8 - Hunters, Gatherers, Mods

Though I like the idea of four properly old-fashioned seasons, each distinct from the other (as opposed to the new-fangled two-season years, which are both grey but with one slightly warmer than the other), the winters here are harsh. And bleak. Harsh and bleak. And long. Harsh and bleak and long.

Preparing for winter here is like being on a ship and expecting a heavy storm, it's all about 'battening down the hatches'. All outdoor furniture has to be put away, even the heavy stuff. In our first winter we left a large table out, a heavy iron-based structure that we had trouble moving ourselves and so, we thought, would be fine outside. I remember that Natalie and I were watching from our bedroom window as a very localised typhoon picked the thing up and threw it across the garden; everything that isn't nailed down is now put away.

The swimming pool has to be put into hibernation too which – and, yes, I am aware of what a ridiculous complaint this is – is also hard work. I hardly use the thing; my particular level of killjoy sense of order means that I tend to spend most of my time standing at the side with a net ready to trap any unsuspecting insect that has the temerity to land on the water, that and telling the boys not to splash too much. At the end of autumn, though, the pool has to be cleaned, the pump drained, pipes disconnected, steps removed and – this is the killer – the winter cover installed. It weighs a tonne, is 10 metres long, 3 metres wide and I wrestle with it twice a year. It is, as Natalie keeps pointing out, a four-man job, and I should ring friends up and ask them for help. I just can't do that though; I haven't yet reached the point in my life where I can comfortably ring people up and ask for assistance with my pool cover – who am I, the Sultan of Brunei?

There are also some jobs that should already have been done that, with winter around the corner, can be put off no longer. The firewood has to be stacked. Monsieur and Madame Lebrun had kindly thought to order our first load of firewood for us before we moved in, a tricky thing to do in midwinter apparently, all the wood having gone already. (You have to plan ahead you know, it doesn't just grow on trees.) Eventually, after a great deal of searching, Madame Lebrun found a local supplier who could deliver enough wood 'to see us through the rest of the winter'. The rest of the winter? I'd never seen so much wood! Just how long does winter last around here, we thought? Perhaps we were entering a new Ice Age.

Before piling up the wood, however, the préau, a kind of open barn affair, had to be tidied, which I insisted on roping everyone in on, seeing as in my opinion they'd made it a bloody mess in the first place. The préau is an important part of the property – wood store, hay loft, bird sanctuary – and on the central column there are two inscriptions scratched into the stone. It's always sobering re-reading them, but both are quite faded now and difficult to make out. The first is either a call to arms as the Germans were sweeping through France, or a lament at defeat.

'Les Allemand Son Antré A Chabris le 20 juin 1940 Apré une Resistanse de 7 heures et...'[sic]

(The Germans entered Chabris on June 20, 1940 after a resistance of 7 hours and...)

And the second one is a similar rallying cry, just as the Normandy landings were taking place and signed Riolland.

'6 juin 1944 les ameriquins ons débarquer pour chaser les allemans qui etet en france.'[sic]

(6 June, 1944. The Americans disembarked to chase off the Germans who were in France.)

They are, as far as it is possible to say, in different 'handwriting' and to my mind the latter is an entreaty to avenge the death of the former and it makes me feel very humble. I feel like the owner of something very valuable; that the place where we now live has a noble history that we must preserve, a way of life that, my nomadic and bizarre lifestyle apart, must somehow be kept.

And as we had a family moment around the inscriptions and tried to explain to the boys their significance and a little of World War Two, the gunfire began.

I know! The irony of the situation wasn't lost on us either, as we hit the ground in blind panic. Not more than 15 yards away on the other side of the fence some hunters had gathered, about twenty of them, and they must have let fire almost simultaneously. It was deafening and terrifying. The animals, who follow us everywhere en masse, reacted in different ways: the cats dived for cover under a hay bale; Toby shat himself on the spot and then started chasing his own tail while Pierrot, too deaf to have heard the barrage even from this range but never one to pass up the opportunity of a bit of sexual gratification, started rubbing his backside on my head. Ultime began panicking in her stable and kicking the walls while Junior ran out into the field and gave it his best 'Come on then, d'you want some?' neighing, which actually seemed to abate the hunters, albeit briefly.

I hate the hunters; I know it's been a way of life here for centuries and I'm aware also that it's exactly the way of life that those who wrote the inscriptions in the préau wanted to maintain, but there is something not only barbaric but farcical about seeing twenty grown men (and they are all men) with their pristine, green hunting gear and their shiny guns enter battle with... well, what exactly? The fearsome partridge? The dread, firebreathing pheasant? The slavering, swivel-eyed raper of womanfolk that is the rabbit? It's a truly ridiculous sight that is at once comical but also very scary; these people are on an armed jolly! This isn't paintballing, these are real guns, and in this weather you can bet that there'll have been a few warming Cognacs knocked back over lunch too.

