French lessons

If you want to run away from “normal” life, the French countryside is an excellent place to go

- LUCY CORRY

Condensation pools around my glass as the ice melts into a generous slosh of pastis. Two fans whirr noisily, barely stirring the humid early-evening air. The atmosphere is tense, my fellow card players maintaining their best poker faces with professional aplomb. In an instant, everything explodes. “Uno!” my daughter shouts triumphantly. “I win again!” She clinks her glass against mine. “Santé, Maman!”

Tell people you’re off to live in the south of France and they probably don’t imagine torrid games of Uno as the major source of pre-dinner entertainment. Their idea of la vie française probably involves copious amounts of wine, languid evenings on café terraces, haute cuisine and a certain “je ne sais quoi”. All these things certainly exist, but you see them through slightly different rose-tinted lenses when you decamp to rural France with a 10-year-old in tow.