LIVING with a lung disease means it’s important to avoid stress of any kind. I didn’t quite grasp that when the specialist gave me my list of ‘dos’ and ‘dont’s.’

For stress has always meant to me the adrenaline rush of deadlines; the frenetic race to grab a plane and beat the opposition and the sheer exhilaration of a racing heart, proof of life coursing.

Now, reduced to a pale imitation of myself, the first sign of a major problem sees me reaching for the rescue inhaler, drawing huge gulps of whatever chemical opens the fast-closing bronchi.

I try not to use it every day for one of its compounds gives me the shakes and as I’ve always shivered when trouble hits, let’s just say it’s not a good look.

And between shaking and shivering I need to concentrate on a form of breathing to halt the panic of things shutting down which they will do if I can’t get a grip. The circle, always the vicious circle.

I hate it. I hate this weak, frightened person I’ve been reduced to after a life of glorious recklessness.

Hate that problems and situations can reduce me to this quivering form, overruling the thoughts and instructions of the brain.

But most of all I hate that I can no longer run from trouble, flee from disaster; get the hell out of it. Literally. Instead I’m vulnerable and exposed, dependent on the kindness of others.

It wouldn’t matter where I lived, this would now be the situation anywhere.

However, if setting oneself up for the perfect storm, there’s no better place to be than La France Profonde with its traps both natural and manmade.

This summer by stillness and shade I’ve survived the blistering, ever increasing heat; hopefully triumphed over the flooding with the bank loan and, with enough poison to wipe out the nearby village, have almost – almost – overcome the mice invasion.

So, maybe give me a break here?

No chance. The water meter reading man stood at my door, and one word repeated over and over: catastrophic.

I peered into the hole where it lives and watched the dial whizzing round. "You have a leak, a catastrophic leak, possibly a ruptured pipe."

Two things I knew with certainty – I would be billed for it and it was going to be enormous. When he said the cubic meterage even the innumerate moi could work out it was up to more than €1500 instead of my usual €100.

In the end there was no split pipe, all had come from months of a dripping overflow in the electric water tank. I knew it was there but not the consequences.

With the hot water turned off until new parts could be found, I inhaled deeply of my chemical friend and returned to fretting about my main worry.

Frélons, or hornets, are a fact of life here. Often they just bumble in and out and won’t sting unless threatened. But their sting is immensely more powerful than a wasp’s and more than one usually results in hospitalisation.

We all keep handy a powerful ‘bomb’ – a spray that can be used from 6ft away and zaps them instantly. When I looked up to see around 12 at my glass doors, attracted by the lights, I knew a bomb was not enough.

I’d already killed a handful – some in the sitting room and others that followed us in after César’s night pee. The spray is also something I must avoid in my list.

A, the gardener, spotted a lot of activity around my chimney. It was clear I had a nest inside the chimney.

In many areas the pompiers, the fire brigade, come and kill the nest but not here.

I found a commercial destroyer of frélons who would do it for €120.

In cut-off shorts and an open shirt displaying his bling, hair almost to the shoulders, the middle-age killer liked drama.

We were instructed to go into the hall, not come out and once the nest was destroyed all windows must be left open in case returning frélons slipped down the chimney.

César must not go out as dead or dying frélons could be on the ground.

Clutching my inhaler, shaking and shivering, I stayed in the hall as he put on his protective clothing and climbed the roof.

In no time at all he returned, his deadly cargo delivered into the nest’s heart. Leaving C in the hall I followed him into the sitting room where the flue of the woodburner almost bounced with the angry buzzing of the dying tribe.

"Don’t worry," he said "it’s done now but just be careful in case any are hiding in the chair covers. It was a small nest….about 1000."

Dear God, what counts as a big nest?

Now, three days later, all is silent in the chimney; a few frélons from elsewhere cling to my figs getting buzzily drunk, but that is normal.

And me? I’m fighting the urge to garland my house in garlic to keep further evil out.

Oh, that’s for vampires isn’t it? Oh merde, nothing would surprise me.

Reaches for inhaler.