We went back indoors and had an earnest talk about how we have to learn to embrace the countryside, to take its stings as well as its charms. We are part of this community now and if we're prepared to accept the odd game bird here and there then we should also be able to put up with how it's killed. We had a neighbour in Crawley who ran over a deer and we didn't get all prissy about the venison we enjoyed for weeks after that, did we? The blunt truth is that the French are less squeamish about these things – they don't just take an active part in the eating of and preparation of what goes on their dinner plate, they want to know where it came from, how it got there. And don't misinterpret that as meaning that all French food is organically reared or humanely killed because it isn't; this is the land of foie gras, and feelings, yours or the animals, don't come into it.

We, as a family, had to make adjustments. We had to take our middle-class, southern English, townie attitudes and put them aside. We could choose not to like what the hunters do, but we had to accept that they are what they are; that it is their way of life. Or, we could just buy our own weapons and shoot back, whatever. Junior, on the other hand, tends to fight fire with fire and, as if in response to the violence around him, took this opportunity to trash the chicken coop.

It was generally acknowledged, by Natalie and the boys, not by me, that it was only a matter of time before we actually had chickens; Junior, though, had put the whole thing on the backburner. Clearly spotting a blade of grass with his name on it, he destroyed the fencing around the coop, trampling it down and making a right old mess. He also, according to Natalie, left the fence in such a state that it was now causing a danger to Junior as it 'might cut his legs'.

'Serves him bloody right!' I said, thinking naively that that would be an end to it.

Two hours later I was still there in sub-zero temperatures with a barely up-to-the-job pair of pliers cutting back the damaged fence, all the time gunfire raging and Junior standing over me snorting at my back, mocking me. With his long winter mane he looked like a heated, malevolent Tina Turner. The last bit of the fence proved particularly troublesome; by now my hands were not only frozen, they were cramping up and the splinters I had got from stacking the firewood weren't helping. I gave one final almighty heave and the fence came apart but sent me spinning backwards, past a nonchalant Junior and into the electric fence where I briefly thrashed about before sinking to my knees.

I decided that was enough for the day. It was getting dark anyway; time to relax in front of a roaring log fire, and get a bit of peace and quiet. I am good at my job. I can cope with most situations, I am pretty unflappable. I have the skills and experience that means if you put me in a room with 400 drunk stags and hens I can deal with it pretty well, rarely losing my patience. But give me three boys, three cats, two dogs, two horses and a wife who seems to have found a way to make cushions breed and I am obviously completely out of my depth.

And the cushions thing was getting out of hand, frankly. Natalie has two hobbies when the weather turns: she picks up animal poo (actually a year-round occupation) and turns the humble cushion from a soft-furnishings accessory into an interior design plague. I swear, when I die I will be neither buried nor cremated but stuffed into a fabric case and just left on the sofa for all eternity. People will pop by and exclaim: 'Ooh, that's a nice cushion! Is it a Cath Kidston?'

'No. It's my dead husband.'

The place had become like the children's ball room at Ikea, only full of cushions and intended for use only by adult Laura Ashley fetishists. It had become impossible over the last few years to sit on a chair or settee comfortably; every seat had piles of cushions on it. It was taking half an hour to get to bed because of all the cushions that had to be removed from the duvet beforehand; and woe betide anyone who puts them back in the wrong place. I had to start taking pictures on my phone of sofas and beds before I used them, so that I could get the myriad of cushions back into their rightful spot before a straggler was spotted and blame was apportioned.

And it wasn't just the cushions. My slippers, recently imported beautiful suede, paisley-lined moccasins, fell apart the minute I put them on. The cats, it seemed, had thought it would be a bit of a wheeze to just chew all the stitching off and then leave the things looking intact – but would they listen as I told them off? Of course not, because they were watching the football on the television. They were, all three, lined up in front of the screen watching the football until, at half time, they all marched off and started fighting. It seems we've got cats that in some strange twist on the Hindu concept of reincarnation used to be 1970s football hooligans! Thérence meanwhile was developing his own brand of chaos. He had started hiding things. He had hidden one of Maurice's slippers and though we turned the place upside down it could not be found – equally vanished without trace was the blue toilet cleaner contraption that sits in the loo. Where was he putting these things?

Pierrot was constantly sneaking into the kitchen and eating the cat's food; a refreshing change actually as, in a bizarre supplement to his not inconsiderable diet, he had taken to eating the cats' excrement. Filthy animal. I mean, where's the dignity in that? He's part King Charles spaniel for God's sake, is this how far royalty has fallen? Perhaps we'd misjudged him; maybe he was just trying to help Natalie by collecting up some of the poo on her behalf? Either way, it was disgusting. You didn't mention that in the 'Circle of Life' did you, Sir Elton?

Toby felt harassed as well, as firstly Thérence would pull his tail and then the cats, momentarily taking their eyes off the television, would jump on his back and try to ride him. He's a sweet-natured dog (thick, but sweet-natured), so rather than harm the cats or even warn them off, he would just look at me like he's saying, 'What happened to us, man? We used to be in charge round here!'

