In the run up to Halloween a friend gave us four pumpkins. As I could only just lift the largest of them, I assumed it was a monster, but not so, the pumpkin aficionados of France are a bit like the show onion-growers in the UK. I read somewhere that the record for a pumpkin in France was 354 kg.

Now it was time for advice. Pumpkin soup came to mind, but we didn’t know where to begin, so I hoisted the largest specimen into my arms and took it round to Marie’s house. The idea was that this trophy-sized gourd would be a quid pro quo for the rabbit and perhaps a little advice on making soup.

I had expected her to invite me in, take the pumpkin with appropriate thanks and share some advice on recipes.

I was already staggering with the strain when she opened the door. She looked at me with mild curiosity, stepped outside, and closed the door. Neither the pumpkin or myself were about to enter the house.

‘What do I do with this?’ I asked.

She smiled.

‘David,’ she said, ‘why don’t you make pumpkin soup?’

And that was it. I had to beat a retreat. Doris had seen me coming and as I reached La Maison D’Etre she opened the door.

‘You look just about the same colour as the pumpkin,’ she said.

Marie had not been intentionally rude. During late October in France pumpkins are no rarer than falling leaves; market stalls collapse under the weight; supermarket car parks are cluttered with trailer loads of them, and in villages throughout the pumpkin belt children are taught the etiquette of polite refusal.

‘Would like some nice big pumpkins?’

‘No thank you, Monsieur. Our cellar is already bursting and my father will sell me for medical experiments if he can’t get his car into the garage.’

Fortunately they take Halloween seriously in the Charente. Almost as soon as it is dark the village children, with their witches’ hats and broomsticks, will knock on the door. One of the nice things about living in rural France is that you can still invite the children into your home, say admiring things about their costumes, and give them some sweets.

And there are pumpkin lanterns everywhere.

The two smaller pumpkins became festive illumination and the third we gave to my son, Simon, who had a large car boot and, as a recent immigrant, had not yet learnt pumpkin refusal etiquette.

Which left us only with the problem of the fourth – the monster.

We had some English friends nearby who had given us some pumpkin jam in exchange for feeding their ducks when they were away on holiday.

‘I’ll get the recipe from them,’ said Doris.

‘And I’ll type ‘pumpkin’ into Google and see what turns up,’ I said. And that was it. By the end of the week Doris had prepared pumpkin jam, pumpkin pie, pumpkin stew, pumpkin rissoles, pumpkin relish and pumpkin soup. We ate the soup, packed the jam and relish on shelves and shoe-horned the rest into the freezer.

‘And if you are offered pumpkins next year, what do you say?’ asked Doris.

‘I say that our cellar is full and that if you can’t get the car into the garage you’ll sell me for medical experiments.’

‘Nasty ones,’ she said.

By now we were convinced that day-to-day living in France is much cheaper than the UK.

We have no mortgage, which when compared to the loan we paid off before we moved here, makes a huge difference, and not only are local taxes lower, I also get an age reduction of 20%. Furthermore because of age and income we do not have to have a TV licence (which is incorporated into taxe d’habitation and then discounted).

Everything you earn in France is taxed in France which, happily, was not a consideration for us, but for some people it can be a problem. Our occupational pensions as teachers are taxed in the UK. Indeed this rule applies to any pension earned as a former Government employee. Our state pensions however are taxed in France. If we had private pension annuities or income from a share portfolio, this would also fall into the net of French income tax. The French tax system is geared in favour of large families with children under the age of 18. If we had to pay most of our income tax in France we would perhaps pay more than in the UK. Set against this is the fact that allowances can be claimed in both countries. We are certain we are better off as a result.

It is difficult to compare electricity costs for a three bedroom UK semi and a much larger property in France. Considering we have twice as many radiators and have been running power tools, including cement mixers and auxiliary lighting, I do not think the bills have been outrageous. Certainly the price per unit in France for electricity remains lower than in the UK.

