What, you may well ask, was I doing at 3 o'clock yesterday afternoon, drinking beer with a half naked French farmer and his toothless wife?

It wasn't some sort of bizarre 'swinging' thing, although I am reliably informed (by several very unreliable people) that there is an active swinging scene around here. I'm deeply offended that I've never been asked to join!

Before I continue though, I should say that this couple, M et Mme de B are some of the nicest, sweetest people you'll ever meet. They are, however, true French agriculteurs with a rundown farm full of rusting machinery, countless half wild dogs and cats and lots of fleas!

In actual fact I was going to pick up an old school friend of DS who moved to French Guyana a few years ago, but comes back here to spend his summers. Wish I could find someone to have my little darlings for 2 months! The maximum security summer camp is only for a week.

So, we dutifully turned up at 3pm to pick him up from M et Mme de B, with whom he is staying. They invited us in and we sat down at the kitchen table. M, due to the incredible tropical heat we are experiencing, over 30 degrees in the shade yesterday, was stripped down to his shorts. That's the half naked bit sorted then.

We chatted away, or at least they did and I tried to decipher Mme's accent. Its the sort of local accent that you could use to cut granite and the lack of teeth doesn't help. Every other sentence I was whispering out of the corner of my mouth to DS 'whasshe saying?

We talked (I think) about how DS's friend was passing his 2 months in France, had we met up with his Mum when she was over in the Spring, wasn't the weather hot. All the while, waiting for the appearance of said friend. Eventually the son arrived (he's like a mini Sylvester Stallone) so we discussed the impending arrival of his partner's baby, her Braxton Hicks contractions, how difficult it was to be pregnant when it's so flaming hot! Still no friend.

I nodded my head, put in the odd 'oui', 'non' and 'd'accord' and apparently at some stage of the proceedings I said yes to a cold beer. I don't really drink and certainly not during the day in the heat so when it arrived, I explained my misunderstanding and said no to the beer. M de B was having none of it. 'Don't worry, there's no gendarmes around here' he said. Just as well because it's a standing joke among friends how I get stopped by every single gendarme I pass.

Only a few weeks ago I arrived at school with 3 carloads of gendarmes following me.
'Oh look' commented a friend wryly 'here come VLiF with her police escort'!

Eventually, after about 20 minutes of pleasant chat and still no sign of Friend from Guyane, I mouthed to DS 'he's not here is he?' 'No' replied DS.

I backtracked on the conversation and managed to deduce that he was most likely with a Croatian family in the village with an unpronounceable name.

'Ah, il est encore chez Draganononovinic' I slurred. (Told you I can't drink at lunchtime!) 'Oui' they answered in unison, not for one minute wondering why I was, therefore, sitting in their kitchen and not in the kitchen chez Dranogoanivinicic.

We bid our fond adieus, jumped up and down a few times to knock off the fleas and left to try and find chez Dargonvinicicic.

The trouble with Croatians is that they are like policemen, they go everywhere in twos, so we arrived at the little lotissement where live les Dragonvincicivivnics only to find that in our tiny little village, there are, in fact more than one. There are three.

Eventually we were reunited with Friend from Guyane, instantly recognisable by all the flea bits on his legs, which he politely insisted were mosquito bites, and all was well with the world.

Back at the homestead, Mellors the gardener was quietly expiring in the sub-tropical heat but godammit, he still had his shirt on. What's the point of employing a 22 year old gardener if he doesn't at least get his kit off (not all of it you understand)? Note to self to re-write his employment contract. Just my luck that the only bit of chest I've seen today belongs to an elderly French farmer with a paunch you could balance a tray on.

'Gosh, this is like the heatwave in England in 76' I comment. He looks at me blankly. The penny drops. 'You weren't even born then were you?' I ask. 'No ma'am' he replied. (OK, OK, he didn't say ma'am)

I went inside feeling every bit of my 40 something years.

I've seen Debs Lehner's boufadou!

Back at home in front of the computer after a lovely day spent with the lovely Mme Lehner of The Lehners in France where I was honoured both to see her 'boufadou' (oooh, you dirty minded lot) and get a peep at the new blog. No, don't try to bribe me, wild horses would not drag anything out of me. Blogonimity must be maintained. We had a laugh looking at some or our favourite and not so favourite blogs, I met the full gamut of lame and sound livestock, had a lovefest with the gorgeous Sam (the horse) and went on the piste - not literally. I had the tour of the house, which is quite lovely despite being almost empty now, Mme Lehner has been a busy beaver, packing up ready for the big move.

