Several fraught phone calls later it seemed that our furniture was making slow progress through France in our direction. On the appointed day we received a phone call to say it was on its way up our hill. We ran outside to be confronted by two grumpy blokes sitting in a tiny van on the drive outside the house.

Tipping in France   The English word ‘tip’ was originally an acronym for ‘To Insure Promptness.’ Innkeepers would write this on a box by the door, later simplified to ‘T.I.P.’, to enable customers to show…

MOUNTAIN MAMA IN LES ANGLES What a summer this has been. Blazing hot for weeks on end and then ten days of horrendous storms. The heavy rains always pummel my flowers into the ground and…

L’Homme de Tautavel by Basil Howitt A plain man’s introduction to Tautavel man, whose remains are 450,000 years old. He is one of the oldest specimens of homo erectus discovered in Europe. FEBRUARY – NOVEMBER…