Saturday was transhumance day from old gîte to new via lunch at Barbansais. We lost only one vehicle en route but thanks to cellular technology the loss was not permanent. My friends are now 50 miles nearer home but still in that bastion of bucolic beauty, the Creuse.

An interesting contrast between the two gîtes: the first one was part of the farm or smallholding where the owner’s parents spent their lives. The lounge had been the cowshed and the place was chock a block with family mementoes and the sort of ancient objects that figure in “antiquarian markets” throughout Europe. It still seemed like a home.

The second was also a former farm building in a group that we might call a steading, but restored for the tourist trade. A very good quality restoration, comfortable and well equipped and done what’s more by a man who thirty years ago studied English in Edinburgh. Despite such a glowing provenance it lacked the character of the other.