My near neighbour Jean-Pierre was once a car mechanic, although he has long since been in retirement. Unable to give up the spanner entirely, he keeps a collection of old Citroens in the grounds of his house down the track from us. I say collection, but actually it’s more of a cemetery.

On the one or two occasions when we’ve asked estate agents to give us a valuation on our house here in Haut Agenais, the first words they tend to utter on arrival are “M’sieur, oo owns the scrapyard at the end of your lane?” This is then followed by a discussion as to the pros and cons of paying the owner huge amounts of money to go away. But in fact we’ve never had any intention of asking Jean-Pierre and his delightful wife Yvette to leave these environs: we like them.

Truth be told, their car-wreck collection only looks like a scrapyard during the winter. In the leafy summer months, it resembles nothing more than one of those industry/nature sculptures you can find in the Pompidou Centre: the sort of thing which – if done by say, Jean Tingley – would leave you little change of out £200,000.

However, were JP and Yvette to bugger off, it would put a similar £200,000 on the value of our house…if they took the car museum with them. And so when, on our arrival this week, we saw the home-made sign announcing ‘For Sale’ at the edge of their land…well, you can imagine how the heart beat faster.

But then we saw Yvette herself. She is something of an existentialiste manquee, in that she speaks reasonable English (not common round here) and – like her husband – is heavily into all things holistic, anti-Establishment and organic. Yvette told us that one day she and Jean-Pierre would have to think about being old, infirm, and therefore in need of closer access to shops and services.

“But this will not be tomorrow” she asserted. With a mixture of relief and disappointment, we smiled and then arranged to share an apero at the first opportunity.

I felt guilty afterwards. It was the same guilt one feels when occasionally wishing a tedious (but rich) relative dead.