Our friend Jo had done the unthinkable. She had organised her own death, which was to take place in Switzerland at the offices of Dignitas. She’d asked Arthur if he wanted in on the ticket. “I can negotiate two for the price of one?” she said, referring to her days as a buyer.

So far, Jo had figured a great deal in our Ceret story. In the early days, when we couldn’t speak the language and hadn’t a clue how things worked, she’d gone to extraordinary lengths to help us and along the way we’d become firm friends. I thought long and hard about including this part of what happened to her in this blog, but came to the conclusion that she would have preferred to have had her story told. I hope that it will be taken in the spirit in which it is written, a homage to a dear friend.

Ever since a helpful neighbour had explained the dire consequences that would follow if we didn’t cut down half of our trees, we’d a good idea of what débroussillage involved. The rules seemed clear. Being in a ‘red’ fire zone we had to cut the undergrowth within a 100 metre radius of the house.

On the odd occasions that we rented the whole of Mas Pallagourdi out to holidaymakers, hubby and I retreated to the yurt in our little woodland. This was a lovely place to be in mid-summer as the oaks afforded plentiful shade, we fell asleep to the sound of owls hooting and woke to a chorus of birdsong and light filtering through the canvas.

Two of our castrated lambs were twins, both of them completely black all over. They were pretty gorgeous and we watched them grow with some pride. They’d survived the Burdizzo Treatment involving the giant pliers and were now naughty adolescents.

The spring of 2013 had been unusually wet but the happy result of this was an abundance of wild flowers in our orchard: Provence orchids, honeysuckle, thyme, aquilegia and rock rose were blooming as far as the eye could see. Since buying the house and putting out wild bird food there had also been a huge increase in the number of birds around the house. As well as tits, nuthatches and goldfinches during the winter, our summer visitors included the Golden Oreole and a pair of hoopoes.

After a while, Bruno the Ram (as opposed to Bruno the Accountant) developed into a magnificent animal. He had a beautiful brown coat with a ruff around his neck, a black belly, yellow eyes full of malice and a pair of serious horns. Hubby was very proud of Bruno and often walked into the field to pet him or to give him an extra handful of food.

We pushed open the gate to Jo’s house, carrying a chocolate cake purchased from the best boulangerie in town. It was her birthday, but the household was in chaos. Jo and Arthur were having an argument with a man from a company that had just installed new internal doors at very high cost.

One day in July we saw a huge billowing cloud of smoke coming from the direction of the Spanish border. A fire had started after someone had thrown a cigarette butt out of a car window in Le Perthus.

One day in July we saw a huge billowing cloud of smoke coming from the direction of the Spanish border. A fire had started after someone had thrown a cigarette butt out of a car window in Le Perthus.