Almost three years to the day I went back to do some birding in the Camargue – this time with fellow birding friend and former colleague Jim Todd.

Jim is a very good birder and thanks to his record keeping I know we saw 44 different species including five new ones for me:

• Greater short-toed lark/alouette calandrelle
• Zitting Cisticola/Cisticole des joncs
• Black kite/Milan noir
• Collared Pratincole/ Glaréole à collier
• Red crested pochard/ Nette Rousse

There were loads of others including our old friend the purple heron/héron pourpré, rollers/rollier, bee-eaters/guepiers and the famous flamant rose – flamingos.

And of course lots of storks/cignone blanche with big babies on huge nests.

Picture courtesy of Jim.

And of course, throughout the whole day we didn’t see another birder – anywhere.

But don’t worry, we’ll be back.

We took another day trip to Lyon and I ended up again in Place Bellecour and saw that le Roi Louis XIV was now back to his best.

The statue is by Lyonnais sculptor Lemot commissioned during the Bourbon Restoration after the fall of Napoleon. It was the biggest bronze casting of its time.

The original was melted down during the revolution and made into canons.

I love the detail on the horse’s neck and the king’s sandalled feet.

There is also some sort of art installation in the square. I don’t know if it’s permanent but it certainly brightens up the place

This cute little rabbit is près de notre portail most days.

It is always a joy to see it. It is fairly placid creature and is happy to pose for photos.

It’s that time of year when the fields of lavender around our house begin to look very attractive.

So I thought I’d try and capture it with a picture.

It also means that crowds of Chinese tourists will come to Provence to admire the lavender fields between now and August.

One of my fellow Aix entrepreneurs explained to me that the craze started thanks to a Chinese soap opera called Dream Links where the lavender fields of Provence were the backdrop for a love story between two characters.

And so a holiday destination was born.

I’ll look out for them in Venelles.

Another road sign on our road has met with a nasty end.

First there was this one which still hasn’t been replaced.

And now this:

Soon no-one is going to be able to find Venelles.

A lovely surprise today when my old boss at the BBC and now firm friend Steve Herrmann mentioned he might be passing by on his way home from Croatia.

He has spent the past four weeks driving his campervan from his home in Reading to Serbia via Switzerland, Croatia and Italy.

So he stopped off for his first cup of tea in four weeks and some French patisseries.

We had a great catch up discussing families, children, work and retirement.

Then he was on his way to a campsite near Valence.

It was lovely to see him. He should be back home by Saturday night.

After our successful yoga and apéro session, we wanted to track down more of the locally-produced wine and beer that we tasted.

The wine, from the Marrenon winery in La Tour d’Aigues was easy enough to track down.

Then we headed to Pertuis where the microbrewery called Quartier d’Éte was based.

On the way Cath looked it up on her phone. Closed til Monday.

Well, let’s go and have a look around Pertuis anyway, we thought.

And when we did we bumped into the second ever edition of Le Festival de la Bière.

There were loads of microbreweries present. Surely Quartier d’Éte would be there.

And they were.

So we had a chat with the stall holder – explained our yoga prof’s recommendation and then bought a selection of his beers and stouts.