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Self-Sufficiency in Style 

dinner for two

the sun setting over a hillside vineyard in a warm summer landscape.

the table laid for two, immaculate table linen, shining glasses, fine wines and attentive service...

Provincial France and a romantic evening ahead.

Table for two

Insufficient Inducement

There had been many such days, starting early, struggling, with Mrs P map reading and me trying to remember to stick to the right hand side of the road.

Neither of us had been efficient. We had repeatedly got lost and the driving must sometimes have been hair-raising..

By the time evening had arrived, we were exhausted, bad tempered, disappointed and arguing. 

The undoubted attractions of fine French wines and cuisine were insufficient to assuage the irritations.

It was a familiar story, after 10 such trips to Ireland, several to Scotland and Wales and half a dozen to France. 

I can't recall the place, the date, the season, or even the year with any accuracy.

But it was provincial France, over dinner, possibly 1996 and the atmosphere was tense.

A fine wine was not enough

The irritations of the day boiled over. It was me that opened hostilities.

"I can't understand why you forced me to sell the family home. I loved that place. It was magnificent...."

"It was too big

... I was worried. You were very ill."

"It was unfair, I was ill and not well enough to stand up to your constant pressure...

...medieval beams ..."

"It was too big, expensive to maintain, the family had all left home and you were too ill...

...we had to get something smaller."

"Peaceful and remote..."

"It was too remote..."

She added hastily, "too remote for someone who had just had a heart attack."

Accusations were traded with varying degrees of hostility.

"Why did you make me sell!"

Suddenly there was something new in the air - an unexplored avenue in a well travelled verbal landscape.

"There is something you have not told me. 

Why did we sell?"

"Is there something that you have not told me?"

She hesitated.

"I hated the place. It scared me. It was too remote."

You liked the place originally."

"We were burgled. 

You had those problems at work and I could see that you were not well. I did not want to worry you so I didn't tell you," she said firmly.

"As the years have gone by it has got harder to reopen a very frightening experience."

She shrugged, "I went out shopping one day and on my return ran into a masked man upstairs."

"Did he touch you?"

"No" she reassured.

"He ran down one set of stairs and made off. I was too scared to follow."

"When did this happen? Tell me the whole story."

Slowly the whole story emerged. 

The burglary had taken place some years previously at a time when there had been a lot of problems in my business - people problems - tensions and troubles.

I owned a difficult and quite sensitive business: one trading across the Iron Curtain and with quite controversial countries.

At my request she described the "burglar."

The full impact of what she had told me suddenly struck. I had recognised something from the description.

"That was no burglar, that was..... and after documents.

He had a reputation of being where he shouldn't and would have been more scared than you were."

My wife was furious. "You are sure?"

Seeing that I was, she realised the implications.

"If I had have told you, you would have called the police and he would have been caught?"

She didn't wait for an answer,

"and those terrible business problems would never have happened."

"Yes, in theory we would now be very much richer, have avoided some very unpleasant experiences  and...

 we might not be roaming about looking for a home."

"It's too late now?

"Water under the bridge."

"Let's get on with her lives", she said, unusually firmly.

So we did exactly that.

...getting on with our lives

- in the capriciously named Hangman's Cottage, just to the south of Misery Corner.