Product Description
In early 2004, Michael Wright said a fond farewell to his comfortable South London existence and, with just his long-suffering cat for company, set out to begin a new life. His destination was 'La Folie', a dilapidated 15th century farmhouse in need of love and renovation in the heart of rural France...He never intended to write a book about it, but the readers' response to his column in the "Daily Telegraph" inspired him to write what is far more than just another account of living la belle vie in France. With endearing honesty, "C'est La Folie" charts the author's bid to fulfil a childhood dream of becoming a real Man as he struggles to make the journey from clinically social townie to rugged, solitary paysan. And in chronicling his enthusiastic attempts at looking after livestock and coming to terms with the concept of living Abroad Alone, the author discovers what it takes to be a man at the beginning of the 21st century, especially if one is short sighted, flat footed and not much good at games. Life-affirming, laugh out loud funny and written with insight and affection (and boasting more than its fair share of larger-than-life locals, bilingual chickens, diminutive but over-sexed sheep, invisible rodents, diseased root vegetables, manly power tools with unpronounceable names, not to mention a fair few femmes fatales), Michael Wright's tale of a new-found solitary life in France with a cat, a piano and an aeroplane, is as much an elegy for rural France, fast disappearing under the invasion of 'Les Anglais', as for his own lost innocence.
From the Back Cover
What do you do if you reach your thirties and still don’t feel grown-up?
Why fritter away your life in front of a computer when you could be wielding manly power-tools?
How do you learn to be a hero if you suspect you may be a wimp?
These and other pressing questions are what drove Michael Wright to give up his comfortable South London existence and set out, with just his long-suffering cat for company, for La Folie – a dilapidated fifteenth-century farmhouse in need of love and renovation in the heart of rural France.
Inspired by his much-loved newspaper column, C’est La Folie is the gloriously entertaining account of his struggle to make the transition from chattering townie to solitary paysan at one with the livestock, the locals and the landscape of his adopted home.
Witty and winningly honest, this tale of a new life abroad with a cat, a piano and an aeroplane is as much an elegy for rural France as a hymn to the simple pleasures of being alive.
--This text refers to the
Paperback
edition.
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