This is the last sunset I’ll see in the Pyrenees Atlantique, because tomorrow morning I’ll be helping my parents and sisters pack up the car and we will be heading back to the Languedoc to the house we were in last year. And I can’t wait! There are some things I’ll miss about this house, for example the gorgeous front terrace that has amazing views of the Pyrenees and stunning sunsets.

But I can’t wait to get back to the Mediterranean. Back to endless fields of bright green vines (which will be being picked as we get back) with low rugged mountains on the horizon. I’m itching for hot, even weather and not the schizophrenic 17C one day and 37C the next that we’ve had here. I want to hear the roar of cicadas during the day and the gentle hum of crickets at night. I am so happy to be getting away from the bloody cockerel who crows every morning at 8am in our garden, and instead to hear the distant sound of the village church bell chiming the hour. I want to wander to our local boulangerie to get some bread or to the shop to get a magazine, and not have to get in the car and drive there. I want to see low roofs with red tiles bleached from sun, not sturdy black ones with snow-resistant slopes.

In short, I am seriously excited. I get sentimental about everywhere I leave, I think probably because I find it very easy to settle down and make my own roots in a new place. I will miss the chickens at the house here (just not the stupid cockadoodling), the gorgeous Pyrenees views, the little river we frequented when temperatures rocketed, and it’ll be a shame not to have the cute cinema in Oloron-Sainte-Marie to go to.

But the house is half packed and we are ready to hit the road again, although this time it’s to a destination we all know and that I particularly love.