On a trip to Lourmarin we stumbled across a colour run and various other activities to raise money for la mucoviscidose – cystic fibrosis.

We didn’t take part in the 5km run but did buy some raffle tickets with the chance of winning a restaurant meal among other prizes.

We also watched a great display of drumming from this group in their orange salopettes

We then bought a couple of pastries from this enticing display – not for charity, just because they looked gorgeous.

Lourmarin is always well worth a visit, as the jumper says.

This morning we heard a thump against our window.

I presumed it was our cat jumping at some insect on the other side of the glass but when Cath said the cat was somewhere else I feared the worst.

When I went over to investigate there was un roitelet huppé on the ground.

It was clearly dazed so I went outside to check it wasn’t badly hurt and to keep an eye on it.

It is the smallest bird in France.

My French bird book tells me it is called the little king because when it is attracting a mate it ruffles its gold crest and it looks like a crown.

After about 20 minutes this little king had recovered enough to fly off into a nearby oleander.

Take care now little king.

We wanted to hang up some posters we’d bought from recent visits to exhibitions.

After a trip to the supermarket to get some frames we came back to find…

We eventually persuaded Ula to move and so were able to adorn the walls with some new pictures.

More than seven months after I first reported that a road sign for Venelles had been écrasé we have a new sign.

Once more motorists will be able to find their way to our village.

Still no update on the other sign being replaced. I guess that will be done in January.

While we’re on the subjects of signs, I hadn’t noticed how the sign warning of le verglas is covered up in the warmer months.

I guess the risk of black ice at the moment is fairly minimal.

On Sunday night there was a massive storm in Provence.

It caused a lot of problems.

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Fortunately we were safely indoors and all we had to worry about was whether la piscine would déborder ou pas.

I looked out of the window and could see something bobbing in the swimming pool.

On closer inspection, it was an animal struggling to keep its head above the water.

I dashed outside and found a big lizard just about managing to float upright like a big green pencil.

I fished it out and let it recover by the side of the pool.

It is my third rescue mission with animals that have fallen into the pool.

Le crapaud was a success, I’m not so sure about la musaraigne.

I think le lézard recovered from his ordeal.

I spotted this sign in a local supermarket.

It lists the six whiskey producing areas of Scotland and their different tasting notes.

A few new words for me:

Tourbé – peaty

Iodé – Briney (I think)

Boisé – woody

Bruyère– heather

FYI – my favourite is Speyside whiskey- Aultmore but particularly Glenfarclas.

Just saying.

Our always excellent local paper La Provence posted on Instagram about a tradition that has taken place on the first Sunday of September for centuries – the blessing of the traditional local almond sweet les calissons.

In 1630 Aix was suffering from the plague and they prayed to Notre Dame de la Seds for help and after the Mass they gave out calissons and Aix was saved from the plague.

So once a year, the archbishop blesses 2,000 calissons and they are given out to the people of Aix.

It was a very enjoyable spectacle to watch pass through the central streets of Aix.

Even if all the participants didn’t seem to be enjoying it as much.

This weekend we had some visitors – my former colleague from Euronews, Toks, and his wife Laurence.
We took them on a tour of Aix and also fitted in a trip to the seaside at La Çiotat.

The weather was lovely and eating by the port made me remember how lucky we are to live here at the moment.

And it was lovely to see some friends from Lyon again.

À bientôt

As you may remember Aix is celebrating its most famous son Paul Cezanne and there is an exhibition of the work he made at his family home in Jas de Bouffan.

It is a really impressive exhibition with lots of drawings and paintings by the great man including les joueurs de cartes (the card players), plenty of self portraits and still lifes – nature morte in French.

I love his nature morte – he painted a lot of fruit – pears, cherries and apples.

His use of colour is really eye-catching. I didn’t take any photos of the paintings in the exhibition so here’s a quick photo of the bookshop’s offerings.

If you are in Aix before 12 October I would highly recommend buying a ticket.