Close your eyes and imagine that you are sitting in a Provencal garden. It's an early evening in July, warm still, but you have a delicious glass of chilled rosè to sip. Wander with me through the parterres: the gravel paths will crunch beneath our feet as we wind through neatly laid out hedges of box, rosemary and lavender, accompanied by the chirrup of crickets and the low hum of bees. Butterflies will flit from flower to flower as golden light bathes the garden. Tomorrow we will drive to Valensole to see the lavender fields...