‘OUR HOLIDAY gîte in rural France turned out to be a bit more rural than we’d bargained for. Tractors splattered our kitchen windows with mud and the neighbours’ dogs howled hysterically for hours at a time. But we didn’t mind because the 18th-century house was terribly romantic. The only sign of modern times was the boulangerie van that hooted outside every morning.

I’m ashamed to say that “Deux croissants, s’il vous plaît” was about as good as our pidgin-French got, but we hadn’t come here to practise our language skills. We’d come to spend some quality time together. Our only interaction with a local was on arrival, when the caretaker let us into the house. He was a pleasant man, and we smiled and nodded even though we only understood a fraction of what he was saying. Something about the washing machine, the front-door keys, the lovely open fire in the living room. “ Oui, oui, monsieur, merci beaucoup.”

On the Thursday evening, I suggested we light the fire. Sure, it was mid-June but it was romantic. We didn’t have a fire back in Manchester. Mark stuffed on some paper, twigs and a couple of large logs and it caught quite easily. We snuggled down on the sofa and, well, one thing led to another and before we knew it we were on the floor, making love in the firelight.

It would have been the perfect end to an evening had the fire not decided to smoke – copiously. What started off as a few puffs of cloud coming into the room turned into great plumes of thick smoke billowing through the house. We abandoned sex and hopped about, panicking about the whole place burning down. I ran around opening windows and Mark started dumping red-hot logs in the garden.

Suddenly, I screamed. Our caretaker was standing in the kitchen. “ Excusez-moi,” he said, politely, as we were completely starkers. We grabbed some of our clothes and covered up while the caretaker expertly put out the fire.

We apologised and he apologised and he explained, by pointing a lot, that he had come to put the bins out and had seen the smoke. After a lengthy game of charades, with me standing half-dressed in the kitchen, we established that we were stupid Anglais for trying to have a fire on a night with no wind, but I was relieved that we hadn’t done any lasting damage to the house. When he finally left, we opened another bottle of wine, found the funny side and retired to the smoke-fragranced bedroom to continue what we’d started. But then we heard the next-door neighbours’ dogs barking and our front-door bell ringing. We couldn’t believe we were being interrupted a second time, but Mark, worried the embers had caught again, grabbed a towel and ran to the door.

“ Vous avez froid?” The caretaker was back, worried that we’d tried to light the fire because we were cold. So he explained to Mark how to turn on the radiators. “Et voilà,” he said with a flourish, looking up at Mark, looking down at Mark’s towel and the tent-like protrusion in the middle of it. He didn’t return. We had done our bit to bust the entente cordiale. But, unfortunately, sex and fires were well off the agenda until we got back to our smokeless house in Manchester.’