A White House in Gascony: Escape to the Old French South

In 1983 journalist Rex Grizell and his French wife decamped from their Westminster town house to a remote corner of south-west France. This is an often amusing account of their new life - how the property was bought, the trials of modernizing the house and developing the gites, and the delicate process of being accepted into the local community. The Gascons are jovial, hot-blooded and, it seems, highly-sexed. Grizell draws an unsentimental picture of a gallery of vivid local characters. He also writes of the hedonistic side of life in Gascony - the food and wine, the uninhibited al fresco parties and the beautiful benevolent landscape.