This year, we are more organised. The village butcher released his festive menu a couple of weeks ago and I have only just finished reading it. There is, of course, a medieval merchant’s worth of capons, guinea fowl, geese, ducks, poulet de Bresse, turkeys and wild boar. Under entrées chaudes, there’s truffled boudin blanc, coquilles Saint-Jacques de Normandie, feuillété de foie gras et pommes au calvados, and all kinds of dauphinoise – all faits maison, naturally.

I discovered this week that the cheese shop in the covered market is open on Christmas morning. It has been a tough year for cheese, apparently. A damp spring meant suboptimal hay and reduced milk production. This is particularly difficult for the fine PDO (Protected Designation of Origin) cheeses, because they can only use milk from their own regions – to import milk from elsewhere is to commit an unspeakable act of “terroirism”. I suppose somehow we will struggle on, with only 1,600 French cheeses to choose from.

Also open on Christmas morning are the shellfish stalls, for all of your oyster platter needs, and the bakery, because God forbid a French citizen should mark the birth of our Lord with day-old bread.