As the summer wore on the grounds of the house within the husky fence turned into a jungle of weeds and poppies. The Flymo and strimmer which we had imported from England had been sold as ‘suitable for a medium-sized garden’. Here it was as useless as attacking a tank column with a water pistol.

Part of the problem is the cross Channel definition of ‘medium sized’. The 1,000 or so square metres of land surrounding La Maison D’Etre is enough for a modest housing estate in Kent, with every property having a ‘medium-sized garden’. Come to think of it, the way developers now work in some parts of the UK there would probably be just enough land left over for a chidren’s play park and a drive-through McDonald’s. Interior space is considered adequate in Britain as long as there is room to squeeze in a 42 inch flat screen TV, while outside space is a waste of space.

In France 1,000 square metres is around average for a family home. It is certainly a medium-sized garden. Large gardens, and there are plenty of those, should be defined as ‘requiring the services of a full time gardener’.

When you see vegetation take over so quickly it is quite a shock – you realise the enormity of what you have taken on. Although there are two short respites – in mid summer and mid winter – at other times everything grows at beanstalk rate in the Charente.

We know people who have bought a two hectare field for £250. Another friend who purchased a Charente property found that he had also acquired a field which he felt should be put to some good use so he let it to a farmer who grew pumpkins. We also know people who, almost as a footnote to the property sale, found that they had ‘won’ three extra small plots of land.

Even with planning permission for a decent-sized house you can still buy 1,000 square metre plots for £7,000, though you may choose to pay twice or even three times as much for a prime location. Indeed, one of the most cost effective ways of acquiring property in France is to buy a plot and have a modèle built on it. A modèle is basically a home chosen from a catalogue of designs which meet planning and building regulations. The build cost, excluding the fencing, is normally included in the price. A three bedroom pavillon may cost around £75,000. Even with fencing and legal costs it is therefore still possible to have a brand new family home for less than £120,000. Add to this the advantage of stage payments and tax breaks for new property and the equation can be irresistible, if you have the cash.

Kevin recognised our garden problem and offered to lend us a mower. Actually it wasn’t so much a mower as an industrial strength pulverizer.

‘I got it from a friend who got it from the council,’ he said.

It was huge and red in colour so we christened it ‘the Ferrari’. It handled with attitude – taking a wide line into corners before accelerating hard back into the straight. When you started it up it was seriously loud, then the revs built gradually to sonic boom.

We have since bought a new mower which cost a touch over £400 but it’s the right kit for the job. It’s a Honda and as bright and yellow as Noddy’s car. I tell people I’m testing the engine, which is reassuringly quiet, for Eddie Jordan’s F 1 team. Nobody seems to believe me. It now takes me about two and a half hours to cut the grass. The Ferrari did it in 20 minutes, but I still have all my toes and partial hearing.

The new strimmer cost £250 but at least it doesn’t throw in the towel at the first sight of a weed. The big investment, however, is in time. During the peak growing season we reckon basic gardening duties take up two full working days each week. Oddly enough the estate agents didn’t mention this commitment when they sold us a property with ‘a medium-sized garden.

The impression I have given is that we have a large lawn. It would perhaps be more accurate to say that we have a huge area of greenish fast-growing vegetation and one small area close to the house, which I had turfed. In this area garden chairs no longer leaned like old men on the way home from sampling the latest vintage. And, in the absence of chairs, it provided a soft landing area for children at play.

It was, of course, the only area in the garden that attracted a mole.

Fortunately the French have invented a cunning device to deal with the problem. It comprises a small cylinder which contains batteries and two wires, which connect to a little red packet. This is the explosive charge.

All you have to do is open the mole run, drop in the cylinder, and change the setting button from securitè to arme, and throw a little earth over the top. Then you take a comfy seat, open a can of 1664, and wait.

The theory is that the mole finds the obstacle in the run and tries to dig it out of the way. The vibration triggers the charge and the mole emerges from the hole like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle.

The only slight snag is this. It doesn’t work. It is actually less successful pro rata than trying to seduce the creature to the surface by singing in moleish.

Over a fortnight of waiting I downed the best part of two cases of beer. It seemed to me by then that the options were either traditional mole traps or alcoholism. On the last evening of my vigil, in desperation I think, I cursed the mole in both slurred French and drunken English.

That did the trick. I have not seen a mole in the garden since.

Until you have lived in France it is difficult to believe just how wonderful shutters are. They keep a room cool through the summer heat and keep out the worst of the winter blasts. They also supply extra privacy and security. Old houses and creaky shutters go together, most commonly they droop on their hinges until they encounter the window ledge and will neither open nor close properly. If you are viewing an old house and find a heavy bolt and the shutters shut, be very suspicious.

Buying new shutters, especially if they are not a ‘standard size’, is expensive. We were quoted €330 a pair for the larger windows and this was in treated pine. One alternative was to take them apart, slat by slat, replacing rotten sections and tidying up the tongue and groove before reassembling, refitting and repainting.

Our shutters needed attention: the paintwork was tatty but the sag not significant. We considered the popular remedy of an iron reinforcement across the width of each panel and a lick of paint over the lot, but this could be storing up problems. Having scraped away a couple of investigative sections, a simple biopsy – performed by a surgical screwdriver – and discovered that the wood was worn but worthy, we stripped off the old paint, treated the timber and repainted. Simple as that. Well almost.

We first considered marine paint – the popular choice for properties near the sea – but as we are at least 130 kilometres from the coast, we decided that the windborne salt factor would be insignificant. A more serious option was micro-porous paint which allows the wood to breathe. In the end the matter was decided by history; our shutters had to be a fairly neutral grey – the only colour permitted within 500 metres of a listed ancient monument (the church) – and the matching options at Monsieur Bricolage were expensive and unsatisfactory. Paints from England are generally cheaper and of better quality, so this was pushed to the top of the shopping list for our impending short trip to Blighty.