The journey home: I pause for a break at a midway point on the six-hour drive, somewhere in the middle of nowhere. Actually I'm lying, I can pinpoint exactly the location - a few kilometres north-west of La Chaussée on a straight road heading out of Bourges. Between each passing car there would be a couple of minutes of absolute silence as I cast my eyes across flat fields stretching to the horizons. Sometimes such vast expanses of nothing can be enchanting.