We had found a superb local restaurant. Everything about the establishment – the decor, service, and presentation are top class. Best of all a five course lunch with as much wine as you want comes out at €13 per head.

Shop prices for food are very similar to the UK but, of course, a great deal of what is destined for the table is bought at local markets. This is not always particularly cheap, but the quality is invariably good and, of course, there are seasonal bargains. Meat is quite pricey but again the quality is good. Even the humble beef burger can be 100% beef.

Whereas retail price maintenance has long gone in the UK – other than the way it is allegedly operated by cartels – it is still alive and well in France. Prices are fixed – and published – by manufacturers and producers which means, in theory, you will pay the same price for the same item wherever it is sold. But, of course, that does not quite happen. What does happen is that, according to certain rules, discounts can be applied. These discounts, however, are invariably smaller when applied to branded goods.

I have never particularly liked the idea of branded goods. There is something very cow’s backside and red hot iron about it. Anyway, you may think you are buying the brand but the brand is branding you. So you have that nice swish on your sweat shirt? Yes, you are now part of the herd.

Unbranded or own branded goods in France find their own market level. They compete essentially on price and quality and in this case it is the customer’s reliance on the retailer that is most important. For most of our regular shopping we go to Leader Price who sell mainly their own range of goods. We have done our comparisons carefully: a full shopping trolley is almost exactly 20% cheaper than at our local supermarket.

Store sales (soldes) in France are also different. For a start they have to be ‘real’ sales which means that the goods, by law, are discounted at various rates up to 40% of normal retail prices. That price must be the real up-to-date retail price in the store – not some higher retail price that has notionally been charged in a sister store up to 28 days earlier.

It works like this: we bought carpets from a reputable retailer. As we chose to buy two identical patterned carpets of different sizes they were both discounted by 40%. The reason for the discount? Well, both had been on display for more than six months and French law says that when a ‘sale’ is declared the discount, in those circumstances, will be 40%. This may sound prescriptive and it is. It also means that French people trust sale notices: a sale is genuinely a sale and the queues at the shop doors prove it.

Many second homes in France – used essentially during the warmer months – do not have central heating. Where this occurs the most popular option for water heating is the electric immersion heater because there is no need to remove fumes through a flue or duct. As we had gone for the wood burning stove to create background heat we gave this brief consideration, but winter temperatures in the Charente made it a non starter.

As we always like to explore the ‘green’ option we considered heat pump technology. This will ultimately be the way to go. It is said that a heat pump can take four times as much energy from the air as it uses in electricity – four kilowatts to one is quite an equation. The trouble is that installation costs are still high and there are problems associated with servicing, especially in a rural area.

The French often claim that the best and cheapest heating system is wall-mounted convectors. To be efficient, very high levels of insulation are required – such as that which can be found in new apartment blocks. This system was certainly was not right for La Maison d’Etre.

Gas-fired heating is another popular option, particularly in urban areas where town gas is available, but for most people gas means installing a propane tank, and propane is both more volatile and expensive than oil. We considered gas because it allows the installation of a white boiler with a balanced flue in the kitchen without the cooking smells from the oven mixing with the background aroma of a garage forecourt. But we went for oil, or more literally industrial diesel. Oil boilers in France are very expensive, but again it’s more like driving a Jaguar than a Suzuki. The power output is everything you need, in all conditions, and with more than a little to spare. In truth we never had much say in this, but have not regretted the choice. Kevin had firm ideas about what was best. He also had 14 years’ experience as a builder out here, and on this he has been proved absolutely right.

Oil fired heating is the market leader in France. The heating unit can be either floor or wall mounted and it is claimed that the latest condensing technology can save up to 20% in energy costs. Boilers require plenty of space for ventilation and larger boilers are considered best for stone built houses as the larger boiler heats and cools less rapidly – a more suitable option when used with cast iron radiators.

