Have a look at this impressive tablet (wouldn’t fancy trying to wash that down with a glass of water) showing Sumerian handwriting “neatly” listing wages to be paid to labourers. Date? 2039 BC.

This is according to a friendly and knowledgeable old guy tending his allotment in the village of Warborough in southern Oxfordshire. We were exploring the area and decided to have a toddle through the allotments which run along one side of the village’s pretty green. As we admired his healthy looking brassica and his low-slung dog he took the opportunity to regale us with Tales of the Allotment and the early weather playing havoc with the size and timing of his tatties. His new potatoes have become so unfeasibly huge, so early, and so quickly, that all thoughts of boiling them and slathering them in butter and parsley have flown out the window, and he is having to – gasp – ROAST them instead, such is their enormous roast-appropriateness.

So is the early weather – which has also forced apple farmers across the UK to harvest up to a full two months earlier than usual – just an aberration? While it’s clearly a bit of climate change in action, could it be that we are on the cusp of another Little Ice Age? Some swotty types apparently think so.

I also learned that Agatha Christie was a dab hand with a surfboard.

According to a story in the Daily Mail, Christie was one of the first people in Britain to give surfing a try, and also one of the first to do it standing up, having experienced the sport for the first time while holidaying in South Africa in 1922 (in Durban and then Muizenberg, where I spent many a happy  afternoon frolicking in the waves as a child). Her love of the tube even took her to the warm waters of Honolulu.

Well, I was amazed, as this seems a far cry from the first image of the master crimewriter that usually comes to mind, i.e. ungainly, with swollen ankles stuffed into sensible shoes. Stoked!

It’s relaxing, fills the house with delicious aromas and plants the knowledge that even if the interview doesn’t go well, a delicious culinary face-stuffing will follow.

It’s my very own Vegetable F**kpot:

• Chop/dice two aubergines, a couple of red and yellow peppers, about half a kilo of sweet tomatoes, 2-3 large courgettes, and bung it in casual layers in your favourite Volcanic Orange Le Creuset casserole dish.

• Intersperse each layer with a glug of good-quality olive oil, a handful of breadcrumbs, fresh chopped basil and oregano, salt and pepper, and a generous helping of mini mozzarella balls.
• Top it off with a final throw of breadcrumbs and oregano, and finish with an extra flourish of olive oil.
• Bake with the lid on in a hot oven for about an hour.

Then panic and rush to swot up on the latest tech, mobile and telecoms trends, and try and get a handle on who’s who in the zoo, take two paracetamol and gargle with honey and lemon.

Success awaits! (One way or the other.)

I know this because I just bought one, a Giant Sedona in lovely pearlized white. It has fantastic old-fashioned handlebars that don’t kill your back and I added a staggeringly comfortable ultra-gel saddle for ”full(er)” bottoms.

The thing about comfort bikes is their versatility and comfort. Specialists in nothing, perhaps, and certainly not for hard-core roadies/mounties, but ideal for sensible people who want something in the middle. A couch on wheels, if you like.

While walking my elderly, crispy dogs along the Thames this morning, I got into conversation with a man walking a pair of handsome, sleek whippets. He told me how their sweet calmness turns in to unbiddable lunacy when they are let off their leads and a rabbit happens by.

As if to illustrate the point, just at that moment a rabbit came into view further along the path, on its way back from mopping up bread left-overs rejected by the imperious (and, frankly, not very bright) Brent geese. Cue hell breaking loose.

Today, I have also learned that there are dogs madder than mine.

So it’s back to normal life, which means that French Loaf is morphing into something less French and more daft and mundane to help me get back into the writing rhythm.

It’s about everything – and absolutely nothing. A bit like life, innit.

We call the exterminator, who exclaims in horror at our predicament, and races out that very day in his smart white van. Monsieur Clement shimmies up his ladder and peer into the source of the problem. “Pouf! Pouf” he goes, “Pouf Pouf Pouf!” In no time the wasp camp, the entire side of the wall and Monsieur Clement himself are covered in thick white powder.

