In this witty and entertaining illustrated memoir, Alister Kershaw describes the pleasures of his prolonged residence in France - a country of villages - from 1948, when even Paris was a series of villages.

In post-war Paris, Kershaw lived a penniless but joyous existence and captures a Paris long gone. The author conjures Paris prior to the triumph of the technocrats and town planners.

It also traces the author's move into the Berry, two hours south of Paris, where he lives in a hamlet of six houses and finds a rural life amongst a small group of traditional Sancerre winemakers.

What will his neighbours make of this intruder - a writer, a poet, a broadcaster - and an Australian into the bargain?