I suppose it would be a cliché to say that the sights, sounds and smells of French rural life are an assault on the senses. In fact they are more a frenzied attack: a serious case of GBH, but without the grievous harm part.

Up at the east end of our land here, there is an elderberry tree which, over the years, I’ve devoted many hours to rescuing from the infernal clutches of brambles (les ronces in French). Now at last – with zero resort to invasive chemicals – the struggling tree has become the dominant feature of that little corner. If you’ve never smelt elderflower in the morning, then trust me: it beats napalm all ends up. Later in the year one can make jam from the berries; but if I’m being real here, it’s the ton of sugar one adds to the berries that makes them palateable. On the whole, elder trees are for sniffing and looking at.

Poppies too are a cliché one feels guilty about knocking, on the grounds that they are the symbol of gallant (if pointless) death in the Great War. But forget all those references to Impressionist paintings and blood-red splashes. What you can’t capture either via photography or paintbrush is the sheer vibrant delicacy of the poppy’s primary-colour guerrilla warfare in a field of fresh, green late-spring grass. I could stand and watch these wobbly flowers for hours on end, and still be left wondering how something so ephemeral can be, for those brief few days, so all-powerful.

Over at the western border of our property is a lazily-arranged troop of acacia trees. They’ve just finished flowering, and you won’t be surprised to learn that these blooms are a culinary delicacy in Aquitaine. The first time my neighbour Ange Houdusse invited me over “to try some akkashia”, I decided that at long last I’d discovered the druggie underworld of our commune. But he served up nothing more mind-altering than acacia flowers in pancakes. They’re delicious, although myself I prefer the heady scent they give off on a still, late-Spring afternoon. The fragrance is like evening honeysuckle blended with vanilla ice-cream.

Last but not least are the skies here. What makes Aquitaine so lush is that interspersed with the warm-temperate heat are heavy showers of cooling, thundery rain. The rain falls (as my mother used to say) “like stair-rods”, clears the air – and then allows the high pressure/low pressure cycle to continue on its ancient way. But while the storm is in full swing, there are dramatic contrasts between green hedges, yellow rape-seed and slate-grey skies. The effect is mesmerising and – as the shot at the top of this piece shows – is ye another human sensory experience that cannot be recreated on film.