“It’s from the pink flamingos that Flamants Roses takes its name,” Chantal told me as she manoeuvred through the flock, and we punted behind her. I marvelled at the casual ease with which she handled the boat, leaning right over on the wooden pole to drag herself this way and that. We were winding our way through the waters, and up ahead I could see an island of sorts, an expanse of firm, dry land heavy with scrubby undergrowth. We beached on the shore of the island and Chantal pulled her boat up on to the sand so it wouldn’t float away and then Pierre did the same with me still on board.

“Wait here,” he said to me without any irony.

“What else would I do?” I replied.

They walked off together into the scrub and the trees and left me there! And what followed seemed like the longest wait of my life – and remember I had just been in a carriage for eight straight days. I listened to the cries of the birds, felt the heat of the sun burning the back of my neck, wished I had worn a hat and was glad I was in trousers at least to keep the mosquitoes at bay as they were buzzing around me like tiny demons.

Chantal and Pierre had disappeared completely from view, I should add. They had walked into the trees directly ahead of me and now they were nowhere to be seen. And so I waited. And just when I was about to begin to shout out for help, fearing I had been abandoned, I heard the thunder of hoof beats.

Through the trees the sounds echoed, hoof beats and voices crying out. And then from the forest before me, the bulls burst forth. There were three of them. Enormous black creatures. They charged out of the undergrowth with the whites of their eyes showing, their horns glinting in the sun. Even if I hadn’t been a regular at the abattoir, there was no mistaking these creatures in front of me for cows. Only bulls looked like this, with long horns, broad brows and massive necks set into powerful shoulders. These were creatures whose whole being was built for fighting. And now they were thundering out of the forest, and all that lay between them and the sea was me – sitting there helplessly in my shallow-bottomed boat.