Vendettas, nuraghi and the marches: Snails and frogs in rural france

It is early May in France and as warm as January in Australia. Such an amazing Spring England and France have had. We might regret our plan going south to warmer climes: to Corsica, famous for its payback vendettas and on to Sardinia, dotted with nuraghi towers built to sight marauders. Our plan is to wander in places where it is not too hot.

Our first night in France, though, is in the north, on a Sunday, and as usual all the stores are closed and the French can be found lunching for most of the afternoon. Had we remembered it was Sunday we might have found where they'd gone and spent time there, but we're still waffly with air miles and have yet to make those smart connections, it seems.

Tonight we are doing what we love doing best of all in France. We are parked in the centre of a tiny rural village, far from the madding crowd, in an obscure little place called Croix Caluyau, on a snail farm.

Here, our host, Francis, breeds 300,000 snails a year that he sells to the restaurant market. From April to October they grow fat, buttery and appetising, on grass and formula, so that by July they are nearing maturity and are off to the markets.

If Francis makes just 3 or 4 cents a snail, he could potentially earn over $100,000 a year, not a bad living for 6 months work, from 2 hectares of farm land, that requires little attention and really only needs to be electrified and netted to keep marauding snakes and rats far from his money spinners.

His wife, Patricia, teaches German and sells produit du terroir from a beautifully renovated barn-store opposite their home surrounded by gardens filled with nettles for cooking, and daisies for delight.

They live in the heart of a village that is undergoing a change of face. Barns that were once derelict now line the street proudly sporting scars on the external brickwork of old barn shutters and windows that have been newly bricked up, freshly mortared. Such spacious village barns are fast becoming new des reses for those seeking a quieter life, away from the rat race.

We share their peaceful space with doves cooing in the dovecote, hens cackling as they settle in their coups, small birds diving in the house pond and grooming themselves for the night, while a full choir of energetic spring frogs have set up a very loud chorus from the bullrushes on the banks. And the snails in their netted gardens are slithering out to feed. Back in rural France is so unbelievably relaxing.

oooOOOooo