We went to see him because G had been complaining about being tired and that started before the heat wave, way before.

He works with homeopathy and acupuncture assisted with a computer and a device that joins them all, that was taught to him by a Chinese professor 40 years ago when he was a young-ish doctor.

He checks our chakras and meridians and he explains that it is not him who is the clever one, but these machines that do the work. He doesn’t take any credit for the good results he gets for his patients. Pierre has done it for 40 years because it works and he does it for free since he retired because he is a good bloke.

He only wants to help you if your doctor cannot. He keeps you for an hour at the end of which you feel lighter and regenerated. At least it has been our experience. And it’s not because you lie down for an hour that you feel good: I have a good siesta every day and I don’t feel as good as when I come out of his surgery.

He is 80 this year and he announced yesterday that he was retiring and moving from the area to be closer to his daughter and grand-children. But of course, for friends and family, to which we are included, he will always be around with his machine and expertise for any health problems we might encounter.

For years and years now he has been getting up at 5am to do his yoga, check on his meridians, tend to his garden before being ready to see his patients from 9am to 9pm four days/week. Coincidence or simply because of the quality of his lifestyle, he is as fit as a fiddle with a spark in his eyes, always happy to hear a good joke.

We told him all about our little rooks before we left. He said you’ll have friends for life; they will stick around. He was smiling and shared his story about a little blackbird he had saved years ago and that used to visit him every time he was in his vegetable plot. He said the little bird had had a broken wing which gave him and quirky kind of flight and so was recognizable anywhere because of that.

He also shared about a seagull with a broken wing in his neighbour’s garden that is fed tins of sardines and other fish and rules the place. The three big dogs that live there too have no chance over that bird. Her aggressive ways keep them in check and that has been going on for 14 years.

But before that and while he was checking on G’s internal organs’ health with his apparatus, something extraordinary happened: he stopped all of a sudden and looking at us perplexed he said “ G’s mum is here”. I said how do you know it is his mum? he said because I asked her who she was and she said I am his mum. This is very rare he said, it only happened a few times in my life time and the hairs all over my body stood on end. He said it’s like getting an electric shock. I said did she say anything? He said she was smiling and she said she was happy to see G happy and she was gone.

I knew he was a bit of a psychic and I didn’t doubt his encounter with G’s mum for one second. I shared with him what a lovely woman she was and how much I had liked her, and he said that figures.

I said I knew that the people we had loved and who had gone, were still with us. He said not all, only the ones with a sufficient level of goodness.

We were speechless for a short moment and the session resumed. I felt very grateful to G’s mum for having turned up and, in the light of my own experiences with the spiritual world, I knew this was real as real can be.

On the door step as we were leaving, he talked briefly about her again saying she seemed to be a formidable woman and how much he was impressed with her short visit.

That was the best thing that could have happened on that day.