"Are you the one that talks about haemorrhoids?”

I often joke about younger French groups and the chaos that they can cause but today’s were for the most part both interested and well-behaved.

Indeed, talking to a member of staff at Ann Hathaway’s Cottage, we both agreed how French schoolchildren’s behaviour has improved over the years. I always try to put myself in their shoes (even if they’ve nicked them from Dolcis – only kidding) and think how I’d react to being placed in a foreign country at that age and forced to listen to some local eccentric talking about a writer who died just short of 400 years ago.

So I try to liven things up with the odd ghost story and some other stuff. And thus a German tour operator booking me on the phone once asked if I was “the one that talks about haemorrhoids”.

As you might imagine.......I was.