Mists drift past the dripping hills, shrouding the oaks and walnuts in their delicate, damp veils. As they shift and part shafts of topaz light pierce the scene and a breathtaking world emerges. The countryside is spiced with cinnamon and saffron, peppered with cayenne. Autumn has finally arrived in all her blazing glory.

Summertime - and the living is easy… Okay so it’s not very original, but in countries where summers are hot, harvests are lavish and lazy rivers run full of fish, it’s so very true - nowhere more so than here in the Quercy. The fields are dominated by harvesters, crawling across the landscape like vast locusts; the markets are full of eye-popping colour and equally full of misty-eyed tourists.

It was an education, but this sort of thing can happen in France. All the great chefs have to start somewhere and it’s frequently in little out-of-the-way places, where they hone their skills and bide their time, and where a few discerning customers can experience their talent for a lot less than it is worth…

So, If you want to see old Cahors at night and be wined and dined like a medieval prince whilst you doing it, this is the place…

May in southern France is like June in England. Soft air, the first of the season’s brides, markets stuffed with hopeful herbs and leggy tomato plants - and roses, roses all the way. The huge gallica by my kitchen door is smothered in breaking bud, lime green goblets filled with a deep magenta that simply spells summer.

As I drove down through the vines yesterday, delicious spreads of butter-yellow cowslips covered the verges. The crowded woods created a chartreuse backdrop and the enticingly warm breezes lured me from the car for a quick ramble through pristine fields of new meadow flowers.

The sun is hot now, despite the still-cool air, hot enough to eat lunch outside - and on the spreading pavements and boulevards of Cahors that is exactly what they have been doing.