“Three day – maksimoem”, he declares. “All gone”.

Three days later, the wasps are still there, just a lot angrier than they were three days earlier. They are so furious that they thrust their way through the internal plaster of the loft bedroom, causing two grown women to flee from the scene, slamming the door behind us.

Dave the Landlord arrives. A hyperactive, fast-talking and not entirely un-nerdy chap, he approaches the offending hole with undisguised glee. He pulls the wasp-made fissure wider, vigorously puffs further toxic clouds through it, and rapidly empties a large tube of fast-setting polyfiller on top of it. Swift repair and repaint of ceiling.

The wasps are quiet. Mummified forever, I imagine them locked in their wasp prison for eternity, entombed in agonised poses like the good folk of Herculaneum were 2000+ years ago. Shame.

The 70-metre long piece of embroidery illustrates the story of the Norman conquest, with the newly crowned King Harold of England and the Duke William of Normandy the main players. The tapestry has everything – mystery, drama, humour, suggestive naughty bits and tons more. It is absolutely fantastic.

Edward the Confessor of England, who had no sons, wanted William Duke of Normandy to succeed him, but after Ed died, the ambitious and powerful Earl Harold decided to make himself king instead. As you do. Cue the invasion of England by enraged (and far better organised and equipped) Normans and a furious and bloodthirsty battle, by the end of which Harold was dead. William was crowned king of England and known forever after as William the Conqueror. (He came, he saw, he didn’t conk out.)

Not a lot is made of the mediaeval town of Bayeux in the guidebooks, but I would certainly recommend it for a few days’ visit. Apart from the tapestry, it also has an impressive Gothic cathedral, loads of mediaeval half-timbered houses and very pretty narrow streets, and a particularly good selection of interesting shops and restaurants. Be sure to take home some of the local speciality –D’Isigny caramels. I chose D’Isigny Du Pont soft caramels with salt crystals and Du Pont soft caramels with apples. Utterly delicious.

Bayeux is close to many of the Normandy beaches, with the Musee Memorial de la Bataille de Normandie just on the edge of town (we didn’t have time for that, but will be returning). Opposite this museum is the largest WWII cemetery of commonwealth soldiers in France, immaculately landscaped and maintained and extremely poignant. A memorial opposite the cemetery carries a Latin epitaph, which translated into English reads: “We, once conquered by William, have now set free the Conqueror’s native land.”

A little further along the road, we happened upon the tiny village of Buais. (There are approximately 17 825 963* villages in France.) With our bellies starting to nag, we popped in to the boulangerie for a couple of fresh croissants to take away.

Little did we know the joy that awaited us…

Before arriving in France, the humble croissant was not high on my list of culinary favourites, but since landing I have realised that it’s simply a case of nobody doing it better than the French. Croissants here are rich yet light, crisp yet soft, and indescribably delicious. Supermarkets will try and pass off their croissant ordinaries to the ignorant shopper, but those travesties are made with margarine. It is the croissant au beurre that you want, and if at all possible, it’s the croissant au beurre from the boulangerie in Buais that you need.

So who invented croissants?  According to Wiki answers, when Vienna was under siege from a gaggle of Ottomans (the Turks, not the upholstered furniture) in 1683, the local population was in danger of being starved into submission. The Turks attempted to dig a tunnel under the city walls but thanks to diligent bakers labouring in the early hours, were stopped in their tracks. The bakers made an enormous din and before the tunnel could be completed, help in the form of King John III of Poland arrived. The Turks were forced into retreat (the position, not the suburb of Cape Town).

By way of celebration, the good bakers of Vienna set about baking pastries in a crescent shape, after the design they had seen on the battle standards of the Turks. A few decades later, that hoity-toity Marie Antoinette, a native of Vienna, took a fresh batch of croissants with her to France when she married King Louis XVI.  Voila!

* Unconfirmed stat.