wormholes!
Doubt it was termites, maybe sometimes by some other real insect but not termites, as Andy has explained. The holes I mean are definitely not made by insects, they are in regular patterns and the same patterns are repeated in different places on all the pieces of furniture. No insects are that clever :-)
,Thanks. Yes and no :-) It's a lovely spot in a great location, it was just what we wanted and it took ages to find it. But the main house layout doesn't suit us particularly well, and previous owners have done various renovations to varying standards and with varying tastes, some of the wiring is dodgy and the plumbing system is truly bizarre! Apart from sorting out some of the wiring and altering the heating a bit, it is the sort of thing where you can't really justify spending the money to do it all again, so we just live with it. The gite of course is perfectly renovated (well except that the kitchen's a bit naff), cos we did that ourselves :-)) But yeah, overall it is a nice place, we are lucky to live here.
Holly