IT'S ALL the letter S this month.
Slim, Slow, Sly, Scarface? Shorty, Scratch, Sad? Stan, Smith, Smog, Smoking? I could go on. On and on. There are about 230 of them. Yes, they're names. Dogs' names, to be exact.
I'll explain. We went
Read more: Christopher Campbell-Howes shakes out a seasonal selection . . .
RUSTLE, RUSTLE. There's something there, throwing its tiny weight about in the long grass by the steps that lead up to the vegetable garden. A lizard? A mouse? A cricket? A cicada, even?
Presently the grass parts and allows your corresponde
Read more: Christopher Campbell-Howes pokes about in the undergrowth. . .
HERE'S SUMMER upon us, like a long-awaited favourite guest. Hooray. We've waited so long for this. We can sleep with the windows open, get the main work done in those delectable hours between dawn and coffee-time, flop out round the
Read more: Christopher Campbell-Howes reaches for the Ambre Solaire . . .
You can always tell when it's going to happen. Notices appear tacked to the trees down the street, lashed to lamp-posts or stuck to the official notice boards scattered about the village.
'By order of the maire' they say, and there's a lot
Read more: Christopher Campbell-Howes strolls down the village street . . .
I'M AFRAID my first thoughts on arriving at the hotel Bleu Marine in St Raphaël weren't very charitable. There was such an incredible noise, like a surreal fairground or railway station music: you couldn't separate out the strands of music be
Read more: Christopher Campbell-Howes pushes the boat out . . .
THINKING OF buying a house in France? A lot of people do and most manage to turn the experience into something pretty exciting. Some even write books about it. The sense of adventure is often enhanced by comparing what your money wil
Read more: Christopher Campbell-Howes tells a cautionary tale . . .
THE FLAG'S flying outside the Mairie, the village town hall, flopping idly in the soft spring breeze. Sunning himself at the top of the steps is Jean-Claude, looking like a prosperous antiquarian taking a breather in the shop doorway and scanning
Read more: Christopher Campbell-Howes exercises his democratic rights