I'm only sorry I met her two weeks before she's due to leave for the UK where she will be the one with pert breasts in her new, well fitting M&S bra while I'll still be boobling around in my French-made bustenhalter which is clearly not fit for purpose but I feel we've not seen the last of each other, indeed I hope not. We had loads in common and it was so nice to meet someone normal, no drink problem - at least not one she was admitting to, no desire to be 'more French than the French' and clearly a much loved member of the small rural community where she lives.

Spurred on by the lovely home-made bread Debs brought out for lunch (we both share a dislike of baguettes - give me appalling belly ache) and slightly embarrassed that I was so desperate for a pee that I didn't stop on the way home to buy any bread and cereals for DS and DD breakfasts, I decided to finally use that 'bread mix' from the German Deli (Lidl) which has been languishing in the back of the cupboard since my last 'I must be like my French neighbours and make my own bread' lapse. Fortunately, these lapses are rare because they invariably end in disaster.

Pour half the packet into a bowl, add 350mls of warm water and mix in a food processor for 4 minutes at maxiumum speed to make a nice smooth dough (it said in French)

How difficult could that be?

I rummaged in the back of the cupboard until I found my 1970s vintage Kenwood Chefette, bequeathed to me by a 96 year old former neighbour and the nearest you'll find to a food processor in my kitchen.

I duly poured half the packet into a bowl and added the water.

Within 30 seconds I had a revolting gloopy mess which had more in common with melted rubber than 'a nice smooth dough' and was busily wrapping itself around the whisks which were struggling to turn it.

The nasty burning smell which shortly emanated from the old Chefette was enough to convince me that it wasn't really up to the job and quite possibly, neither was I.

OK, time to resort to manual kneading which I vaguely remember from my home economics days at school.

I lifted the dough out of the bowl and tried to detach it from my hands. It wasn't playing ball. The more I tried to get it off, the more it stuck. What I need is more flour but how to pour it in when this godforsaken mess is still firmly glued around my fingers. I'll just have to do my best.

I picked up the packet and poured in more flour. That was the easy bit. Trying to put the bag back down was less successful. On top of the gluey dough I now had the bag of flour stuck to my hands. Time to try the CH's 'strudl pastry flick' (more on that later). It's all in the wrist action you know. A few sharp flicks and the bag detached itself and took flight across the counter spilling most of the rest of it as it went. The dough became marginally less sticky but still didn't look like a nice smooth dough. The more flour I added the more sticky the bag became, the more flustered I became........and then I got an itch on my nose. Why does this always happen?

"DeeeeeeESSSSSSS, DeeeeeDEEEEE, I need you!"

"Uggg" responded DS

"Whaaa" responded DD, neither making any attempt to help me.

Damn, I'll just have to scratch my nose myself. So now I have sticky bread dough up my nose and I'm going to....... to......... to....... SNEEZE. Not pleasant!

Eventually, with almost all the bag of flour added to my measly 350mls of tepid water I had something vaguely resembling a 'smooth dough'.

Time to put it somewhere warm to rise for half an hour. Blimey, in 30 minutes I could drive to the shops and buy a loaf of bread, but, not deterred I stuck it in front of the woodburner. Half an hour later, no change.

The instructions say I must now put it in a greased loaf tin and leave it to rise for another 45 minutes. Ah, that could be a problem. A loaf tin? Who do they think I am? Martha Graham? I find a brand new cake tin lurking in the cupboard. Must be one of the CH's purchases. There's no way I'd waste money on a cake tin. I mean, then I'd have to make a cake! Still, it will do.

Another 45 minutes later and a quick inspection reveals that it may have risen a millimetre or two. I seem to remember Debs wafting round the kitchen with a tray of very blousy dough. Still, she probably didn't buy a bread mix from the German Deli.

Into the oven at Gas Mark 4 for 60 minutes. 60 minutes? My oven has two temperatures. Off and Crematorium. If I put it in for 60 minutes it will be a charred, blackened lump. Let's try 25 minutes.

And, voilà, an almost perfect loaf of bread. Blimey, I'm going to change my name to Marie-Claire and buy a 2CV!

Au revoir cher Blighty

Well, we spent just over a week in the UK where I defied the DailyWail by not getting stabbed or mugged by a juvenile criminal, where I was served in shops by several Muslims who neither tried to convert me nor blow me up, where I travelled from East Sussex to Gloucestershire to Kent to London without getting stuck in a traffic jam and where I managed not to snag my tights on 'this broken society'.

