Taking a leafy look at Fa as boy snaps with new toy

I have to say it's not often that I get a really posh new toy to play with. Fa is hardly the doyen of manic consumer society. To be honest, if you want to survive long-term in deepest rural France, the best advice is: Don't spend any money you haven't got . . . and don't spend any you have got either . . .

However the moment has arrived when I, a mere ten years behind everyone else, finally own a digital camera. In pic terms, this hallowed chron has only dragged itself to a computer screen near you thanks to a generous loan by Martin Castellan of Sud Media Images. But really the old lead slug had to be bitten. I had to get one of my own.

Thus it was that, in a state of rabid excitement, I lay in wait for Monsieur le Facteur, alias the postie, in fervent hope that he would be in toy-bringing mode. Actually Le Facteur de Fa is a bit of a star. It's always been the same guy in the nearly nine years I've lived here. He knows exactly who everyone is and where they live. Such is unprogress and long may it continue.

Actually it's also a good idea to be in when he's delivering anything bigger than will fit in the letterbox. Because if you're not there, he will take it away again . . . If that happens, frankly it's a disaster. This other bit of unprogress is not fun. At all.

Your longed-for cadeau will get lost in the Couiza-Espéraza trou noir de la poste and may never be seen again. It gets taken back to Couiza, then sometime the next day, it gets taken back to Espéraza. Which is where it started out from before le facteur tried to deliver it in the first place. After it had previously been delivered from Couiza, also the first time round, whence it had been delivered from the outside world.

Confused? They are. One time the woman on the counter at Espéraza hunted high and low for a parcel of mine, which I eventually noticed sitting in full view on the shelf directly behind her . . .

They only have a post office in Espéraza so that they can shut it. The last time the worthy fonctionnaires de la Poste went on a national one-day strike, Espéraza stayed shut for two, just to be on the safe side.

However Monsieur le Facteur did indeed have my new camera, delivered in the magnificent January sunshine. By the time I'd eyed the package suspiciously, prodded it with a pointed stick, charged the batteries and driven 20 miles to Limoux and back for a memory card . . . il pleuvait comme une vache qui pisse, that is to say, it was persistenting down.

So I couldn't take any fab new pix for three days. But eventually Claire and I got out for a walk up on the hills around Fa. It was still hazy but did yield this agreeably dreamy tapestry of rooftops spied between the winter bronzéd leaves . . .