In early summer we took a Saturday trip to Civray – a market town some 40 kilometres distant. The Charente, a blue snake around Civray, creates a natural boundary and shunts almost all commerce into one compact area. A large park, just beyond the grip of the snake, is the principal recreational area where there is a boating lake, tennis courts and an outdoor swimming pool.

It is a universal truth in France that the pool is the focus of young people’s lives on summer days. As we ate our picnic in the park we watched mothers and grandmothers guard towels between taking the occasional cooling dip. Boys chased girls who obligingly slowed down if the boys were not quite fast enough. The lifeguard sat in the shade of the soft drinks stand chatting to two provocatively posed nymphets.

The town centre was empty apart from a handful of venerable shoppers and a couple of lads buzzing around on rusty mopeds.

Around the middle of the afternoon the mood changed as a wedding party gathered outside the Mairie. Briefly they all ducked inside for the civil ceremony, then emerged onto the shimmering pavement. The bride, a well-upholstered woman, was compressed into a short off-white dress with matching trainers. She lit a cigarette. A surly youth of around half her age, possibly her son, also lit up. She leaned towards him, first wagging a finger then thrusting her hands on her hips. The youth threw his cigarette into the street and stomped away. She turned, shrugged, sought the groom and gave him a long theatrical kiss. This started a dozen cameras clicking. The bride and groom then framed various passionate poses, one of which had her suspended from his neck with her knees twisted round the back of his thighs. Next, to satisfy the photographers – all of whom were male – she broke away and draped herself over the bonnet of a red sports car. Finally, as another wedding party began to congregate, she shoe-horned herself into the passenger seat.

Within seconds the groom was driving her away as various metal objects tied to the rear bumper clattered on the roadway. The other wedding guests ran to their own cars and followed. They made three circuits of the town centre – the bridal car leading the way. The other guests followed, orchestrating the procession with their horns, at least half of which were illegal – one was a blast of the Can Can and another was a reggae take on the Marseillaise. I wish I had videoed the proceedings as there was enough source material for an anthropological thesis.

By now we had become fed up, even in summer, with sleeping in the close confines of our caravan. We reckoned that moving indoors – albeit still camping out on the sitting room floor – would be an incentive to get on with the required work in the bedroom.

It worked a treat: in just two weeks we stripped off layers of wallpaper, cleaned out and scrubbed all the cupboards, wardrobes, windows and doors, and sanded and stained the floor. Meanwhile Ricky busied himself patching the ceiling around the new beams and plastering over the fireplace that had been removed. Then it was another clean all round before setting to with the emulsion.

On October 13th 2004 we slept in our own bedroom for the first time since May 1st the previous year. Perhaps, of all the stages of renovation, this was the one which made us feel we had really ‘moved in’. We celebrated in style by taking cocoa and books to bed.

But we were still preparing food in the caravan which meant that everything – including our late night cocoa – had to be transported to the house. When it rained the servings became diluted in transit. Having a proper kitchen with all the appliances installed and functioning was going to be a huge bonus. Fortunately this was achieved, without further misadventure, within a few weeks.