This winter has, I think, been the hardest to date since I washed up here in La France Profonde.

Not in the physical sense. Indeed the mercury has never dipped below zero, nor have we had the tennis ball-size hailstones that can wipe out a winter crop in minutes.

No snow has turned our country roads into a prison and no tempest has twirled to rip our Roman tiles from their tentative nail hold on our roofs.

We've simply had virtually non-stop driving rain and wind; constant blotting-out-the-light misery. (Nothing of course on a par with the sufferings of the south-west of England, although our west coast has seen similar.)

No, not physically hard. Mentally.

In many ways, while being an optimist and trusting that something will always turn up to save the day, be it financial or intellectual, I accept my heart has a malcontent core.

It's a side of me which can only be held at bay by the paradox of constant stimulation and never changing certainty.

So, my happiness now usually ebbs and flows with the health of my old companion Portia as she flickers her way through what I'm sadly accepting may be her last few months or even weeks.

I have given up on thriving here, fed by any stimulation at all. I have given up, I suppose, on me.

Hell mend me. I was told and well warned before I came.

As if I needed a reminder, a friend of a friend phoned me out of the blue last night.

She lives in a very different league, dividing her life between London and Provence, where she has a mini-estate with a separate guesthouse and caretaker, and often rather famous visitors in the summer.

She lives the life I'd fantasised about before coming here; all terraced lunches and candlelit nights in swathes of lavender perfume and wisteria droops over the abri.

Her husband died in a bizarre and tragic accident a couple of months ago and she was responding to a letter I'd written.

She caught me on the hop as I waited for the vet to return again to administer yet another injection. She called as the rain fell and the hostile black night hemmed me in, and I googled numerous symptoms of potentially fatal conditions on the internet.

She caught me sipping the truth serum of wine.

After I'd offered obvious and genuine expressions of sadness over the death of a kind and wonderfully gifted man, she cut to the chase.

"And you? What the f*** are you still doing there?"

Merde. How does one actually answer that unless one can say one is blissfully happy or, even better, at least at peace and content with one's lot?

I could only weakly reply: "I don't know."

"Didn't I tell you to rent before you bought?" she said. "God, I've lived here 20-odd years and you still took no notice of me."

It's true, I didn't. Didn't because her France was/is one of offshore tax trusts; the ability to dip in and out of two lives; the freedom to not be stuck anywhere.

In the beginning she had offered to come here and quiz the people I'd naively hired to work on Las Molieres. She said she'd organise and sort everything.

"French, Brits; they'll all try to rip you off," she told me. "You're a woman alone and they'll all f*** you up."

I feared she had no concept of our very different worlds. My then new house would be the equivalent of her guesthouse, but nowhere near as smart. Actually, probably the equivalent of her pigpen.

So I ignored her advice and stupidly ploughed on, and over the odd occasions we met, I told her I was fine and all had gone well.

She invited me often to Provence. I sort of invited her here but not in a genuine way, knowing I couldn't provide the luxury she needed.

Her house has been up for sale for several millions for several years.

She's half walked away from it, leaving it in the care of the couple she employs, returning in the late spring/summer for a couple of months.

London is where she has decided to base herself. Belgravia, to be precise. "Move here," she tells me as if life were so simple. "You'll love it."

Ah, the people, the friends, who tell me to "move here, you'll love it". The ones, who say, "come home".

Where is home? I think we've talked about this before. I don't have a home any more - just places I've lived in.

Today, for the first time in weeks, the weather channel is showing at least 10 days of sunshine.

All my doors and windows are open. My feet still sink in the wet soil of my "land". The trees and bushes are in bud. My protective chestnuts too.

My old girl has had a mouthful of food and a little drink of water. She's wandered out to sit on her rug in front of the house.

The sun has warmed each room and I am feeling sort of happy again. Sort of.