arène. Who is remembered in the town.

His Provençal works are about the countryside around Sisteron which, I can vouch for, are pretty inspirational.

When I was 18 I spent a summer in Soustons in the south west of France in the Landes department (40) working for a farmer called Jacques who had a lot of corn fields.

My job – and that of my school friends – was to castrer le maïs – pull the flower off the corn plant to stop it reproducing.

We used to walk down a line of corn in a big field, pull off the flower while getting whacked in the face by the wet corn plant leaves.

To this day it is the best hangover cure I have ever encountered.

Well, bad news for British schoolkids who want to spend their summers in the Soustons sunshine (well if Brexit wasn’t bad news enough for them and put a stop to that).

As the cornfields of Venelles will attest to, castrer le maïs has become the work of machines.

I suppose that’s progress.

One story from my time in Soustons. We slept in tents on Jacques land and, early one morning after a night on the eau de vie, he woke us up by unzipping our tent and shouting: “Dépêchez vous.”

As one of my school friends crawled out of his sleeping bag, he looked at me and said: “I think there’s fish for breakfast.”

I thought everything was sorted at France Travail after my trips there on Monday and Tuesday and subsequent phone call on Wednesday telling me it was all ok.

So I got a shock on Thursday morning when another France Travail worker called me asking me to send in a list of things – including my last three pay slips, my RIB, something to do with the three days I was off sick in February last year and some document from England that I didn’t really understand.

I explained to him that my personal account on the France Travail website is still in the process of being created (eight weeks later) so I can’t upload documents.

He said if it still wasn’t working on Friday I should go back to the office.

So on Friday I went back for my third visit of the week.

This time I was there for quite a while and was helped by three very helpful women.

They explained what all the documents were – and showed me how to scan them in.

They explained to me that the necessary info one about three days off sick could be found in my Ameli account.

Fortunately they let me off the U1 form as it looked like that would take some time.

They also wanted to see my carte de presse. I explained that as I worked as a rédacteur en chef I had never needed one.

How do we get round this problem? I had to write and sign an attestation sur l’honneur which was dictated to me by one of my new friends.

And then after only a couple of hours, we were done- at least I think so.

Yet on Wednesday and Thursday a lot of letters – and I mean a lot – arrived at the house from France Travail.

They are dated before my Friday trip – so I can ignore them, right?

We went to a lovely town about half an hour’s drive away in the Luberon called Lourmarin.

It was very picturesque – violet shutters (les volets violets) were clearly in the regulations.

We had a nice meal and a walk around. I even bought a hat. I’m sure we’ll be back.

On our recent trip to Aix, we had a little someone along for the ride.

While I was away I got another angry letter from France Travail.

Because they said I hadn’t replied in time to their first letter my chômage entitlement had been suspended.

I decided it was time to pay them a visit in person.

On Monday I talked to three women at the counter who checked and said that the director had received my letter of explanation and all I could do was wait.

They did suggest I come back to scan in some information from Euronews which I hadn’t brought with me.

So on Tuesday I went back and saw a different woman. And she was much more proactive.

She admitted it was their fault and went straight off to raise my case with the director, took my phone number and said she’d ring me with an update soon.

Then she rang this morning to say it had been sorted.

With a bit of luck, I might be able to send them my forms before the end of the week.

Cath took me to Cucuron – a little village 30 minutes away that she had been to while I was away on work.

It is very picturesque with lots of nice-looking bars and restaurants.

We had a drink but on the way back to the car I spotted this sign.

Guignol Lyonnais.

Lyon is never far away, as I’ve noticed before.

Can you tell?

I’ve just got back from two weeks working in Moldova and Georgia.

I find a France gripped by Olympics fever.

Particularly about this guy.

Swimming sensation Léon Marchand.

According to the local paper il a conquis le cœur des Français.