La Vie

AN INDIE BESTSELLER

''It reminded me all over again of why I threw up everything for the magic of La Belle France'' Carol Drinkwater, author of The Olive Farm

''An utterly beguiling immersion in La France Profonde, keenly observed and beautifully told'' Felicity Cloake, author of One More Croissant for the Road

For fans of Peter Mayle, ''Britain''s finest living nature writer'' takes the plunge and buys an old farmhouse deep in the French countryside - a perfect slice of sunny escapist joy from the perennial Sunday Times bestseller.

The Charente: roofs of red terracotta tiles, bleached-white walls, windows shuttered against the blaring sun. The baker does his rounds in his battered little white van with a hundred warm baguettes in the back, while a cat picks its way past a Romanesque church, the sound of bells skipping across miles of rolling, glorious countryside.

For many years a farmer in England, John L