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up,” I said.
    “Where are you going next?” asked the shortest man in the world, as we walked to our hire car.
    “Oh, some place over near Boujan,” said Nick, sounding as if he’d lost the will to live.
    “That’s the one you’ll buy,” replied the miniature estate agent.
    “How do you know?” I asked.
    “I just do,” he said, tapping his nose, which I noticed not for the first time, was preposterously large for his face and body.

Rule 4
Stay interested in your spouse and family
    The French Art of Having Affairs
    We met the next agent at a bar in a village called Hérépian with a busy high street and large fountain. He was Dutch and unusually tall. Is no one a normal size around here? He was also early. Nick ought to live in one of those Northern European countries; everyone is on the same time as him. We got into his car because he said the house was hard to find. I liked the sound of that.
    As we drove towards the hills, our spirits lifted. I think we both felt more comfortable closer to the hills where the landscape is less arid and there are fewer tourists. It feels more like a real place, like the kind of place we can make a home and raise our family.
    We were on a beautiful winding road through tree-covered hills. To our right in the distance was a mountain range that, our agent told us, is called the Espinouse. The mountains were a mixture of colours in the afternoon sun, ranging from deep green to purple to shades of blue.
    “Assuming there’s not a housing estate around the corner, this could be very exciting,” said Nick, turning round from the front seat of the grey Berlingo van and squeezing my hand.
    “What?” yelled Mr Vorst, the agent, nearly driving us all into the ditch. He was deaf in his right ear, so every time someone spoke he turned around to listen with his left ear, leaving his car to navigate the road by itself.
    We came off the mountain road and turned into another road lined with plane trees. It curved gently ahead of us like a crescent moon. I was dying to see what was around the corner.
    “Wouldn’t you just love to drive along here every day?” I said to Nick. Either side of the road were vineyards with rows of neatly planted vines. We were alone on the road; there seemed to be hardly any traffic at all in this part of France. When we got around the corner I could see a village in thedistance on top of a hill. It was one of those places one might see on the motorway as one drove to a Club Med hotel in Provence and think ‘What a dreamy place, I wonder who lives there?’
    “That’s Boujan,” said the agent, pointing at it. “The nearest village to the house.”
    We arrived a few minutes later. It was a small, sleepy village that consisted of the same things as just about every other small village in France; a bar, a boulangerie selling everything from pain au chocolat to chewing gum, a Hôtel de Ville, a chemist, a church, a war memorial and a primary school.
    There was a compact square in front of the Hôtel de Ville where some men were playing boules – just about the only sport, along with darts, that Nick has never shown any interest in. But even he was carried away by the idyllic scene.
    “I might take up boules ,” he mouthed at me silently, so the agent wouldn’t drive into the ditch. I nodded and smiled. Moving to France is one thing, but boules really is pushing things. At the time, of course, I was unaware he had taken up the other French national sport of having affairs. I suppose as this was October he must have been two months into the liaison by then. But he hadn’t really changed much at home, in fact he seemed a bit more cheerful and I thought his focus was on the move to France, not moving in on some French bird.
    The village was like a dream village. In the main square there was a plane tree in each corner.
    “They provide shade in the hot summer months,” explained Mr Vorst.
    In the middle there was a stone hexagonal fountain with a stone