I hate to sound like a Daily Mail writer (I notice that, after a brief spell of scepticism, the paper has now reverted to believing any old nonsense. This week they claimed to have discovered proof that we have guardian angels. Where do they find so many credulous executives?).

Sorry, as I was saying, I hate to sound like a Daily Mail writer, but during our trip to France this month we visited one of those many medieval hilltop villages in the south-west. The temperature was into the 40s, and the children required ice cream.

We found a tiny little cafe somehow built into the cliff. It was run by someone I can only call a male crone - a wrinkled, bony, hermit-like figure whose startlingly decrepit appearance was offset by a welcoming smile. He beckoned us into the back of the cafe and opened a chest freezer, packed with Walls ice cream (in some respects, the French really have lost the plot.) After choices had been made, my daughter asked if she could use the loo, and he waved a skeletal finger towards a tattered curtain strung in front of a cracked toilet.

Afterwards she said she would like to wash her hands, and, still grinning, he pointed her to the sink, which was full of the dirty cutlery, pans, ladles and dishes from lunch. So she washed her hands over the crockery, and he gave her the drying-up cloth to dry them.

He must have been breaking roughly 87% of all EU hygiene regulations. If news of this establishment were to reach Brussels, it would fuse the operation, like the Sobig.F computer virus. In Britain zealous inspectors would have closed him down years ago and children would have to go to Tesco for their ice cream like good, hygienic persons. In France he will probably survive for years. I find it hard to care as much about that as perhaps I should.

· At more mainstream establishments, the kind where they wash their hands in the sink behind closed doors, the strength of the euro makes eating out more expensive than we're used to. Friends who were staying near us decided to treat themselves, their children and two guests, to dinner at a Michelin one-star restaurant.

With set menus beginning at around £45, and the cheapest bottle of wine a shade under £50, the bill came to £100 a head. So next time they did what all sensible people do in France, which is to track down the nearest Michelin red R symbol (actually now replaced by the beaming head of the Michelin man, or bib gourmand.) This indicates repas soignés à prix modérés (I suppose soigné here means just "good" rather than intolerably sophisticated). They ate a meal just as good as the £100-a-head place for less than a third of the price. We found another where we ate outdoors, looking across a valley towards two ancient chateaux. We had five delicious courses each, all the good wine we wanted, and paid less than £25 a head. I don't know why anyone should go anywhere else.

· Thanks to the heat, French health ministers were dropping like windfall apples. Luckily for us the Dordogne river was both low and warm, so we could cool down by a sort of river-surfing process. We'd get in at some point, wearing swimmers and (some of us) shoes, then proceed downstream by a mixture of swimming, floating and walking. It was exhilarating. At the far end one of our party would be waiting with a supply of towels, cold drinks and a car.

Though to be frank, the Dordogne is nowadays like a liquid M25. We'd be passed by hundreds of canoeists, kayakers, and people in jokey floats. Every scrap of riverside grass or sand was packed with swimmers and picnickers, each scene looking like a Cartier-Bresson photo. These days it's a myth that the Dordogne is packed with Brits - there are plenty but hugely outnumbered by French holidaymakers. In summer, Sarlat, the main town, is a permanent traffic jam. The notion that the countryside - as opposed to la mer or les montagnes - is a worthwhile vacation destination is something that the French copied from us, rather in the way that the Swiss learned recreational skiing from the British.

By contrast, the nearby valley of the Lot seemed empty, with only a handful of boaters. I suspect it will be the next big destination, and I suggest you get in now before it resembles Bournemouth on a hot bank holiday.

· We spent one night in a B&B in St Antonin, run by a British couple, who offered lovely rooms and a delicious supper for a very low price. The visit wasn't spoiled - enhanced, really - by an incredibly gabby Scottish woman who turned every conversation to herself. If the topic of swimming was raised, she'd bring it back to her daughter, "Of course, Aileen took silver at the Strathclyde championships." One nice middle-class couple mentioned that they'd had a holiday in Peru, but before I could ask them about it, the Scottish woman had launched into an elaborate story about how her brother had wanted to go to Peru, but had decided again it.

It was tooth-furringly dull, but we now have two additions to our family lexicon: "Of course, Aileen took silver", and "My brother thought of going to Peru... " I'd be fascinated to hear if you have collected similar holiday phrases.

· The French, whose road traffic death rate is roughly twice ours, have hit on a smart new idea to keep speeds down. Wherever there has been a fatal accident they put up a lifesize black silhouette of a body by the roadside, like a grave marker. Sometimes, if the victim was young, they add his or her age. The most poignant I saw was two outline children, perhaps eight and six judging from their heights, standing hand in hand on the grassy verge. It worked for me, though I wonder if, after a few weeks, drivers will simply ignore them.

· Back in England I was chatting to a friend who's trying to sell her house. It's in an idyllic Sussex village, only five minutes drive from a station, with lots of fast trains to London. A few years ago when the couple bought it, location was what mattered, and they had to outbid five other couples to get the place, which is within a minute's walk of lovely old pubs and a duck-infested village pond.

Now, even though the market is still buoyant, they can't find a buyer. It is, she says, the Changing Rooms effect. People come and look and sniff and demand to know where the en suite bathrooms are, or the conservatory, or the loft conversion. "You could always do it yourselves," they say, but the potential buyers look at them as if they'd just doubled the price, or told them about the toxic waste dump under next door's garden.

Apparently, people are moving into estates in dreary suburbs or blasted town centres to have the en suite with hot tub and expanded fitted kitchen. Location, location, location seems to have been replaced by extension, extension, extension.