The next person to make any reference to hot, sunny France will be summarily shot without trial.

A nice healthy walk in the woods in this part of the north-east can turn into a major frostbite risk, especially if you've for-gotten your hat and gloves as I had on Saturday.

I passed nine joggers in various stages of ex-haustion, ranging from the fit young thing with earphones and Nikes to the middle-aged bloke trying to get rid of his beer-belly, puffing like an old steam-engine.

That evening, in the warmth of a friend's flat, Miss France was on the telly.

It was a strange sight, but we all had great fun criticising the 100 or so contenders, from all parts of France as well as its overseas colonies such as Guadeloupe.

Every one of the girls seemed about six foot six and dress size four, and ALL of them wore exactly the same shade of greasy scarlet lipstick to set off their perfect white teeth.

First, there was the Miss en Maillots section, which translates to 'misses in swimsuits' where every-one paraded around in identical silver bathing suits which showed off their projecting hip-bones.

Then the girls took part in a never ending series of dances in various ball-gowns, where they were all draped picturesquely over an array of square-jawed blokes in evening wear.

They then waved their arms about to music that sounded as if it had been taped off the NatWest tele-phone helpline.

Miss Lyon won eventually, a blonde goddess-type in white silk and the obligatory tears of happiness.

All the others hugged and kissed her in an heroic effort to seem pleased for her.

The economy drive that's been officially in place since I arrived is NOT going well I haven't yet got a chequebook for my French bank account so had to pay my rent in cash.

It is very painful hand-ing over big wodges of notes, especially when they have the extra zero that comes with the 10 franc: £1 exchange rate.

I could almost see the dollar signs in the secretary's specs as he counted out the money.

The fact that the crunchy oven chips that were meant to cheer me up turned out to be no more than the picture on a family-sized box of lard which just added insult to injury.