OMG

If your life is dependent on your mobile being either hermitically sealed to one ear or tapped to destruction with endless texting, you’ll be pleased to hear that even in our sleepy corner of the Dordogne, you can carry on sans interruption.  Signal coverage is really good, which for the luddites amongst us means that the devil’s instrument is constantly contactable but, as they say, WTF – you can always turn it off.

Similarly, broadband is available almost everywhere, but you’ll have to stomach France Telecom’s line charges as it’s still effectively a monopoly. Providers are also fewer in number & more expensive than the in most other countries - €40 a month is about the norm. If you’re on one of the few exchanges not yet broadband capable, there is the satellite option - and although there are up front installation costs, the monthly tariff is about half of that via a landline.

And getting set up is easy too –  if you’re dealing with the ‘Orange’ part of France Telecom, they’ll whizz out with a livebox in a few days, set it up and charge around €50 for the privilege. So far, so uncommonly efficient. But hope and pray that you don’t have to deal with FT themselves.  They’ve automated everything – so speaking to a real live operator is either impossible or involves a eternity of plinky plonk ‘please wait’ music (at €0,50 a minute). And in the event you get hold of someone before you die of old age, any arranged rendez-vous for a technician will be ‘between 8am and 4.30pm’ on the given day. Handy.  Finally, when your man does turn up, don’t expect  someone who actually works for FT – oh no. Like EDF, everything has been outsourced and it’s pure luck if you get someone whose been fully briefed, is helpful and can actually fix the problem.

So bring the Blackberry, ipad and other electronic gizmos by all means, but remember to take time to escape from the digital world. And tell the kids to look of the car and turn off Angry Birds.