The woodman has been living here four years. When people come to stay, he tells us, it's like this - a weekend is mates staying, a week is a holiday and two weeks is taking the piss.

When you live in the South of France people do come to stay with you, and why not - mates and sunshine, what could be better - and they're invariably generous and lovely and although it's hard work trying to keep fledgling business going as well as being sociable as the sun shines and the wine flows and your guests are intent on being on holiday, on balance it's good to have them around.

So why do they feel the need to criticise? These are the most popular: it's too hot/it's too windy/it's too cold/too many mosquitos. How do you cope with no one to talk to? (Still trying to get my head round this - I'm living in the most social place I have ever lived, where all the time people stop and talk, and I know lawyers, musicians, teachers, artists who show Internationally, carpenters and craftsmen, PR people, restaurateurs, all of whom drop anything to help and lend me their cars when mine goes wrong - a far cry from life in the city as I remember it), How do you manage without culture? (see last). I mean, do I fly back to England and say, why, how do you cope with the cooped in greyness, the fact that no one is friendly, that everything must be done at top speed and even best friends have no time for each other - and the cold? How do you cope with endless talk of money and house prices and security? How do you cope? No, I don't say any of this - and this is why. It's because there's good and bad in everywhere we live, and I am just trying like the next person to enjoy my life in a place I like, and, also, most of all, it's dead rude. So please, guests, come and stay and enjoy our place but keep your criticisms where they should be kept - to yourself.