Over on the other side of the river, a man I know drew me into his garden after lunch to peer at what looked like a carefully cultivated patch of weeds.

"What do you think?" he asked with something close to a geriatric giggle but more an asthmatic cough.

Not being a gardener I replied with something weak like: "Very nice. When do they flower?"

He gave me a look of pity mixed with slight contempt. "It's cannabis. Been growing it since soon after I got here."

Now, I'd put his laidback style down to a combination of personality and permanent inebriation due to the normal drug of choice around here - booze.

I thought he rolled his own fags to save money. It actually never crossed my mind he was stuffing them with homegrown weed.

For heaven's sake, the man is nearly 70 years old, wears corduroy trousers with Harris Tweed jackets and is a former senior exec with a very well-known UK company.

The raciest thing I'd heard whispered about him was that he openly extolled the benefits of Viagra and was determined to "pull", as he quaintly put it, a 71-year-old widow who'd already knocked him back five times.

The Viagra and pulling story amused, but didn't surprise me.

Men, as every woman learns, have an unassailable belief in both their attractiveness and their irresistibility, despite all evidence to the contrary. And they lie. Rather touching really.

In truth only the fact he not only smokes cannabis but also grows it outdoors came as a surprise, as I would've thought the cold winter temperatures here would be intolerable to the plants.

Last year a jolly hockeysticks matron shocked my son into silence as she pulled out a spliff after yet another lunch and offered him one.

"All acceptable," she boomed. "Medicinal. Good pain control. My doctor dropped it off." He shook his head with a gentle smile as his eyes frantically beckoned me home. Now. I ignored him.

Well, I had a puff or whatever, purely for good manners' sake obviously, and lived to regret it in the subsequent stern dressing down all the way back and then some.

I was sent to my room after 40 minutes of a lecture about OAP hippies going to seed in rural France. (I was laughing so much I nearly choked on the mound of oven chips I'd "cooked" in munchie madness.) I know, I know. In PC terms this column is a disgrace. My heartfelt apologies to the offended.

So, I must point out that I am most certainly not condoning any use of cannabis or suggesting that half the expat population is stoned out of their heads.

And further: smoking anything in any shape or form is a very BAD thing, as is drinking more than two units a day, sunbathing without sunscreen, swallowing caffeine, eating cheese between crisps, dancing alone around the kitchen table, calling yourself "mummy" to the dog, joining Twitter and sending horrible tweets about X Factor contestants.

With the disclaimer out of the way, I will say, carefully, that an awful lot of Brits here are a little odd … mainly in a nice way. Let's face it, you have to be a little different to up sticks from all you've known and plonk yourself down in the middle of Dullsville to spend your last years painting bloody watercolours, line dancing, quilting and singing in the choir.

And destroying liver and pancreas in a world where wine costs less than water and, hell, tastes an awful lot better. Oops, sorry, deviating from PC world again.

We hide much of this from the French. Which shouldn't be a surprise, since most Brits don't know many anyway, even after living next to them for years.

Old folk in La France Profonde rather missed being baby-boomers - they were too busy just surviving, striving to keep farms intact and bureaucrats at bay.

In fact, the French geriatrics here are belatedly discovering bad American and British TV and are actually cutting down on their wine consumption, much to the consternation of the trade.

Meanwhile we incomers are merrily tipping headfirst into the sort of gleeful madness in which one can only indulge in a foreign country. I know I've gone very odd since living here. Well, odder.

If I come back, don't ask me to a party. I'll be the one with the staring eyes pin-pointing you in a corner demanding your history, blowing smoke in your face and suggesting you have a secret past.

My make-up will be a little hit-and-miss too, as I no longer have a decent mirror. A tan is often all I need to get myself out the door.

I've forgotten small talk. I only do that to the dog and even she is bored with it. Talking too much to oneself means you can't remember to whom you've been actually talking. Or whose secrets you've told in total secrecy.

So you preface everything with: "Stop me if I've told you this …"

"Why don't you grow your own?" said the man after showing me the "weeds".

Because I'm off my head enough as it is.