Pots .

Half a dozen pottery stalls on the village green . A summer Sunday festival in France Profonde . ' The font ' instructs Wilf and Angus to go out and enter into the communal spirit of things . " Make sure you shake hands with the mayor and his wife and while you're at it why don't you buy something that's useful ? " .

Twenty minutes later , having kissed the mayors wife and greeted Madame Bay , Wilf and Angus return with a set of artisinal , blue glazed , tapenade dishes. " What exactly are they ? " asks ' the font '. Angus points out that ' they ' are extremely useful . ' The font' unhelpfully observes that neither Angus nor Wilf are big fans of tapenade . ' Perhaps we can serve nuts in them ? ' . Silence .

Out again to buy something that isn't excessively rustic and which doesn't have to go straight into storage. This time the word ' useful ' has been excluded from the list of requirements . By the pond the mayor is trying to light, unsuccesfully , the replica sixteenth century pottery kiln . " If only they'd built the roof six centimeres higher there would have been a through flow of air " he bleets . Amid sparks, swirling smoke and broken roof tiles Angus sympathizes .

A turquoise crackle glaze vase ( third one from the left , middle row, top picture ) catches this community minded purchasers eye . It is added to the family collection of vases acquired over three and a half decades at art fairs across the globe .

Back to find Wilf , who has opted to stay at home for a quick doze, standing on the lawn , head high, smelling the intertwined scents of the lunchtime roast chicken and the mayors ever thickening smoke screen . The old fellow gets some chicken breast with his lunchtime kibbles . Proof that there's truth in the old saying '' hope is patience with the lamp lit ". The tapenade dishes are already on a shelf in the cellar .