Over the last few days, and then confirmed this morning, our swimming pool has turned green.

We don’t know why. Cath did some Googling but then we headed for the fount of all piscine knowledge Cash Piscine – armed with, as usual, a jam jar full of water from the pool.

After testing the water and showing the man some photos like this he asked some questions.

How many hours a day do you run the pump?

About nine?

Apparently you are meant to divide the temperature of the water in half and that’s the number of hours the pump should be running.

In recent weeks that temperature has been 28 or 29 degrees. Oops!

He diagnosed un traitement choc to prompt a deep clean of the system – and we have to leave the pump running for 24 hours.

Armed with this:

We got straight to it.

There is now a lot of scum on the surface and maybe the pool looks a little less green?

Do you remember this? Lyon is deserted in August.

So what is the situation en Provence?

There are certainly fewer people around in Venelles.

And some of the shops are closed – some with more creative signs.

After last summer’s trip to Sicily where I met up with a Euronews colleague, I didn’t expect it to happen again this summer.

So imagine my surprise when Cath and I went into Venelles for an aperitif on Friday evening at one of the two bars in the main square.

As we headed for one we heard a cry from the other where Cath’s sister was having a drink with a couple of friends.

So we joined them.

But then, someone else arrived at a neighbouring table.

My former Euronews colleague François Chignac.

It turns out this restaurant is run by his nephew and François was in town for the weekend.

He still works at the Green Cube – until November at the very least.

We had a chat and caught up on the latest news.

Comme le monde est petit.

I learnt a new word today when I saw a huge grasshopper in the back garden. Une sauterelle.

I have seen lots of small brown ones when walking over the grass but this was a big, bright green one.

It’s interesting to see the same scams exist in France as they do in the U.K.

This is a classic:

Cath used to get these in English.

Safe in the knowledge that my children’s French isn’t this good I know I can safely disregard this one.

J’ai lu un autre livre de Laurent Mauvignier.

This one is set during the Algerian War, 1954-62.

Like in his other novel, Histoires de la nuit, as described in its review in the Times, the sentences are long, very long sometimes, light on punctuation and circle round their subjects in snaking coils.

They call it modernism.

It wasn’t as good as Histoires de la Nuit but still enjoyable.

I learnt a few new words – not least Harkis.

These were Algerians who worked for the French army.

When the war was over, many of the Harkis were abandoned and killed by the Algerians who saw them as traitors.

Coincidentally, we came across this plaque honouring the Harkis on a trip to Fuveau.

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?