I won’t be so stupid as to say Spring is here, as that will provoke a snowstorm, or rain, or something else nasty.

The Mimosa is in full bloom – it’s a tree with fluffy-looking yellow flowers, and you can see hillsides covered in it, around Cannes for example.The perfume is lovely – not sharp, but mellow and gorgeous – the only pain for me being that it, along with all the other pollen that will soon be puffing out from the hedges in great clouds,makes me sneeze, and my eyes itch.I have spoken to a few people who never had childhood or even adulthood allergies – but after a few years living here, the pollen has got them too.