We stopped to buy a picnic lunch in Uzès, a centre of Huguenot, and later Catholic, silk production in the barren countryside north of Nîmes. This proved nearly impossible. Was it because it was Monday ? Or a bank holiday ? Or just lunch-time ? We only caught glimpses of the inner town, with its medieval bell tower attached to a more modern cathedral, the dusty streets, the adjacent bishop’s palace and ducal castle:-
| Charles | Saumarez | Smith | 
Ah, the French on Mondays! We went to France for our summer holiday last year, the first for many years, and returned with the strong sense that we’d all better enjoy France while it lasts. Sooner, perhaps, rather than later this wonderful, exasperating, time-warped economy will have to come to terms with the world.