I knew exactly what he meant. The place was feeling like bedlam. And the noise! Everybody, it seemed, was now playing with marbles. Samuel and Maurice had been playing in the field until Junior, unable to cope with seeing others enjoying themselves, ate one of their marbles. They were now playing inside. On a tile floor! And the noise went through me, it was like iron gauntlets scraping down a blackboard. Thérence would then pick up the marbles and throw them at the windows or the television and the cats were constantly chasing the marbles around the house. It was total anarchy and no matter how much shouting, threatening, swearing or begging I did, it just wouldn't stop. At times like this you have to take solace in the little things but it was so manic and noisy that I couldn't think of any.

In the face of all this pandemonium I responded with a proper, masculine, hunter-gatherer pastime: I built fires. If I'm honest, the first winter we were here Natalie had to show me how to build and light a fire, which is as pathetic as it sounds, but since then I've become something of an expert. I find it, disturbing as this may sound, both enjoyable and fulfilling. And make no mistake – the job doesn't end once the thing's lit. There's all manner of prodding, adding to, flume adjustment and control freakery to be employed. As someone who has to bring his 'just can't leave it alone-ness' to everything he does, it's manna from heaven to me. The winter evenings literally flew by.

The one problem, though, with a real log fire is temperature control; they don't control themselves, they're either on or they're not, meaning that if it's the first (and possibly only) job you do all day, and you start in the morning, by dinner time it is so ridiculously warm that despite plunging, sub-zero temperatures outside, it is too hot to do anything other than just lie about indoors in your pants.

There are two open fireplaces indoors; one more than is necessary, so we only use one, which is just as well because in spring we had owls nesting in the unused chimney. A Springwatch, Bill Oddie-type privilege you might think? Well, sort of. They are majestic beasts to be sure. There were four of them, all adolescent but big nonetheless, and they would perch on the chimney itself as darkness fell, the light hitting their wings as they flew off in search of prey; and in that respect it really did feel like a privilege to have them nest so close. But seriously, the noise! Whoever it was who first suggested that owls go tu-whit tu-whoo was either a soppy git, a drunk or deaf and possibly all three. They do not go tu-whit tu-whoo at all, at least barn owls around here don't. Far from being the kind of noise which makes you pause, go misty eyed and say to your children, 'Did you hear that children? That was a wise old owl', this is the kind of noise that makes grown men crumble, piercing your soul as you rush screaming from the scene shouting, 'The Devil cometh! Repent!' It is not tu-whit tu-whoo. The book we have describes it as a shrill khrihh, which is best summed up as either two cats fighting a violin in a metal box or Joe Pasquale being beaten to death with a set of bagpipes. A truly, truly horrible noise. Oh, and they snore too.

The chimney-perching owls added a certain eccentricity to the place, which seemed fitting as the locals were still coming to terms with my out-of-the-ordinary dress sense. Every couple of years I treat myself to something special, partly for work and partly as a reminder to myself that I'm not 'Mr Countryside' just yet. But when even your wife looks at you and says, 'It's a bit Quentin Crisp, isn't it?' you realise that you've reached your peak and you can go no further. I've known Natalie for over twenty years and in that time she has seen me wear some pretty 'special' clothing – there were the Oki-Kutsu two-tone, open-sided crepe soled sandals, the triumphant shocking pink Sta-Prest trousers, the brief flirtation with the beret while living in Stockwell. This new coat, however, knocked them all into a rakishly tilted, cocked hat. It was magnificent. An oxblood/maroon, faux-mink pea coat with epaulettes and belt that shimmered under the light. It was very fine – very 'flamboyant' – and about as un-rural France as it's possible to be. In fact, I'm not entirely sure where it would fit in, but I loved it.

Even though I hate being recognised in the street as a comedian (it doesn't happen very often but I find it intimidating), I am vain enough to like people staring at me for what I'm wearing. It's called 'peacocking', and I'm good at it. A bleak midwinter's day in the Loire Valley, however, is neither the time nor place for such a display; it doesn't evoke hostility – as far as I can tell the only hostility here is directed at vegetarians – it just evokes total bewilderment.

I was going to be away for ten days and as usual dragging my feet, making me late for my train which meant I had to buy my ticket on board. This is perfectly fine, so long as you approach the guard first, otherwise you get fined.

'Un aller-simple à Paris, s'il-vous plaît?' I said to the guard, who was looking me up and down with some astonishment.

'Paris,' he nodded, unable to take his eyes off my coat, 'naturellement', in one word summing up exactly what he thought not only of my coat but of Parisians in general. I then produced my Familles Nombreuses railcard which threw him completely; it gives me 30 per cent discount on French trains because I've got three children. The whole coat-railcard-children combination was just too much for him and after that he refused to look me in the eye and kept tutting and mumbling to himself, presumably in response to some internal dialogue about lax modern adoption laws. He walked off to another carriage shaking his head. It is a little-known fact that part of the reason for moving to such a remote, rustic backwater was to begin work as a Mod Missionary and it is a constant battle.

Though secretly quite pleased with the effect my coat had, I don't want to be seen to be belligerent about it. Being eccentric is one thing, but it's best not to go too far. Don't overplay your hand. It was going to be a long winter so I thought I should wear it sparingly when in France; especially if the hunters were out.