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.

Our yoga teacher Amandine has organised a summer of evening yoga sessions in a nearby beauty spot.

It is at La Bastides-des-Jourdans in a gorgeous holiday let in the middle of an olive orchard complete with 25 metre swimming pool.

The views were amazing. The yoga was fun too – even if I need to improve my ability to balance on one leg.

Afterwards we were treated to an apéro of local beer and wine.

And we all left with a mini-bottle of olive oil.

I can’t imagine many better locations for an hour of yoga.

We have once again got some unwelcome visitors chez nous.

It started a week ago when we heard something running along the inside of the walls.

What was it? A bird or a mouse or a rat?

We then heard something – or somethings running across the ceiling of our bedroom. Ula was very good at alerting us to any new noise.

A call to the landlord was in order while we decamped to another bedroom – not the first time les nuisibles have forced us to do that.

The next day our regular Mr Fixit, M Martinez, came round to investigate.

He went up into les combles to have a look and then told us it was full of crottes.

Lovely.

He put down some poison that he said was très efficace and said he would be back later in the week to see if the rongeurs had taken the bait.

I told him we had had mice in our apartment in Lyon.

C’est la campagne ici, he said as he left.

I have just finished reading an amazing book.

Les Guerriers de l’Hiver by Olivier Norek. It is amazing.

I read another book by Olivier last year – the Times crime book of the year – Entre deux mondes. As a former police officer his polars books are great and I have since learnt he was a writer on the very popular French crime series Engrenages – Spiral in English.

But this one is an historical account of Finland’s winter war with The Soviet Union.

In particular it tells the story of Simo Hayha – Finland’s star sniper who was known as le mort blanc.

I almost didn’t buy it because the cover and length were a bit off-putting.

But you know what they say – l’habit ne fait pas le moine.

Eh?