This week the ‘grass verge’ cutters have been working on our road, and they have asked if they can park their big machinery in our courtyard for a few days.

Called ‘fauchage’ in French, this isn’t so much a light mow for the grassy verges, as a complete ‘back to earth’ experience for any hedge, tree or blade of grass that threatens to cast a shadow near the road. Three large machines drive along, each with a blade whirring in a different position, so they can get to the bottom of the deepest ditch or the top of any perilous bank.

Anyway, as I say they asked if they could park their machinery in our cortyard at night and at lunchtimes, which is fine.

Meanwhile, in a sudden flush of madness this week we bought a dishwasher and a big fridge. We already have both of these in the gite, but not in our own barn, and thought it was time that we did.

We had planned to get them as soon as we moved in two years ago – but never quite got around to it, for reasons of poverty or laziness, I forget which. Anyway, all very exciting, they arrived as promised, and the young chaps from Auchan did a fine job of the installation. It took them a bit longer than expected – they didn’t finish until just after midday, but left with big smiles and a handshake, as the French do.

Problem is, by 12.05 instead of being the large open space they had arrived in, the courtyard now looked like a bulldozer emporium. Threatening to seal the delivery van (and its hungry drivers) in until 2.00. A Frenchmen and his lunchbreak are not easily parted, and it took ten minutes of panicked manouevres, plant moving, shouting and hollering until they squeezed the van through a space barely wide enough for a Mini Cooper, and they could drive off at breakneck speed.

I understand their panic at eating with us after a conversation Mrs B had with a French friend the other day. They had been talking about lunch and Mrs B mentioned we don’t usually eat much for lunch, meaning – but not actually saying – we have bread, cheese and salad. Generally we allocate 30 seconds to the preparation, and not much more to the eating.

Anyway, the friend agreed, there is no time to cook properly at lunchtime – so we “make do with steak, potatoes, vegetables kind of thing”. That sounds like as much effort as our evening meal, so Mrs B didn’t elaborate on our poor eating habits. But I can see that the prospect of a piece of bread and Cantal didn’t inspire the delivery men to hang around.

That’s the second time in a week we’ve worried about our eating habits. Someone gave our daughter a big bag of sprouts to give us, and asked in passing how we normally eat sprouts. Daughter looked bewildered, as she would, because boiled is the only way she has ever had sprouts.

While she stood there looking confused, he was reeling off the possibilities to try and jog her memory – gratin or bechamel sauce were the two she remembered later. Apparently she tried to shrug her shoulders in a nonchalant ‘there are too many ways to describe’ kind of expression and scuttled away as quickly as possible.