Happiness is a form of courage .

In a feat of French efficiency the bikes are delivered bright and early . They arrive in huge cardboard boxes quite disproportionate to the size of the contents. They also require an allen key to attach the handlebars . What is there about the phrase ' ready to ride ' that is so difficult ? Into town with Wilf to speak to the man at the hardware store . En route we stop off for our second coffee of the day . The beer and absinthe crowd are all at the tables where we left them an hour and a half earlier .

Home to find a personal invite for tomorrow nights art show in the village hall. The oversexed , two strings of pearls , Parisienne ladies are holding the annual vernissage of their works . The male form figured prominently last year . Perhaps this year they'll have moved onto sunflowers . I shall not go alone in case the subject of modelling is raised .

The art exhibition marks the start of the villages annual festival . This culminates on Sunday with the processing of the saints statue followed by the firing of the potters oven . On Saturday night Monsieur Bay and the retired gendarmes will be projecting a selection of ' humorous movies ' onto the wall of the salle des fetes . Weather permitting . Madame Bay and the ladies of the village fleuri committee will be providing refreshments .

Wilf has a bad day. He joins us for breakfast and lunch . In between times he sleeps . He also stops drinking - completely. We decide that we'll take him to the vet to be rehydrated if he continues like this . Come dinner time , just as we assume that whatever is laying him low is serious , he arrives on the terrace . He then has a noisy three minute long slurp from his water bowl. Finished he turns to us as if to say '' let's party ". That PON attitude to life that knows : " If you want to be happy , be ".