A Year Living on Nothing: Updated at last!

We had a great dinner and afterwards got to talking about their underfloor electric heating on their ground floor and they were telling me about the lovely warm floor in their en-suite bathroom upstairs. .... I suppose a night in Parisian hotel improved her health and temper no end. The kids are amazed, appalled, smitten and terrified in about equal measures. What is this amazing creature? She loves her gite, has practically bought up our local Intermarche already (€327? ...