Running this site is broadening the circle of my acquaintances. I've found another Friend of the Flea with a gîte in Normandy, and my efforts to help a Freebooters visitor turned up a comprehensive site about the Vendée created by a British travel journalist.

By giving the name 'Friends of the Flea' to the collection of people who have become regular correspondents and fellow bar-proppers over the years, George East has turned them into a kind of club. I am one of the few members who has not yet confronted his rugged but friendly Romano-British face in the flesh, and by the time I do so later this year he won't even live at the Moulin de la Puce any more. 

The man has broken all his painfully-crafted rules and mortgaged himself, Donella and the chickens to pay for a new abode which he hopes will bring in revenue streams beyond their wildest dreams. Yes, George and Donella will be letting rooms, but that's not the gîte I want to tell you about. They're not ready yet. 

George has other ideas coalescing from the mists inside his head, which will require more planning and effort than collecting a few beds and chairs in the local auctions, and putting folksy nameplates and copies of the House Rules on the doors of the spare bedrooms. How realistic they are will depend on which Friends of the Flea have had a hand in embroidering them. 

I don't know what wild schemes René, the Fox of Cotentin, has been feeding him - I have aligned myself with the saner bodies, who are encouraging his desire to set up residential schools for budding writers and photographers. There's a lake on the new property which already has wildfowl on it, and Donella has her own plans to add a few more. I've volunteered to give sculling and candid photography lessons as soon as I can afford an underwater camera.

What better way to entice the muse than to emulate the Water Rat, messing about in a boat (with a bottle of wine, a baguette, a pot of rillettes and a soft cheese - just for local colour). But you'll pay for it when George opens the group destructive criticism session in a locked, windowless room after the sun has gone down. No supper until each of you has accepted the scathing feedback from his peers and produced an action plan, double-spaced and in duplicate, for the next day.

Enough of the man who brought us together. Let me talk of a club member, Robert Totman. Rose Cottage is an 18th-centry cottage in the Perche Regional Nature Park in southern Normandy (it's nearly in the Loire). Available from mid-June to the end of October a week at a time, starting at 16:00 on Saturday, for prices which vary from 155 pounds to 250 pounds. It will be closed for the winter by the time I get there, but I'll ask Robert to let me take a look around and tell you what I find.

Many of the Friends of the Flea either own or used to own property in Normandy, and others make frequent trips there from homes in the UK. I had to cast the net wider when a Freebooters fan asked for help in finding his way around the Vendée, and I'm grateful to him for motivating me.

Although I mentioned the resort of les Sables d'Olonne in the article about the French freebooter François Naud, all I know about the Vendée is that one of my kids spent a happy summer 'en colonie' there, and I have driven along the coast a couple of times on my way to & from Bordeaux and Spain.

Now I have the ultimate source of information, Angela Bird's www.the-vendee.co.uk web site. Angela has had a second home in the Vendée for 30 years, and she's written a guide to the area. You may also have seen her byline in Country Living or Illustrated London News.