A collection of extracts from the books of the popular travel writer on France Susie Kelly. In 'Travels With Tinkerbelle, 6,000 Miles Around France In A Mechanical Wreck' the author and her husband devised a simple plan - to take a tent and the dog and drive around the perimeter of France. Like many simple plans it went wrong before it started... In Best Foot Forward, A 500 Mile Walk Through Hidden France, Susie walks solo from La Rochelle to Lake Geneva with a tent on her back whilst her Texan friend Jennifer struggles by on her first ever trip to France, looking after Susie's smallholding...

A hilarious tale of restoring and running two holiday cottages in a remote hamlet of SW France. As the world's worst housekeeper, running holiday homes wasn't, with hindsight, a sensible idea. But two collapsing buildings on Susie Kelly's land would cost more to demolish than to restore. Thus she became a seasonal landlady.

Before the guests came the builders. No's 1, 2, 3 all started promisingly, but by builder No. 4, and with her first guests just hours away, her patience was stretched to its limit. Her summer and winter visitors couldn't, as they say, be made up, though, to spare...