The House 2. Arriving. Being here.

We drove out of Cherbourg in sunshine. A long drive. Caen, Le Mans, Tours, Chateauroux. Great motorways, slow N roads. Long, long, long driving. 450 miles. 720 kilometres. But the roads in France are so quiet and easy compared to England that it didn't feel hard. Good views of the countryside from the motorways and not much traffic, even on a Monday, even in towns. We drove two hours on and two hours off. Cleo slept and slept and slept. No eating, drinking, pissing or shitting. The cat that is, not Roger and me - we did plenty. We spoke to her every so often, and she lifted an ear and half-opened an eye, but otherwise she didn’t move at all for the whole journey.

The wide flat countryside of Northern France, low hills in the distance. At an Aire de Repos we pick our way through the dog crap on the grass and sit in the sunshine, drinking coffee. On the N road we snake through small towns and villages, then out again through hedgeless fields. Cabbages. Sweetcorn. Polytunnnel tomatoes.

The A20 motorway south. Fields of sunflowers and vines, then as we approached Limoges, the country is less flat, more wooded. Hills covered in mixed forests. Cooler air. We finally come off the motorway and phone the owner of the house to say we’re nearly there, but then we get lost, my fault. It’s almost dark now, and I’m tired, beyond tired, as we head out along a deserted road with no familiar signs, and I try to convince myself and R that it is the right road, it must be the right road. He isn’t convinced and so we turn back and now the signs make sense again. 21km, 14km, 10, and here’s the turn off from the main road up onto the plateau. We arrive at the village and pass two girls leading horses, a couple of dogs following, the only living creatures we’ve seen for miles. The long road twists and turns around the hillside, tree trunks and rocks flashing by on the left, the hill on the other side falling sharply away. We pass an old rickety barn on the right and then there are no trees, just space, dark across the valley to the even darker trees on the other side.

Then the turn into our lane and we arrived with the light almost gone, light streaming through the big front door and the owners coming out to greet us. We got out of the car and there was handshaking and talking, and we came into the house and they were telling us how this works, how that works, telephone numbers, setting up the internet, wine on the table, milk in the fridge, et cetera et cetera, until they finally went.

What was it like to arrive? Overwhelming. A clear night: half-moon, brilliant stars, the vague scribbled shapes of trees around the house and down into the river valley. We opened the windows and leaned out, speechless. We drank the champagne we'd brought for this moment, breathed in the French air, and looked at the French trees and the French bats and the French moon. I texted a few people and they texted me back. We fell into bed and when we woke next morning we were still actually here.

There's just one big living room on the middle floor, a big open barn space which is at the same level as the road on one side but on the other the French doors open directly onto the hillside. There are staircases up and staircases down, a huge wooden table with room for ten chairs. Two sitting spaces with the woodstove between them. High dark beams, the chestnut wooden floors with patterned rugs. The wicker settee and glass top tables. A Chinese cupboard with brass rod fastening, brass lamps, a coffee table as rough-cut as a butcher’s block – the stuffed red settee, yellow curved-leg chairs. Pictures of seascapes, horses, the Dordogne, Egyptian ruins, of boats and lemons, of grapes and old houses. The whole place a brocante-mix of French country and Far Eastern style that kind-of works.

Upstairs are bedrooms, bathrooms and office an space. Downstairs more bedrooms, bathrooms and the door out to the veranda which overlooks the garden. The garden slopes and is less a garden then a mole sanctuary: lots of mole hills, new ones every day [once we saw a tiny, snuffly, whiskery nose peeping out.] We're not overlooked, which is a big thing for people who are used to living in a city. When we look out at the back of the house, we see nothing but sky, moon, cloud, trees, just occasionally the lights of a car on the road on the other side of the valley. From the side window we can see the lane and the other houses of the lower village.

So here I am. I'm in one of the upstairs bedrooms which I've turned into a study. It's a small green room with green painted walls, green rug and pale grey branches filling the window. Through the trees are the black roofs and stone houses of the village down the lane and there's a culverted stream which runs under the road and falls down into a small gulley close by. In September there were red squirrels clicking and chattering in the big walnut trees next to the house. Now they've gone and there's nothing but the sound of the water,of a chainsaw droning in the woods and my fingers tapping on the laptop keys.

It's hard to believe that a place like this is on the same planet as the city, as any big city like Manchester. I'm not sure whether I miss it or not. Jury's out.