Still waters.

The village a hive of activity ahead of the annual Saints Day festivities . Peugeots and Citroens parked higgledy piggledy across the village green . In the car park Monsieur Bay and his colleagues from the retired gendarmes club trying out their movie projector . They wave and tell me they'll be showing a film called Amelie au pays des Bodins . '' An absolute rib tickler . Make sure you get here in plenty of time " .

At two in the afternoon the mayor together with the old farmer , who has safely returned fom Brittany , disappear into the church clock tower . An hour and a half later they re-emerge . The time on the clock face having now moved from ten past five ( where it's been firmly stuck for the last six or so months ) to fourteen minutes past . Progress of sorts .

The Parisienne ladies art exhibition still graces the walls of the village hall . Scantily clad truck drivers and pouting cyclists nestling incongruously amongst landscapes and bowls of fruit . Some of the least anatomically detailed shown here . ' The font ' re-examines the art works in the light of day commenting , in best Lutheran fashion , ' still waters run deep '. Who would have thought that the prim ladies from Neuilly harboured such elemental passions ?

Wilf spends much of his afternoon asleep in the shade of the lime tree beside the war memorial . A good spot to savour the smells wafting out of the village hall kitchen . From time to time Kelly the hover dog and Brunhilda the German billionaires dog wander over to join him . Kelly leaps over him . Brunhilda barks . Neither succeeds in getting him to play . The deputy mayoress pops out of the kitchen with a vol au vent . Now that's how to get an old fellows full attention .