Perhaps growing up surrounded by ritual, with an awareness of and respectful belief in the supernatural, finding a sorciere seems as normal to me as discovering a new Lidl.

Therefore, I have decided that I need a spell to put around the house to protect me from any further minor or major disasters.

Unfortunately the local sorciere ,or witch, is no more.

She died in a nursing home a few years ago, but even in her dotage there were many in her old village who wouldn’t risk visiting her.

She’d turned mildly vicious in old age, particularly against one family who were ‘in feud’ with hers, and she’d used her gift to go to the dark side; drying up the milk of the cattle; causing the hens to become egg-bound; the horses to limp – you know, the usual.

I suppose, in a way she was the last of the good old all-rounders.

Nowadays most tend to specialise.

I’ve written before about the fire or pain sorcieres who are used by several hospitals in France. They are even listed in the staff available booklets.

Put simply they take pain away when drugs fail. One surgeon admitted he had no idea why it worked but it did, and anything, which aided his patients, was fine by him.

The sorciere’s grandson burned his hands throwing petrol on a barbeque that wouldn’t light a few years ago. Not the sharpest of men.

A fire sorcier, male, arrived, as villagers would not call the pompiers when the expert lived close by. In private he whispered the powerful healing words and took the pain into himself.

He emerged, grey and exhausted. Behind him the grandson was now calm and pain free.

A Scottish friend who witnessed this told me later: ‘In the following days, the boy had no pain, no blisters and was left without a mark on his hands.

‘I have no explanation.’

Miriam, who comes from Nice, has no idea who is now the anointed wise woman locally. She promised to find out but so far has failed.

I may have to go further afield, like 15kms, where word reaches me of a young woman who comes from a long and much respected line of sorcieres.

However she seems more interested in concocting love potions, which are a huge source of revenue. Hey, you have your Tinder – we prefer the old-fashioned courtship ways in La France Profonde.

So, with no sorcerer in sight, it looked as if I was stuck with the other traditional methods: prayer, promises to be good, asking the Cosmos for help when the moon was full.

But lo, I opened my Depeche yesterday and before me was a fully-fledged witch working wonders in the Pyrenees, close to Lourdes as it happens.

Melissa Sabatier-Versailles is a 32-year-old agricultural worker who is now officially registered as a witch. For farmers she is the ‘miracle lady.’

She has cured sick calves, eradicated disease in the vines and the vegetable fields and even local vets have admitted she has healed where their drugs can’t.

Her base comes from dowsing and magnetism; long known to affect humans and animals.

She ‘feels’ the strength and power of the water, which often must be neutralized; for if the energy of the underground source is too strong it can explain recurring disease and blight.

Her gift of the sight confirms her beliefs and she usually ‘adjusts’ the waterpower by laying hands – caressing the land.

Having lived on a ley line in the former Queen Elizabeth Forest Park near Aberfoyle, I have absolutely no doubt that the magnetic force of the earth and its fast running water play a major, disruptive part in our lives.

Stick with me here.

Water in one form or another is the bane of my life at LM. I have come to believe there is more at play than just bad drainage.

The house itself, I’m convinced, somehow lies on a pond of water and this needs to be re-routed.

I check out Melissa’s charges - €50 euros for the first observation visit and €120 for the search for a water point. The healing comes extra and can be high.

And of course I’d need to pay her expenses and mileage.

Sadly it isn’t possible at this time as, thanks to the many, many problems with…. water, all spare cash has gone.

Emilie, my femme de ménage, seems to know half the country so I’ll put her on the search for a more local water witch.

I am deadly serious about all this although it may seem utterly bizarre to those of you living in your city cocoons.

Living in the real country, day and particularly night, is to accept the other world – the old world; the world beyond the technology and power of man; the ancient world, with all the answers we need, if we could just remember the questions and how to hear the answers.