I spend the next week trying to decipher the recipes in the book and testing them, a new one every day. Each morning I get up and turn the next page in the book, as if I’m opening a window in an advent calendar. It’s the reason I need to get out of bed, and with every recipe I feel as if Mum is in the kitchen with me.

On Tuesday I make shortbread. It’s crumbly and buttery, just as it should be, and I think I’ve conquered the oven. On Wednesday, I attempt macarons, which come out of the oven a bit wonky. Thursday is a chocolate gateau with lavender, and on Friday, I make apricot jam, with apricots from the greengrocer in town and lavender from the hedge in the garden, and use some to fill a sponge cake. Each day I walk down the river path with my bake and deliver it to Fabien at the brocante, where Carine joins us for coffee. We all agree the macarons need more practice. The chocolate gateau is delicious, rich, moist and floral, but too crisp on one edge: I may need to turn the next around during cooking. The brilliant orange jam could be sold in jars to display its bright colour, like the sun, with the flecks of lavender … Provence in a jar.

‘It reminds me of my grand-mère,’ says Fabien.

‘She was orange?’ Carine says, and we both laugh. Her English is much better than Fabien’s.

He looks momentarily confused, then shakes his head. ‘No! In the garden. The apricot trees. My brothers and I would play there. Pick apricots. She made jam with lavender, just like this. We had it on bread, with thick butter, in the mornings, with chocolat chaud from big bowls.’ His eyes seem to mist.

‘I remember that too!’ says Carine. ‘I was in the house next door. I loved stealing the apricots from the trees.’

Then Fabien says, ‘She’s dead now, of course.’

‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ I say.

‘The house was sold to a British family, for holidays. A Provençal farmhouse.’

‘They cut down the apricot trees for a pool,’ says Carine.

‘They are practically never there,’ Fabien finishes.

I feel sad and want to hug him. ‘Are the rest of your family still here?’ I ask.

‘My parents moved to be closer to my brothers. They live north of here. This is a very expensive place to buy houses and they all have families and need room for them,’ he says.

Like they would have in my mas, I think. I’m one of the people to blame for French families moving away. I have a big family home with just me in it. I feel a stab of guilt and can see why he would resent people like me living here.