The main thing about having lots of space is that you fill it. A couple with a young son and an ageing Jack Russell became, in a few short years, a couple with three sons, a pack of dogs, a succession of cats, two horses, numerous short-lived hens and the world’s unfriendliest collection of goats. My wife, keen on rescuing any passing stray, became the local go-to for abandoned fauna, an unsupported charity for the care of animals with behavioural problems. One goat arrived while I was away. Natalie had been flagged down by a man on the short drive into town.
“Do you want a baby goat?” he asked. There was apparently no preamble.
“Not really,” my wife replied. “We have two already, and they don’t get on with my husband.”
The man’s face fell. “Shame that. I’ll just have to eat this one then.”
“Put him in the boot,” Natalie said, without hesitation.
I complained about it, railed against it, laid down rules that were routinely ignored because, despite French law claiming laughingly that I was “head of the household”, I was actually only a constitutional monarch, wheeled out for ceremonial purposes. I was embarrassingly inept at the complicated French fan dance of meet and greet because mainly, and I will swear this until my dying day, they keep changing the rules! It’s never just a handshake or a kiss on each cheek; everyone and every area has subtle variations laid like traps for the man the wonderfully giving and friendly locals were beginning to call “Monsieur So British”.