Once again, we visit the innocents abroad at home in the tiny Normandy community where time is cheap, good friends are priceless, and reluctant tractors are brought to life with a shot of home-brewed and highly illicit applejack brandy. Once again we meet local characters and members of the Jolly Boys Club like JayPay, the giant superchef and moustache-growing champion of all Normandy. Then there’s Old Pierrot, who claims to have magical powers and to have been on first name terms with William The Conqueror. Didier the dodgy dealer is still doing a roaring trade in blank Rubik’s cubes, and the doughty Madame Ghislaine is still battling to keep the village store, bar and school open and her husband sober. And, then of course, there is always René Ribet, the notorious Fox of Cotentin….
It is Christmas Day, and I have been to see my darling Lucky.
He left us almost exactly a year ago, and it is the first time I have been able to bring myself to go and sit where my old friend sleeps beneath a tree on Hunter’s Walk. It was his favourite cool spot to rest after a long summer’s day chasing imaginary rabbits in the water meadow, and is a peaceful place for him to lie forever.
Although my wife loved him as much as I, she always said that he was my dog, and would thoughtfully make an excuse when I suggested we all take a walk together. Usually, Lucky and I would go to the woods behind St Sauveur, where the council had spent a Euro-grant to build a jogging circuit so that local people could keep fit. Predictably, the idea of dressing up in a track suit and swinging from parallel bars to improve their muscle-tone held little appeal for the citizens of St Sauveur, so we always had the place completely to ourselves. In the last months we shared our daily walk, I noticed that Lucky was slowing down, and one day, he just sat in the car and looked at me when I called him. When he stopped eating, we took him to the vet already knowing what she would say, and leaving him there was the hardest decision we have ever had to make. As we held him in our arms, he looked at me and I knew that he understood. While I waited in the car afterwards, Donella cut some of the lovely golden feathered hair from his legs, and she says she will be happy to sell La Puce and everything we own to pay to have my dog cloned when science makes it possible.
I thought the pain would go away with time, but it has not. Sometimes, I wake in the night and think I feel his comforting weight at the foot of the bed, but he is not there. Of all the dogs we have loved across the years, he was somehow special, and I shall never forget him.
Good boy, Lucky. Sleep tight.
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Customer Reviews:A Customer (Tuesday, 27 February 2007)
Rating: 
If you are going to France don't forget your French Letters!,
If you are thinking of buying property, or renovating property in France then the series of books George East has written are a must! His latest offering "French Letters" is expertly written, George and his wife Donella and a host of friends and wild life will put you in rural France. Extremely funny stories of French life which would never have seen the light of day had it not been for this intrepid writer. George has the ability in his writing of placing you in a small French community which are not keen on foreign settlers. This is the story of George and his wife adapting to the French rules which in many cases are make up as they go along, and being accepted by the locals which cost more than just a few drinks! An excellent read which I can highly recommend, roll on the next book Mr East..
Mrs L W Dickman (Thursday, 10 November 2005)
Rating:
French letters
Another hilarious book from George, as usual I laughed and chuckled the whole way through, George, Donella his wife, the animals and the chaps from the Jolly Boys Club,indeed every one involved with the story, by the time you get to the last page, you feel you have known them for ever. Can't wait for the next one.
Christine F Payne (Tuesday, 13 September 2005)
Rating:
A warm, and witty story, beautifully written.
I spent the nearly the entire time reading this book falling about laughing and wishing I had this man's gift for story telling, and as a result, bought everything George has written. George gives life and depth to the characters he encounters in Normandy, and involves you in their triumphs and tragedies so that they become as real to you as your friends. His dealings with the wily fox of the Cotentin, alias Rene, are very well written and funny, and occasionally, just occasionally, will bring a lump to your throat.
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French Letters
