Bird's eye view from Aubenas.

Oeufs à la neige.

Roman landmark in the Ardèche valley.

Vals-les-Bains, Ardèche.

Psychedelic early 20th century tiled floor in Orsan near Bagnols-sur-Cèze.

Seventy years in debt.

This is roughly the deal that the owner of this house situated in Saint-Marcel-de-Careiret proposed me two weeks ago: "go and check with your bank, they lend money these days".
And considering I'm 38 this year, that would have put me in debt for decades, even after my death. At any rate 700 000 Euros was, in my opinion, 250 000 overpriced. Even at 450 000, I couldn't have afforded it. There are situations when you don't even discuss the price, you just leave.

House on the hill.

It all started like a David Vincent-style story: getting lost at dusk on a deserted road, hundreds of miles from home, looking for a house which I never found, ending up in a posh leafy borough and spotting an old sign on a gate, "for sale". I learned later that the sign wasn't that old as the owner said he had put it up only two days before. I gave him a ring the following evening saying he could put it down...