A few summers ago, we drove down to France with Joe and Jan to stay at our house in Chalabre and celebrate Jan’s birthday. We arrived mid afternoon and opened up the house. We emptied the food bags in the kitchen and the boys checked upstairs, opening up all the shutters. After a short time they came down to the kitchen and I asked if all was OK upstairs. Ed replied that yes, all was fine apart from a slight problem with Bees. We followed him up the stairs to the hallway and looked around – it seemed very dark. I looked up at the window and nearly had a fit – there was the biggest collection of bees I’ve ever seen. It was like a black lace curtain filling the window.

• 

• 

I immediately called our great friend, Pierre – he’s the best person to help with any sort of problem. He went in search of the local Bee Man in Camon. Meanwhile, I ran over to the Hotel De France and spoke to Didier. He then phoned his Bee Man from Chalabre (Jean).

“How many bees Madame do you think there is? Said Jean

“About a thousand?” I said, guessing.

“That’s nothing Madame, but I’ll come and have a look tomorrow”.

I went back to the house and Pierre’s Bee Man was already there. He took one look and said there was actually 25,000 bees and we could happily leave them there until next spring (months away!!!) and they will fly off. Not a chance I thought to myself.

We left the window and the shutter closed all night and taped up any cracks. I didn’t sleep much. Next morning, the nest had grown by 20cm!! I called Jean and asked him to remove the bees ASAP. He arrived around 10am, dressed in appropriate gear. He told us to wait downstairs in the kitchen. He proceeded to smoke the bees out and put them in a great big container with the queen. When he’d finished, we slowly ascended the stairs. Jean was now dressed in just a T shirt and jeans with the remaining couple of hundred bees flying around him. As I reached the door, the bees decided to welcome me, swarming everywhere – I went out the front door with bees surrounding my head, running up the street, screeching with every new sting I received. They also loved Ed’s beard, so he was stung too. Jean thought it was hilarious and told us that the bees love clean hair!!! After the bees had been removed, and safely installed in one of Jean’s orchard beehives, it took us another week to clean the windows and shutters of all the beeswax that had caked everything.

After all the drama with the bees, we finally start celebrating Jan’s birthday with a drink and cake at home before we went to Oliviers restaurant. The cake was a lovely lemon torte from our local patisserie – a sharp delicious gateaux.

• 

• 

• 

• 

In the evening we head to Mirepoix and Llobets Restaurant. Benedicte cooks the most delicious Frogs Legs with garlic in the pan. She always sends me out a dish of fresh spinach, picked from her own garden. This is lovely with a pat of butter (see recipe).

• 

• 

• 

RECIPE FOR SIMPLE SPINACH

Fresh spinach

Butter and garlic

Wash the spinach well and put in a sauce pan. Turn the pan on for a few minutes until the spinach is wilted. Squeeze as much as the water out as you can (Ed’s grandmother used a Potato Ricer for this). Put the spinach in a dish, add butter, finely chopped garlic and a sprinkle of nutmeg. This is one of the most delicious, simplest dish ever and I eat it every time I’m at Oliviers – yum. If you wish, you can poach a couple of eggs and put them on top with some grated emmental. Also delicious.