I blush and turn my attention to the farmyard, the dogs, the blue work trousers and jacket drying on the line. A large cockerel struts around the yard, and Serge beckons us forward.

‘Please, follow,’ Fabien says. ‘Serge will show you the lavender fields.’

As we walk around the back of the small, single-storey stone cottage, the sight takes my breath away. The fields around us are full of straight rows of glorious, deep purple lavender in dark red soil, speckled with white stones. I breathe in, finding strength and calm in its glorious smell. I can see my own farmhouse from here, the fields where once there would have been lavender like this. Serge holds out his arm for me to walk through the lavender. Tomas is ahead, running through the flowers, Stephanie not far behind him. Serge bends and picks two stems of lavender.

Fabien takes them, gives one to me and keeps the other for himself. ‘Smell it,’ he says. ‘He wants you to breathe it.’ Stephanie returns, following Tomas, who is giggling as he runs unsteadily up the row.

‘This farm has been in his family for four generations.’ Stephanie stops between Serge and Fabien, who is trying to translate as Serge talks in his deep, thick accent. I don’t understand a word he’s saying.

‘He says the fine lavender grows up here, enjoying the cool mountain air. Not like lavandin, which is taken from a different, cultivated plant and used in washing powders,’ says Stephanie. Serge wags a finger. ‘This is the lavender that can be used for medicinal purposes and for cooking,’ she goes on. Serge holds up a sprig. ‘It is part of the mint family, use it like rosemary,’ she says.

I’m so impressed with her English.

‘It used to grow wild up here on the mountainside,’ Stephanie translates, and I can feel Fabien watching me. ‘It was harvested and distilled here, in the fields. A still would be brought to the field on a cart, a horse pulling. That’s why farms were set up near the river, so they could use the water to distil the lavender into oil in the field.’ She points to the river. My land is on the other side.

Serge indicates his barn and beckons us to follow him. When he pulls back the doors, the scent is even stronger, wrapping around me and drawing me in. Dried bunches of lavender hang from ladders, held up by the beams overhead. I think of the recipe book that has mapped out my days since I’ve been on my own here: lavender has already become part of my life.

Serge goes to a box and hands me a little bottle of oil. ‘Un cadeau.’

‘Merci!’ I open it and am assailed by its restorative scent. He is watching Tomas chasing chickens in the yard, but turns away, takes down a bunch of dried lavender and hands it to me.