A life-affirming memoir revelling in the comic, fond and enduring entanglement of people, animals and places

On her fortieth birthday Jacqueline Yallop built a pig sty in rural south-west France. She and her husband Ed had decided to turn their Aveyron cottage and garden into a small holding. They bought two pigs - Big and Little - to rear and slaughter. The locals were full of advice, and with just a small amount of plastic poles and metallic string and some new Wellington boots, they were off.

They will cultivate the land. They will raise, then kill and eat their pigs. Or so they keep telling themselves. Because the reality is so very different from the romantic dreams of two stubborn English writers …