I have been asked to present myself at a French police tribunal (the equivalent of a UK magistrate's court) on 5 Feb 2008 because my mad Irish neigbour was given two days' sick leave on account of the bruises and fingernail scratchmarks that I left on his throat a couple of months ago. How did thngs get into this state? Until I met him, I hadn't been in a fight since primary school days, nearly 60 years ago. I'm a peace-loving member of the '60s generation.

It's a long story

In the mid 1990s, we bought a derelict cottage, a barn and two-and-a-half hectares of land, planning to renovate the cottage and make it our retirement home. At that time, we were living in Botswana and making a couple of fairly short trips to France to begin the renovation and get the land orgainesed (it had been maize fields plus a little woodland).

We had a delightful neighbour, Tanya - French-American woman with a rescued racehorse called Reddikins. Red would stick his nose through tha car window to talk to us, and once removed the cover from Phyllis' ironing board (we were camping in the barn at the time, and Red was allowed to graze on our land.) You would never believe that his original owner had sent him to the knackers' yard as a dangerous and unmanageable animal. Probably bullied by a vicious groom.

In 2003, Tanya sold her house to a rather strange Irish family...

It's going to take me a while to write this tale, so I've decided to do it in instalments. I may not manage anything in the Christmas/New Year week, but my plan is to give you a new episode each week. After 5 February, I'll tell you what happened in court.

Continued...