BBC presents: wild hair

We had a visit from the Beeb! We're going to be on telly!

Nick from the BBC had contacted Julian saying they had found his website and would like to talk to him about life as a Provencal artist. Out of the mistral swept blue, they phoned yesterday saying they were in Bedoin meeting a lavender honey farmer and could we meet up "for a chat".

Like the good mock-frogs we are, we invited them for l'apéro and then proceeded to panic about haircuts.

Julian has been saying recently that his head is full to bursting and that he must either get his hair (the principal cause of his stress, he believes) cut, or seek out some form of mental relaxation. I, of course, leapt at the possibility that he might do something to reduce the manic racehorse aspect of his and therefore our life. (On my return from England this time, for example, I suddenly noticed how I was having to eat, drink and talk up about seven gears.) We eagerly discussed yoga, T'ai Chi and Zen Buddhism, but in the end the hair won out and my fantasy of getting up at dawn to meditate together in an olive grove will have to go on hold for a while longer, I fear. Meanwhile, I won't let him blame and thus cut his hair too short because it is beautiful and wild and makes him look like Beethoven. Just up the Beeb's street, methinks....


"Good hair" they said.

Nick and Sandrine rolled up in a dusty hired Megane an hour late (we were half way through bottle number one and there were about three crisps left) with a black and white photocopy of Julian's portrait on the dash board. They had been driving around Crillon-le-Brave, asking for a red rock, holding up the mugshot and asking:

"Has anyone seen this man? "

They opened the car doors and got out carrying a black case which they did not introduce but which looked frighteningly like a film camera......

....And before we knew it we were both doing a 'screen test'!

Julian, arms resting on the distressed (rusty) provencal table, blue shutters bringing out the calm lavender of his eyes spoke slowly and eloquently about the nature of the provencal light whilst he looked straight at the interviewer.

"Next!"

I clutched maniacally at my fourth glass of wine, a crisp stubble growing on my chin, eyes darting to and from the camera and Julian desperately looking for approval and babbled on about the M25.

Oh dear.

The programme is going to be called 'A Wild Place in the Sun' (very original) and is supposed to be about Provencal wildlife. If they consider oblique references to nesty hair, mutilated mice, hemp floors and trekking cats adequate, we'll be taking that little pill and climbing inside a box in your living room. See ya there!