In a large house like La Maison D’Etre, the hard work comes from fitting the piping. We got a good deal on a boiler from the Brico Dépot in Poitiers: 20 radiators, and more than 75 metres of copper piping. Kevin and I worked together on the fitting and then I insulated the lot. As it was a diesel system, we also had to buy a tank which holds 1,200 litres, which seems to last us around nine months. We set the tank into a bed of well mixed sand and cement but no water (Kevin’s idea again). If there is no water, the tank moulds itself into the bed and hardens slowly as it soaks up moisture from the air.

It was now well into November and the nights were decidedly cold. We were making progress, but slowly – this was at least partly because Kevin had family problems.

When all the radiators and pipes were fitted and lagged there was a final snag: Kevin was not qualified to commission the boiler. But, of course, he knew a man who was. Unhappily, Monsieur Fouquet had a full time job, so it was arranged that he would do ours one weekend. It turned out it was to be two weeks before he arrived and it was a week after that before the work was complete.

It was a moment of high anxiety. Imagine, if you like, taking a brand new war ship out of harbour for her sea trials. Millions has been spent on building all the systems, but you do not know if they are going to work until you throw the switches.

It was Saturday night on the 4th of December at 21.00 hours. I was stressed, Doris was stressed, Kevin was super-stressed because he had promised to take his wife out to dinner that night. But Monsieur Fouquet was super-mega-stressed. He had not expected to work so late and had nervously been firing off texts to both his wife and girlfriend. He was also fairly drunk because we had made the mistake of making our beer supplies rather too accessible.

The system was fired up and we waited. There was the odd rumbling and then it went quiet: could it really be as simple as that? We divided the house into zones and each went off looking for leaks. Nothing. We came together in the living room and cracked open the last of the beer in celebration.

We spent Christmas 2003 in England. The plan was to see as many of our grandchildren as possible.

In spite of having had my ‘flu jab in France I picked up a cold. This surprised me as I have had a winter ‘flu jab for years now and it has always done the trick. This time I was unlucky, and even though they say that all life’s greatest pleasures begin with ‘s’ – like sugar and sleep – I am not sure that sneezing and snot should be added to the list.

In England you turn up at the surgery, they give you a little prick and off you go.

Not in France. This would be far too straightforward. As a male over 65 I automatically received through the mail one letter and two prescriptions. The letter explained my entitlement in just 20 paragraphs. In essence, prescription one allowed me to see a doctor free of charge. Prescription two was for the vaccine.

I went to the doctor who took the first prescription from me and signed the second, which I took to the pharmacy to collect the vaccine. I was instructed to put it in a fridge, which presumably proves conclusively that people who do not own fridges are more likely to catch ‘flu. Then I made another doctor’s appointment. After perusing the paperwork the doctor gave me the jab. Now, although this was technically ‘free’, it actually cost €20 which I had to pay before leaving the surgery. At the same time I collected another form from the receptionist. It took me no more than a couple of hours to understand this, fill it in, and return to the surgery with it. There it was countersigned and dispatched to the appropriate state ministry with prescription one attached to it. And finally, several weeks later the ministry reimbursed the €20 to my bank account. Simple isn’t it?

For me the jury is still out on whether the French really are the best when it comes to la vie sexnelle. There is no doubt however that when it comes to a lust for pieces of paper they are insatiable.

Just as you think you have a system sorted, the bureaucrats spring a fresh surprise. One of these is that you now have to be registered with a doctor if you want to be reimbursed the full cost of house calls. First you fill in a form saying which doctor you fancy. Or, if you prefer, you can select a doctor on the basis of their competence. In practice, of course, it usually comes down to choosing someone local.

The idea, of course, is to save money. The snag is, it goes against the grain with the French. If they are told they eat or drink too much they want a second opinion and, if the second opinion is the same as the first, they want a third. Consequently, although a nice new bureaucracy has been set up to manage the claims and payments for the new system, many people have refused to sign up to it. It is therefore not cost effective.

I think this begins to explain why the French Health Service is deeper in the doody than my fosse septique. But there is definitely an upside: in French hospitals you get a glass of wine with your dinner!