I have a friend here in this French village to which we moved just over a week ago. He is a veteran foreign correspondent, still working but also spending time tending his beloved garden, olive grove and small vineyard, from which he bottles and labels about 450 bottles of red each year. He is a proud journalist of the old school, which is to say that he is sober and serious when in pursuit of his story, and neither when not. With his fund of unprintable stories, his undiminished zest for current affairs, and his 450 bottles cooling under the stone stairs of his 18th-century house, he is the best possible company. Knowing that this man lives only a five-minute stroll away, along a cobbled path winding between the ruins of medieval and troglodyte houses, which, amazingly, is partially lit after dark by old-fashioned street lanterns, gives me great pleasure.
But since moving in, I have had wheelbarrowing work to do, moving logs and books up the path from the road to the house, and in a late summer heatwave.
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