As a teenager I received an invitation to a party that had the strange word BYOB printed at the bottom.

My mother and I tried out every possible combination of words to try to work out what it meant, finally settling on Bring Your Own Boyfriend, which seemed a very odd thing to ask.

As I didn't have one I thought I'd have to decline as it was made plain you couldn't bring anybody else's and, anyway, I couldn't think of anyone who would lend me her's.

Fortunately, on asking around, my mother discovered what everybody else already knew, that it was Bring Your Own Bottle.

Unfortunately she didn't ask for any of the other rules of etiquette applying to this new phenomenon to guide me as I set off clutching a bottle of wine.

As I didn't drink - seriously, I was a late starter - I had no need for it. I also didn't understand that it was handed over to be put in the kitchen along with all the other bottles.

So, I just carried it around all evening and returned home with it unopened as nobody had asked me for a drink. Everyone had been too polite to wrest it from my fierce grip and just mocked me afterwards.

A good few years later, on moving to Glasgow, it took only one party to realise that turning up sans bottle was social suicide.

Although in the best of circles then, and still now, turning up with one is also social suicide, implying your host will not provide.

Anyway, I was reminded of my first BYOB this week as Roslyn, the cleaner who can't clean, detailed her plans for her 50th birthday in April.

Bubbling with excitement she told me the Mayor was giving her free use of the marquee that would be up for the fete; she would cook quiches and a couscous and make salads; serve cheese and three desserts.

For the aperos she planned to buy big bottles of sangria from Lidl, add rum and chop up fruit and serve punch. Punch, usually lethal, is a favourite pre fete apero.

The wine was worrying her though.  Knowing how few spare euros she has, I suggested she asked her friends to bring a bottle.

The horror on her face said it all. I explained. A part of her loved the idea, but she said she could never do that, shuddering at the very thought.

"It wouldn't be right," she said, her voice rising. "That would be a terrible thing to do. No, no, I'll put a bit aside every week."

Actually I agree with her, don't throw a party if you can't cater it from beginning to end. But it was interesting to know that in La France Profonde at least, the very concept was both unknown and likely to lead to a loss of face.

My neighbours don't bother about the usual outward signs of success - the big screen TV, the frequent change of car, the flash clothes. These things do not impress them and, actually, are considered rather vulgar.

But they passionately care about the art of hospitality and the importance of 'setting' a good table.

Both were brought home to me over the last few weeks when I was invited to two Sunday lunches by different neighbours.

Although not done, I brought wine to both as of course I don't have any home-made preserves, duck eggs or petit-fours to hand. I also never get to the florist to buy a plant enveloped in the yards of cellophane and ribbon considered chic hereabouts.

But knowing that the host will have carefully chosen the wine to go with every course, I make sure I bring a really good bottle and excuse it as a little 'cadeau' for him to try another day.

In all the meals I've been to, we go straight to the table where aperos are served first; passtis, whisky and a sherry-type fortified wine the 'ladies' are expected to drink.

We keep the same knife, fork and plate for every course, the French wiping theirs clean with the bread they eat constantly right up until the pudding.

There are no side plates and the bread is broken on the table or added to the plate. It is something I will never get used to.

The wine is sipped slowly and never, ever to excess. At the last lunch seven of us drank just two bottles of wine, one to accompany both the foie gras and the deserts.

Armagnac was offered with the coffee and it is just not done to have more wine. The meal is over and that's that.

It goes without saying that the food is usually superb, home grown, gathered, shot or strangled that day in the yard.

Driving home, not for the first time, I felt a flush of embarrassment at the amounts drunk by us at our lunches and dinners. No wonder the locals think we're all sots.

Thank God BYOB didn't come up. Mean sots.

However, as an invitee, I now know what to give R for her birthday - the wine for the party. A cadeau, just a cadeau.