Happy holidays or harsh realities? The truth about living in rural France

A village only 10 minutes away from ours appeared in a Guardian column of readers' tips about fabulous places to visit in France. 

How strange to be living in someone else's 'fabulous place'. Especially as to me it's just another village, no prettier or better than any other in the area. 

I was quite astonished when I read the list. It made me realise that the difference between life in Haute-Vienne as seen from the UK, and life here as you actually live it, is quite large.

If you're only here for the holidays, you just love wherever you spend those precious days. 

You don't see the mess caused by mairies being forced to cut back rubbish collections, you don't have to live with the street lights going off at 20:00 or the swimming pool being closed for most of the year. 

You adore the night markets, the bakeries, the fresh fruit, the lunches eaten in the shade of a plane tree, the apéros in the local bar, the fireworks on July 14, the glorious unspoilt countryside.

Second-homers in our village love the local plan d'eau with its fake sand beach, the zip-line, the ice creams, the mini-golf, the climbing frames, the campsite, the special soirées, the lifeguards and the snacks. 

I don't blame them. As a free resource it really is spectacular. I don't think councils in the UK provide that sort of thing in every tiny village.

But holidaymakers never visit the plan d'eau during the other 10 months of the year; it’s a mud patch only frequented by dog walkers. 

They don't know that the guinguettes close at the end of August. 

Life continues in the winter, of course. There are restaurants and bars, fêtes and celebrations. The schools function, the school buses run, people go to work. It's a life, and a good one if you like tranquillity.

But it's nothing like with those mad summer months. Anyone moving here expecting to be on holiday all year long is in for a big disappointment. 

It rains. Sometimes it rains for months on end. There are dull, cloudy days. There are roadworks and strikes, delays and endless forms to fill in whatever your status or nationality. 

Sometimes the local Intermarché runs out of pasta or butter or eggs. Sometimes the mairie closes for no apparent reason.

To enjoy life all year round in the depths of the French countryside, you need an extremely strong sense of humour, especially when it comes to the vagaries of the mairie's new community grocery store. 

You need curiosity, you need patience, and you need to have the kind of laid-back attitude that shrugs when informed that a repair can't be done in less than six weeks.

And if you can stick it out 10 months of the year, yes, you will find yourself living in someone's idyllic dream – an endless round of swimming parties, night markets, and delicious restaurant meals – but just for two months a year.