"It seems impossible, don't it? One minute, I am wondering if it'll be the cold what gets me, or my husband first and the next, I am imagining a book to read by a great fire with a thick rug about my shoulders. And I'm talking to a lovely man with the most beautiful curls to his hair." She smiles, slightly in awe but most definitely delighted.

"What do you mean, needed, though? To learn things? You know what I want to learn? If I could, I'd learn English, so if they send me from here, I could run from Paris to England or America and start again."