HOME sweet home. Or perhaps, after the last week in France, I should say, chez nous, douce, chez nous. It is great, that last mile down the lane as you turn into the farmyard after being away, checking to see if everything is still there, and hearing the reassuring woof of the dogs as they fail to recognise the car after only a week. And they say goldfish have got short memories.

In spite of all his deeply ingrained suspicions, John was impressed by the French way of life. Home-produced food is highly regarded. The roads are fantastic, especially the peage system. Land is worked well. All the stock we saw looked well-fed and cared for (although I did worry about all those geese, it was foie gras country after all). Very little litter. Clean shops, cafes and restaurants. Polite and friendly people. And to top it all, the area we were staying in, the Perigord, was a veritable temple to John's favourite tree, the walnut.

Our own walnut tree has produced several stone of nuts this year, but to see orchards of walnut trees; regimented rows of walnut trees; armies of walnut trees, was almost more joy than a walnut fanatic could take. We even visited a walnut museum. I went expecting to see some very old walnuts, but instead we were treated to more walnut recipes than you could dream of, and a wide variety of ways, and artefacts, to crack and crush a bounteous harvest of noix.

After exhausting the nut-sightseeing expeditions, John's thoughts turned to fishing. I spent the journey down through France with a selection of rod tubes rammed into the back of my neck, risking decapitation at every bend or sudden stop on the road. After a day's blank fishing, when no fish would respond to the ledgers, spoons, spinners or flies presented to them, John decided that he and his friend would resort to that most ancient of lures, a worm.

You'd think it would be easy to find a dozen or so worms wouldn't you? Not so. The Perigord soil harboured very few around our gite. So, when I spotted a likely-looking wriggler on the road, as I was off for our morning croissants, I picked up the luckless nematode, popped it into an empty sandwich bag, tied a knot in said bag, and left it on the floor of the car for John to take down to the Dordogne river that afternoon.

"How did you get on with that worm?" I asked when my friend and I returned from our visit to a nearby chateau (as one does). "What worm?" John answered. "There was a hole in the bag, and the worm must have escaped."

So I must add illegal immigrant colluder to my CV now. We have returned to England with an extra passenger. Somewhere in the depths of my car is a worm who is going to get a very big surprise when he wriggles out onto British soil, especially heavy wet clay like ours, and not the light sand of his home. He'll be a very seasick worm as well, as the wind was blowing a gale on our return and we had to keep going round in circles in the Channel until it was safe for our boat to dock.

At least he has avoided a fishy end, but unless Monsieur Worm takes very swift avoiding action and buries deep into our soil, he will most likely end up stuffing the neck of a British goose; a gallic/garlic contribution to our Christmas lunch.

Updated: 12:00 Wednesday, November 12, 2003