For some reason, rural France has a passion for line dancing, complete with stetsons, rhinestone-encrusted cowboy shirts and boots

Occasionally (ie daily), I'll consult experts online as to thoughts that usually occur around 3am, to confirm or deny my choice of meandering nonsense.

However, my latest googled medical conditions (added to the ever-increasing daily list of fearsome diseases inhabiting my body) as of this morning now include RSI. So I may have to cut down a touch.

Sometimes I just open a blank document, write the column number and my name, and stare at it in the belief that some sort of automatic seance writing will lead me to my point.

Actually, most times; unless there has been an event of seismic magnitude in one of the neighbouring villages.

We had one in Lavit this week. Roslyn, my cleaner who can't clean, met JP, who owned the village bar/rooms/restaurant until he shut up shop a few years ago.

"He's finally sold it," she told me on her third fag as the sun played on the still dusty surfaces of her work and we both carefully avoided looking too closely.

"He's off to Marseilles to a tiny flat he owns there."

Fantastic. Perhaps now the square will have a soul again and the old boys from the retirement home can wheel themselves along for a heart-starter in the sun.

Perhaps tables will be laid on the terrace and good bistro food brought from the kitchen, and the odd passing tourist will appreciate the thousands spent on hand-blocking the square.

"Who's bought it? What's he going to do with it? Will the restaurant reopen?"

"Oh, I didn't ask," says she. I stab her with my eyes, and as punishment casually run a finger around the telltale red rim of a wineglass on the table beside our coffee cups.

"I'll find out for next week," she promises, licking her finger and casually obliterating the mark.

Too late.

"You have to think why, where, what and how if you're going to be a reporter," I tell her for the umpteenth time.

God, it's tricky being a journalist mentor in La France Profonde when trapped by a sick dog and dead car batteries.

"I forgot," she says, still unprofessionally semi-baffled by my interest, and searches for another tale to tell.

I discount her story of a recent invitation to a second date with the man she met in a nightclub who suggested a naked Jacuzzi party with his three pals.

"Too seventies," I tell her.

Seeing her hurt, I explain that Jacuzzis are so over in the UK even if they're the latest sensation in La Lomagne.

"Salsa," she says triumphantly. "I've joined a salsa class."

She demonstrated. The dent in the MDF wall is barely noticeable; the clock face didn't break when it bounced off the wall and I realised she had lied about having natural rhythm.

"Non."

Maybe I'm being too old-style city smart, even now.

Salsa and Zumba have recently got a slot in the village halles. There are multi-coloured flyers in the tabac and mini-supermarket, hailing the arrival with silhouettes that look remarkably like a very young Jane Fonda.

There's even a rumour that a pilates class could be imminent.

I open Le Petit Journal, the very, very local paper, and there are grainy, amateur photos of the Zumba and salsa line-ups. How patronising would I sound if I said they were almost touching in their enthusiastic jogging bottoms and headbands? I know. Very.

On another page are several photos of various events around here. All show line dancing.

For some reason or another, rural France has a passion for line dancing, complete with stetsons, rhinestone-encrusted cowboy shirts and boots.

Every fete ends in an orgy of thumb- belt-holding, hip-twitching joy.

Actually joy is a relative term around here - smiling is for foreigners or fools. It takes a resident to peer at the miserable, frowning faces, the wrinkled brows and upturned boots, to recognise orgasmic bliss.

Or rather, stuff your salsa and Zumba; in La France Profonde we'll always have line dancing.

My first dear friend here, newly widowed Kate, was desperate to go line dancing and had a stetson bought and ready for the occasion.

"Slit my wrists the day I'll do that," I told her as she tried to persuade me while clacking around the conservatory as her demented parrot whistled in tune.

"Come on, please," she'd begged. "I can't speak French and everyone else is part of a couple. It'll be a laugh."

I was too new and raw here to have that sort of a laugh, although I found it amusing that that was what passed for fun here.

Ah, how I so, so, wish Kate were still alive. I'd buy a stetson and head for a class with her and to hell with my snobby stance.

My word count tells me I've ended the column. Seance writing.