We have been touched by the amount of help and consideration we’ve received recently.

During this second winter in the mobile home we have been gifted blankets, cushions, clothes, around 30 boxes of chocolates and a book for the children dating from 1958 entitled ‘Pauvre mais heureux!’ meaning, Poor but happy! We get the message.

This last while we’ve had Pierre and Sandrine helping us to put up the tunnel for the Angora goats. They are sheep farmers nearing retirement but have insisted on helping us. “C’est normale,” they say and tell us how 30 years ago they too were new to the area, coming from the north of France with three young children, and accepted any help they were offered.

Serious workers, they smiled only briefly when I fell backwards off a ledge of high ground and ended up in an unlikely headstand in the mud. “Pas plus d’alcool pour toi!” quipped Jack, “No more alcohol for you!” despite the fact I hadn’t imbibed that day. I was aware of Pierre and Sandrine passing a knowing look of “oh, I see” between them, not getting the humour at all. Thanks Jack.

Then it was Jack’s turn to help a young farmer friend and his family with his flitting. André has helped us out here in the past and Jack was pleased to return the favour.

To his credit, André and his wife Lucille, even saw the funny side when Jack and the other farmers helping, maneuvered an oak bed out of an upstairs window, letting it slip down the wall where it re-entered the house through a downstairs window in a shower of broken glass. Oops!

That evening, Jack was dragged along to a thank you dinner: a huge five course meal laid on by another farmer’s wife at 11pm. The topic over the hours of food and drink that followed was ‘solidarity’ and how farmers should look out for one another in these difficult times mid recession and post Blue Tongue which badly affected this area.

Luckily for us we will soon be receiving a young farmer reimbursement from our insurance company. Also luckily, we know from experience to await the cheque in the post and not to attend the annual awards ceremony at a local hotel.

The first year, we were presented one of those giant A3-sized cheques, the kind you see on TV fundraising shows, for nearly €1000. We presumed this was the French way: say it loud and say it proud!

We duly queued at the bank and when it was our turn at the counter, we held the cheque aloft between us, like lottery winners: all cheesy grins and jazz hands. The cashier was grinning also and said, “Bonjour Monsieur, Madame” whilst beckoning for his colleagues to come over. “And what can I do for you?” Well wasn’t that obvious? “We’d like to cash this cheque please,” I replied, becoming aware there was a murmur rippling through the queue behind us.

The cashier and his buddies could hardly contain themselves: “But that is not a real cheque, Madame. That is a mock cheque!” Mirth erupted all around and Jack and I suddenly felt like the Emperor standing in all his naked glory. How had we been so stupid? Jack hastily folded over the offending article and we hot-footed it out of the bank but by the time we reached the car, we were both laughing at our numptiness. One lives and learns. Time for a strong bowl of tea.

We have learned a lot about food and drink etiquette in France. One drinks tea from a bowl not a cup. Butter is spread on bread but only in the mornings. Breakfast is a croissant or crispbread and coffee. Aperitifs such as pastis, pineau and whisky are served from 11am to midday and then again from 5pm to 6pm. The main meal is from noon to 2pm and is always accompanied by a baguette and wine. Coffee is not drunk after 2pm. Tea is herbal. Lunch always includes cheese. Do not phone anyone at midday: it’s rude. Let eating Frogs sigh – and enjoy their gastro delights.

We’ve had to stock up on our drinks cupboard in the mobile home as offering a Frenchman a cup of tea and a doughnut is like asking a Scotsman if he’d like a bowl of black coffee with a chunk of brioche to dunk in it: “Aye, right, hen. Huv ye no goat a can o’ ginger?”

The French are terribly haughty about British cuisine except, curiously, the humble scone or ‘skoo-in’ as it is known, along with ‘croom-bell’, that well known desert topping. These are considered chic! We find we now say English words commonly used in France, with a French accent just to be understood.

For example a hamburger is ‘am-boor-ger’, a roundbaler is a ‘rrrron-ba-lure’ and if I get an English/Scots word wrong, take ‘whisky’ for example, I stand to be corrected by my new friends: “You mean wee-ski?” “Yes, that’s it,” I reply, “wee-ski.”

In the meantime we have been mucking out the shed, selling weanlings and have had the first of the Angora kids born. He has been christened ‘Lucky Luke’ which may well condemn him to a life of accidents and amputations.

A low note involved a lovely big pedigree cow in the shed eating hay one minute and inexplicably, dropping dead the next. We were sorely vexed. Such is farming but hopefully with the days lengthening, spring is not too far around the corner and the whole farm cycle will begin again.