This was supposed to be where Courtney Lawes ended his 20-year playing career.
We sit in the April sunshine on the balcony of the home he and his family have come to love, looking out across the stunning Correze landscape. Instead, because Lawes has never been one to follow the script, he is swapping it all for a return to England with Sale Sharks.
"One more time into the fire," he says - and with the same steely look that opponents have feared for two decades he follows it up with: "Let's go!"
Stepping away from the intensity was one thing, staying away from it was always going to be trickier for one of the most destructive forwards in world rugby.
"There's finite time to play rugby, and I kind of want to finish where I started, playing in the top flight," Lawes adds.
Two years at Brive in the French second decision have challenged him and demanded he evolve in ways he never expected.
Packing up your wife and four kids after 17 years at Northampton Saints and moving them to a new country takes a certain sort of player. It's taught him to dial down just very slightly and go with the flow, which he jokes could be of use when he moves to Sale and lives with his in-laws later this year.
Above all it has given his body and, perhaps more importantly, his mind a break from the relentlessness and intensity of rugby in England.
Lawes reflects: "I'm not sure if I would still be playing rugby next season if I had been playing in the Premiership last year, because it's such a tough environment.
"Even the mental side of it, being able to come here do something very different. I don't have to get super fired up for everything.
"I can go into next season, most likely my last season of rugby and just give it everything I've got and see where I can take it."
That may well be a return to the world stage with England, and without even so much of a nudge he offers up: "I'm officially coming out of international retirement!"
Lawes won the last of his 105 caps for his country at the 2023 Rugby World Cup. Under the RFU's eligibility rules, even if the forward had had a change of heart, he wouldn't have been able to be picked by England head coach Steve Borthwick while playing overseas - but his move to Sale opens the door for a return.
After a dismal Six Nations campaign - the worst by England on record - it could prove a timely boost ahead of next year's World Cup in Australia.
Lawes adds: "It doesn't mean that I'll be playing for England again. That remains to be seen.
"It's always a process for me. If I can get back and perform for Sale, I'll give myself an opportunity to potentially play for England.
"I've got no expectation to play. If Steve thinks I can add to the squad, then I'd be more than happy to try and do that."
Lawes, who has been vocal about the talent "being wasted", returns a different player from the one who lifted the Premiership title as Northampton Saints captain - and his two years in France have only sharpened his perspective.
"I just don't understand why you would restrict your options. You look at the players we've got here, both the Willis brothers will be out here next season, Zach Mercer and Joe Marchant were here.
"No other country does that. I don't really understand it. It is detrimental at this point and it should be revisited."
That view was only reinforced as the 2026 Six Nations soured for England.
"It's been tough," Lawes says. "I've been in the changing room when it's been like that and things are just not going your way.
"It's such a young team and there's so few players with real experience in the team now, so I can understand it being so difficult to bring these young lads through.
"The Scotland game was kind of the catalyst of the Six Nations for that team. You can tell them everything you need to say and you can try and make them envisage what it's going to be like but there's no substitute for experience.
"That's a little bit of what we're seeing at the minute but there's only one way to get experience and England have to continue to be positive because we have a load of incredible players and it's just about finding out what's going to be the best team going forward."
When it comes to experience there are few who have more than the former England captain: Lawes is one of only five men to win more than 100 caps for England, but experience alone isn't enough. He says he has to perform the only way he knows how, with uncompromising intensity.
"I can bring things in terms of leadership but I think most importantly you have to perform," Lawes says. "It doesn't matter if I've got a place in the team unless I can go out there and I can perform on the pitch.
"That's how I led anyway and that's the best way to lead. I wouldn't want to be in the team just because I'm a leader. If I can't perform on that stage anymore, then I don't deserve to be there. That's first and foremost for me."
The final months of the season at Brive see him chasing promotion and soaking up everything this rugby-obsessed corner of France has to offer.
Life here has given him space to breathe and time to take up new hobbies - drawing, self-taught and finding his own style, and padel, which he plays like rugby, full bloodied and uncompromising.
He approaches the slower rhythm of the region in his own way but with all the focus and commitment you expect from such an iconic rugby player.
Nothing is left to chance, he is aware of every detail, which is why when I ask him one more question about the World Cup he already knows that no Englishman has ever been to five.
"I knew that. I was speaking about it today to one of the boys about how cool it would be or whatever," he says.
"To be able to make history would be phenomenal, without a shadow of a doubt. But, as I said, that's the result of a good process."
You wouldn't bet against it though, given everything this boy from Northampton has achieved. And if he does achieve it, expect it to be on his terms.
