It was Saturday and well before noon, so there were a handful of souls in the village before it became a ghost town over lunch.

A few sat outside the restaurant but sadly the tables are nearly always in shade, so parasols are superfluous.

The mayoral square in front is handsome with flower boxes breaking up the handmade cobbles, and the façade of the Mairie is elegant with that French upright/uptight pride.

But that is to the right. To the front are a closed office, the vet’s surgery and apartments above. Oh, and of course the War Memorial and the ubiquitous, curiously stunted statue of a First World War soldier.

It is not a pretty village at all. It is a working village though sadly, as have so many, it has diminished over the years and given up on any hoped-for tourist trade.

All this I know without really thinking about it, as I know where, on the way out, are the side lanes hiding the police as they ready their guns to clock excessive speeds when the coffers run low.

This place, this land has finally insinuated itself into my being so now I drive and see on autopilot.

In a way I miss those first years for the frisson of always knowing one was in a ‘foreign’ land; miss the thrill of being a new immigrant carving a very different way of life; miss the utter delightful newness of it all.

The dancing excitements of the many fetes and ‘spectacles’ go on but without me, for sadly I’m a ‘been there, done that’ personality, and always crave the next thing. Or so I was.

But then I notice that the continuity and familiarity of repetition no longer irks me as much as they did when I was still chafing at the bit.

All these thoughts, and none, accompanied me as I drove along the main road, then swung into an upgraded country road to pass a church, a handful of houses and a scattering of chickens to my friends’ house.

They are the ones, younger than me, who sold a town house at the heart of a very lovely village to buy an old farmhouse in need of much loving care, with grounds barely discernible under barricades of brambles.

I last saw it on a dark November night although I have seen them many times. I saw little of the grounds but nothing seemed much changed.

So Saturday, as at last the sun reappeared and heat returned to bring us all we expect here, I turned into the drive, a bottle of Champagne on the passenger seat.

The Royal Wedding was as good an excuse as any, but here where wine is concerned, there is no need for excuses. Plus none of us were ever going to wave flags much as we wished them well.

For a moment I really thought I’d turned into the wrong house. Lawns cut to perfection flanked the route. Rose bushes, barely glimpsed before under the tangle of neglect, marched alongside.

I could see a table and chairs surrounded by potted palms and Mediterranean plants in a far corner; a terrace I hadn’t realised existed, led from a bedroom into a tiled square.

All around seating areas in shade and heat enticed and called.

Genuinely astonished at all they’d done in such a short time; I walked around and saw the burgeoning potager; the cut-flower garden; the wild flower meadow to be and the orchard, which will grow steadily year-by-year.

The brambles, which seemed to threaten the house in their impenetrability, have, in the main, gone – ripped apart with the sweat, and blood, literally, of my friends’ determination.

Sitting on the terrace leading from the kitchen as the breeze whispered in the forest beyond and birds thrilled and swooped, I raised my glass in genuine admiration of both.

For they have not flung money at this transformation – a strict necessary budget sees to that.

No, they have cut and carved, pulled and hauled, wrecked backs, muscles and machinery in reclaiming this almost wilderness. I’m sure there have been tears at times.

Inside, much has been done but like all our houses they are geared to be cool in hot, hot summers that, without effective heating and insulation, makes them cold in winter.

That is their next project before it comes round again.

But for now, time can be taken to sit and enjoy the view that so many yearn for on a daily commute back home.

‘God, you must be so thrilled with what you’ve achieved so far,’ I said to D.

She laughed and said: ‘Sort of, but I see all that still has to be done before we even get to the house.

‘Maybe it’s taken someone else’s eyes, yours, to make us realise just what we’ve done.’

It does. We all need validation. And so I drove back, on autopilot, but stopped on the hill and looked down on my house.

No frisson anymore perhaps but a quiet satisfaction at its presence and mine.

All this I know. Now.