Another warm night. Late morning we wander up to the town of Lathus. It's typical of the best of French settlements, somewhere between big village and small town. There is a boulangerie, small Spar, florist, ice cream parlour and bank plus two hairdressers, a bar restaurant, a 'Marie Multiserve' which is the municipal office and post office under one roof, and of course the church. Everywhere is clean, litter free and a sense of community pride, yet there is ...

Apart from the 05:15 tractor moving out of the yard everything was as quiet as a mushroom in a cave. From 09:00 people are coming in and buying mushrooms. We have a cross country drive, generally avoiding main roads. The scenery has changed from maize to vines and leaf crops and in places is as flat as a pancake and quite chalky. There are also thousands of acres of sunflowers in varying states from bright yellow to dead brown. Two years ago we travelled som...