It is a pleasant country drive from Sommiere to Sardan. Lyndell, although ostensibly retired had had to go back to work to sort out some bureaucratic confusion over her retirement. Consequently there was no hurry for me to get there, hence my enjoyable time spent in Sardan.

I arrived at Lyndells and parked in the house next door which is owned by an absentee owner who uses it as a summer holiday. It was quite hot and I took advantage of their pool to cool off.

For many years I have been taken with how cool their house is in the intense heat of the Occitanian summer. when I was there in 1993 I took many photographs of how to install them with the intention of putting some on our house in Tamworth. Unfortunately, in the days of film rolls, I had the misfortune to be targeted by a group of gypsy baby beggars and almost caught one of them with her hand in my bum bag. I didn't quite work out what they were doing but as i rounded suspiciously on one of them she looked rally really scared and took off, I somewhat later discovered that I was mssing a used role of film that I had finised earlier that day. It was not till I got back home and went looking for my shots of Nimes and especially the shutters that I realisd that that roll of film had gone. I immediately recalled the look in the eye of the gyspy woman who was afraid she had been caught red handed.