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it’s hard to imagine Sydney-siders rushing to buy second homes in Bourke or Broken Hill.
    There are seven people (plus a dog and a slovenly cat) squashed into the two-bedroom cottage—us, Jean-Michel, his wife Nathalie, their kids Louis and Natacha and then ten-year-old Victoria from Ukraine. The family is looking after her following an operation in Paris to remove her thyroid gland which was cancerous as a result of the Chernobyl nuclear accident. Her presence underlines the generosity of our hosts, who are not loaded with money. With its frayed, sagging couches, paneless windows and lack of hot water, the house gives new meaning to the word rustic. But it radiates gaiety and convivial disorder, and perhaps because I’m used to roughing it camping, I feel right at home. Frédéric and I sleep on sofa cushions on the floor of the lounge. Jean-Michel and Nathalie speak some English and patiently explain the jokes or entire conversations I’ve missed. But there is no standing on ceremony for a foreign guest—I’m expected to fit in and lend a hand like everyone else. Which is pretty much how it’s always been in my family with friends and visitors.
    There are a few culture shocks, though. Jean-Michel, who turns out to be a Gallic version of an Aussie bushman, has an impressive arsenal of knives and guns with which he frequently slaughters dinner. Early morning, he heads out tohunt hare and wild boar. By breakfast, the carcasses are stripped to the bone. On several mornings I arrive in the kitchen for croissants and coffee to find it transformed into a bloody battlefield strewn with bright red meat and purple animal organs.
    Fascinated, I watch him make chunky terrine using an old-fashioned, labour-intensive meat grinder. Why not use a modern mincer? Delighted to have an interested audience, Jean-Michel sets down his tools. His face is a pantomime of professorial patience. ‘ Ecoute poulette ,’ he begins importantly. The ensuing explanation includes many unfamiliar words but with the help of his hand gestures I eventually understand that electric mixers crush the meat into nothing, whereas with traditional hand grinders the meat retains its structure, its fibres and full flavour.
    In a blackened fire oven beneath the stairs Jean-Michel bakes oval loaves of crusty bread. We scour bushy banks of quiet lanes for blackberries to make jam. He pours the crimson cascade into old-fashioned glass pots and seals them with wax. ‘ La méthode traditionnelle ,’ he beams, wiping berry-stained hands on his T-shirt.
    Under Jean-Michel’s tutelage, my French acquires personality. Instead of a ‘ verre de vin ’ (glass of wine) he teaches me the slangy, untranslatable expression ‘ coup de pif ’. Around the table, they talk ‘ cul ’—which literally means ‘bum’ but in colloquial language refers to sex jokes. A lot of the time I’m content to listen and observe, transfixed by the array of expressions which scud across their faces. I’d always assumed Gallic characters in films were wildly exaggerated. Mais non! Here they are Oh-la-la -ing, pouting to show doubt or disagreement, shrugging in resignation or indifference. They are natural ham actors, embellishing their ownstereotypes to such effect that a simple dinner conversation looks like performance.
    On our second last day we go to buy cheese from a nearby farm. The owners don’t look very different from some of the people I met in rural Romania. He has a mouth of gold and black gaps; she wears an old-fashioned, floral smock, her abbreviated legs plugged into gum boots. Our request for cheese sparks a hum of excitement. What looks very much like an argument breaks out but in fact it’s only a lively discussion—emphatic hand gestures and raised voices are standard features of conversation in la France profonde , apparently. Eventually, we’re led into a barn, where through the dimness I can just make out bird cages containing small, pale discs. We gather around