A map of France was miraculously produced, and that fateful night we decided where we wanted to spend a good part of the rest of our lives.
We wanted to be below the cold isobar that on every weather map seems to run due east of La Rochelle, yes Normandy, Brittany and other points north are beautiful, but decisions had to be made. We didn't want Mayal's mansions, the expat England of Dordogne nor the Costa del Cote D'Azur.
What we did want was proximity to the Med for summer swimming, the Pyrenees for winter skiing, an airport, a motorway system nearby and a train station just in case we wanted to escape. The kids didn't want schools either but that decision was swiftly over-ruled by the two senior partners.
This irrefutable logic led us to our very own "Imaginot Line", just east of Bordeaux, just north of Toulouse (too much electronics and fertiliser) and south of Cahors and definitely west of Provence. Once that decision had been deduced the rest became decidedly more complex, Henry had eaten the map!
New map and a quick trip to the bustling metropolis of Hammersmith to an exhibition about France with the family; yes the brood came too (Henry stayed at home, mumbling something about rabies and mad dogs on the mainland).
Then things got a bit more serious?.we couldn't find anywhere to park the bloody car. After much cursing and driving around and around in circles we eventually managed to abandon it under the cavernous canopy of the Novotel hotel, the only real French thing in south west London, coincidence or what!
The show was humming, hundreds of eager Francophiles looking for their perfect bijou holiday home along with all mod cons for the price of a bike shed in Purley and the dimensions of the palace of Versailles....in Paris. We were amazed and horrified.
We had brought with us a photocopied list of our specific requirements including roughish location, proximity to a town for junior and secondary schools, motorway connections, airport and the rest of our deluded deductions from our family gathering on Alcatraz.
From what we saw, it seemed to us that, the majority of people there had brought their sandwiches, a French phrase book and granny. Most of them could not speak a word of French, hated garlic, would not be seen dead in a beret and believed La Pen was something you wrote with.
But and it was a huge but, (big enough to keep a years supply of dodgy eau de vie), one little booth as the Americans call a stand, (Custers last booth just doesn't sound right) had exactly what we were searching for.
Once we had drank our cup of luke-warm instant coffee, and then slogged our way around a sea of stalls or perhaps a perpendicular of stands we found the Holy Grail, a small agent based in south west France, whose sales pitch was limited if not to say deficient.
"I only deal in a small district in a very small part of a region in a very small department, what are you looking for?"
I replied quickly, so as not to upset his predetermined routine to get rid of unwanted punters and their granny, "a small district in a very small part etc and here's what we want" and handed over the family's version of the Magna Carta.
To watch a surprised estate agent is similar to watching Jonathan Ross being lost for words, a little embarrassing but absolutely worth videoing.
Having exchanged business cards we left the stand and the heaving mass of maniacal Francophiles behind us and headed home or at least back to the Island, with carrier bags stuffed full of, well stuff.
Nothing meant that much to us so early in our quest and we decided to wait until the next day to have a look at what we had crammed into an assortment of logo'd carrier bags.
