After two nights at Le Grau-du-Roi (the King’s Pond) and a night spent within the medieval walls of Aigues-Mortes (Stagnant Waters) we drove north-west to our Remainer friend’s castle perched on the bank of the river Lot.
Then duty called her and Catriona returned to Provence and I stayed on for a week to try to recoup a modicum of strength with a daily invalid regime of gentle breaststroke in a swimming pool sheltered by old walls and toddling unsteadily about in the sunny gardens, sometimes putting out my arms for balance like a tightrope walker. Any time I felt like it, I could then mount the 17th-century stone staircase to my town hall-sized bedroom and lie down and fall instantly asleep.
He headed for the nearest shopping centre to buy two lucky goldfish with which to stock his newly filled moat
‘Stay as long as you like!’ said our Remainer friend. ‘It’s a pleasure having you here!’ For he is a jolly good fellow and doesn’t hold my inarticulate statements in favour of Brexit against me. Perhaps, as a fair-minded chap, he recognises that both sides of the argument are based ultimately on magical thinking of one sort or another.
‘Try a spot of fishing!’ he suggested one morning at breakfast. ‘Please!’ ‘Is it good fishing here?’ I said. ‘No idea, I’m afraid,’ he said.
He led me into a dim and dusty 13th-century chapel or something where someone had left behind some 12th-century rods and tackle. So I picked out a rod and brushed off the cobwebs and typed in ‘River Lot’ and ‘fishing’ and came up with a YouTube video of a northern British man standing on the riverbank almost weeping with emotion because it has been his dream for more than 30 years to cast a line into the Lot.
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