I missed the flight on Friday. Damn the M25:-o The next connection was at 06:00... The silver lining was the SInde commissioning a piece between my visits to Stanstead. The downside was my arrival at the chateau in a valium haze. I bolted down breakfast, disappeared into one of the 14 bedrooms, and slept till dinnertime. Horsehair mattresses! Fantastic! Around the fairylit outdoor dinner table were Swedes, Germans, an English ex-pat, and my hostess - Scottish-Lebanese from Sierra Leone. A number of the ensemble were, or had been, working in Afghanistan. The stories were hilarious. As were the tales of taming the crazed Dinka of Sudan, a trial most recently foist on my mate - a woman in whom they met their match... Halfway through the proceedings, she and her hubby disappeared. To an English neighbour's drinks party. They returned bewildered. "The women said there's a rule and I should have worn heels," she reported. "I told them I wear heels at work. When you're employing a thousand men, it helps to feel tall. At home, it's flatties only." Amused, we inquired how this information had gone down. The owner of the biggest pile for miles, shook her head in disbelief. "Not well. They'd clearly marked me down as a bushwoman with a rich husband."