So what does it mean? Could it possibly be that the headlines that shout forth from the Wail and the Torygraph - same paper with longer words! - are not true, at least not everywhere in Blighty. Could it be that groups of teenagers get together for other reasons than to indulge in a quick round of granny bashing or happy slapping? I was, to be honest, disappointed not to have been kicked around a bit by a disadvantaged junior member of the Daily Wail's and Owa Dayve's broken society. At least then I could sit here in my expatdom like so many others, most of whom have nothing better to do than Blightybash in the 'Your View' section of the Torygraph website and talk about how the country's gone to the dogs.

But I wasn't. Damn! What now? I'll have to talk about all the happy, smiling people I met. How so? The UK is way down the Happy Scale according to uSwitch while the French, Europe's biggest depressives, are apparently at no. 2. Clearly no one has told them!

The British media is really something. You could never accuse it of putting the truth before a good headline.

ONE FIFTH OF CHILDREN BORN TO NON-BRITISH WOMEN shouted the Torygraph. Sadly, it couldn't even agree with itself as two paragraphs down... TWO THIRDS OF CHILDREN ARE BORN TO MOTHERS WHO WERE THEMSELVES BORN OUTSIDE THE UK. Well I wasn't born in the UK so my children and my brother's fall into this category. What's your point?

HOUSING RECESSION WORST SINCE 1970s it bellowed on another day while the Business Section on the same day proclaimed HOUSING SLUMP WORST SINCE 1930s. That's some slump if it could fall so dramatically between the news and the business pages!!

I indulged in a little (or should I say a lot unless the CH is reading) retail therapy and worshipped at the Shrine of Tesco where I filled me boots with BOGOFS (a concept virtually unknown in France) even if I didn't really need them, paid homage to the retail god that is Bentalls, where I was to be seen wandering round like a mental patient on a day pass mumbling 'nice things..... lovely things' while the sales ladies eyed me suspiciously, and became alarmingly ecstatic in that altar to Mammon that is TK Maxx. I ate real sausages and bacon that wasn't wafer thin, drank tall skinny lattes till I couldn't drink any more and got DS some uber cool Red or Dead specs. No sign of the credit crunch in Kingston upon Thames.

I met up with old friends who asked 'when are you coming back, we miss you' and 'what are you doooooing out there in the arse-end of the universe - well France at least?'. They don't get it at all, my old friends. How did culcha'd city girl become French peasant girl in the space of a few short years?

It was the Hampton Court Flower show and we reminisced about the many evenings we spent at the Gala Opening night and how the sun always seemed to shine except for the last one when I'd just announced we were leaving the UK, when strangely it was freezing and rained.

We shed a tear on parting though why I don't know as we'll all be together over the summer but god, I miss them. That's the worst part about moving abroad. You leave your comfort zone, your friends who've known you for years and shared you joy and pain and start all over again. I've got some fabulous friends here in France who have been unfailing in their support during the CH's absences, they've minded the children, chopped up wood, mended leaks and changed taps and they are special people.... but we have no history yet.

CH and I went to our old stamping grounds like the Harrow near Shepperton Studios where I worked for several years (studios not pub!). It's a real film industry pub with photos of movie stars drinking there and posing with the various landlords. It's always got a fantastic mix of interesting people from brawny stunt guys to fey directors. This time we sat between Trevor Baylis, he of the wind up radio fame who still lives downriver on Eel Pie Island, and on the other side, the special effects director on the latest Batman film. Talk is all over 'pictures' (they're never referred to as films) and who's doing what and who's seen who lately. Who's doing well, who's retired and who's struggling to find work. Upcoming films, prima donna actresses and actors who think they are the new Peter O'Toole. It's so vibrant.

The CH even managed to take some time off work, no thanks to a certain leading actor who went out on a bender on Saturday night and didn't turn up for work again until Thursday. Schedules had to be changed and at one point the CH nearly had to hire a lorry and drive it to the studios in Ireland with a complete set in the back. I'd have given the little shite (not the CH you understand!) a belt round the ear myself but these modern line producers just don't know how to rein in these jumped up little egotists!

Eventually it was time to go home and with a pit in my stomach I got back on the plane for Toulouse. I love Blighty, I really do.

Back in France, the golden wheat fields have been cut, the sunflowers are starting to appear and life goes on.....