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I completely shared Jack's misgivings about this new domaine . We'd eventually got
to the truth of the matter about our original choice. It was deemed unsuitable when it tran-
spired that the main house had eight bedrooms and two further guest gîtes (cottages). An-
ton, in ItsWill's absence, decided that it didn't quite match our original specification of four
bedrooms in total.
Just how all these extra bedrooms had been missed off the first set of property details
was utterly baffling and re-energised my worries about the accuracy of this latest sheaf of
notes. Ironically, however, there seemed great confidence that, give or take a hectare or
two, the estate was indeed the size of a small county. It was also situated near Manosque.
This last bit I thought I could get enthused by. We'd never been there but, based on the
towns we had passed through so far, I felt sure it would be charming.
Our journey to the 'mystery domaine ' began as a sombre affair. Silences were punctu-
ated by Jack who, after driving for ten minutes, announced that he could feel the onset of
food poisoning. He hadn't noticed, until it was too late, that the restaurant where we just
eaten lunch, was vegetarian. Jack is unashamedly carnivorous and was disgusted by the ex-
perience.
My enquiries as to how these 'feelings' manifested themselves were met by a wither-
ing look.
“It's all down to being force-fed bloody great platefuls of vegetables,” he said with a
vigorous rubbing of his stomach. “As you know I hate vegetarian food and I'm in agony
now!”
“It's probably only a touch of wind darling. One good blast and you'll be right as rain,”
I suggested, thrusting a Rennie into his mouth to quash the inevitable retort.
Thereafter things settled into a mood of general despondency. I attempted to read the
new blurb but was constantly distracted by Jack's staccato commentary. 'Bloody ridiculous
design', 'falling to sodding pieces' and 'total waste of my time' were amongst the most
intelligible. But the killer, 'what is the point in continuing?' was the one that set my nerves
on edge.
I chose not to interrupt his mutterings, thinking that might have tempted fate. I hoped
he might simply have been referring to some machine part that he'd found to have a design
fault. My hopes were diminished, though, when I heard no mention of China. I felt certain
that he must be reflecting on our progress so far.
As we followed ItsWill and in an attempt to divert my husband from his malaise, I
dug out my indispensable Pocket Guide to Provence and quickly started boning-up on the
area. I recited one or two useful starter orientation points which included the ancient town
of Manosque being situated south of Forcalquier and north-east of Aix-en-Provence. I also
noted that it lies to the south-west of the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence department in south-
east France.
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