31. update

Well it's been quite a while since our last post and a lot has happened. After much searching, numerous tradesmen and countless quotes, each of them more expensive than the last, we have at last found a skilled and honest artisan, Stéphane, who didn't see our project as a mean to inflate his bank account and work has finally started on the classrooms.

Stéphane, our man for the job

To have found our man for the job meant that we had to speed up clearing the space. Fox and I, but mainly Fox, had to lift all the floorboards in a very short period of time. We then removed all 70 odd oak beams, each weighting a ton, and stored them under the préau. We could barely stand after that.

the pile near completion

Cast iron radiators felt the wrath of Thor, Fox's favourite hammer, pipes went too, along with the sink (which we will recycle in our own bathroom) and the previous heating system. The classrooms were now stripped of everything but their walls. Oh yes, and I got to use noisy, manly powertools, especially the angle grinder which had the dramatic effect of spraying sparks all over the place!

sparks

Since then we have seen the rebuilding of the wall running through the building, followed by the laying of the concrete beams and concrete blocks onto which more concrete will be poured. The electrician has almost finished running his first round of cables (as we haven't got any ceilings as yet), and all eight windows have been fitted.

the old bones

the middle wall is being cleaned before being rebuilt

the new floor arrives

the new floor is being laid

We also have had more visitors this winter than throughout the summer. Despite our repeated warnings about the house being very cold and with only (at the time) two wood stoves for heating system (now we have three), no one was deterred. And in a sudden turn of event, papa came to see us and announced he wanted to settle in or very near our village after leaving his girlfriend. Within three days he had found another. We were of course delighted of his decision to come live closer to us, but also couldn't help making lists of jobs he could do. Naughty naughty I know.

Mooh's doing well, getting very big and boisterous, going stone deaf as soon as she is out on a walk and enjoying her status of Lady of the house. She still insists on climbing onto our laps to have a cuddle despite the fact that she is huge and can barely fit on them.

On the downside, Fox got a detached retina and had to have surgery in Poitiers. Two weeks of sheer agony followed the procedure. Then the silicone rail that bound his eye (which we were not aware he had) was rejected by his body and they had to operate once again. Hopefully this will be the end of it, although the doctors mentioned the possibility of a third operation. It's been quite dishearting.
And as for my job, it's not getting any better thanks to my boss. The expression "wolf in sheep clothing" has never been so true. She's all smiles and looks at you (well, the clients) the way Mother Theresa looked at lepers but becomes a cold selfish ruthless bitch that makes Hitler look like a choir boy when you least expect it. And should you stand up for yourself she reverts to her little girl act and starts crying (to which I last replied "whatever" before leaving the room).

We'll try to update the blog much more regularly from now on, promise (since I stopped caring about work, I found a lot of time to tweet, catch up with emails and endlessly stare into space so that shouldn't be a problem).

30. meteor shower

To pick up where Fox left off on the beautiful nights of our little village, a fortnight ago the Perseids meteor shower was once more scheduled to light up our skies. We went to the Galopin for a couple of drinks then headed home. I took the air bed from upstairs, along with a blanket, and set it up in the middle of the playground. With a glass of wine in hand we waited for the streetlights to go off. When they did at 11 p.m. sharp, we laid on the bed with Mooh between us and marveled at the spectacle. Some were quite small and disappearing fast, one or two were big and left a scar of light on the black sky that took some time to fade away. It was quite unique, and we were happy to be able to enjoy it the way we did, in our home lookng at our own bit of sky.

Now that the holidays are drawing to an end and that France is reluctantly going back to work, we are finally bracing ourselves for a second wave of quotes and, we hope, the imminent start of the renovation of the classrooms. The guy we are hoping to retain for the job came last week to have another look and to discuss some issues. Unmistakably French with his thick white moustache and red cheeks but with the adornment of an African chief, Mr G. was worried about the cost of digging a trench along the walls, inside the classrooms, for the foundations of small walls that would support the concrete beams of the new elevated floor. It would be quite an expense because there was no way a digger could be brought inside to do the job, and now that the men had gotten used of using effort-saving equipment and machinery they weren't too please to go back to the shovel or whatever it is they were using in the past to dig trenches.

But after much grunting, head scratching and measurement taking, it was decided that digging trenches was no longer necessary, the beams would be directly inserted in the outside walls of the school. Crisis averted. Well, until the quotes are in, of course.

As for the teachers' house it's slowly happening too. Suspended ceilings came crashing down, with the exception of the kitchen's and the bathroom's, and Fox and I are often looking at the regained height with delight. We went to buy sinks, toilets and shower trays the other day as papa is coming soon to give us a hand updating two of the bathrooms (he didn't plan to but got concerned, I suspect, when I told him I'll be "doing it all by myself", including fitting toilets where there are none at present).

Fox also did a tremendous job in the garden by smothering the knotweed, digging it up and covering it with tarpaulin and drenching anything growing through with poison.

As for Mooh she's still growing up fast. Now in her teenage years she has developped selective hearing and a taste for rotten pears (don't ask). Her baby teeth have fallen out and the big, white, adult ones are coming through. She ain't gonna be small and she'll have teeth to match.

29. starry starry night

Well, I have been here a month now and what can I say? I already feel I have been here for years and am getting to know the area. I haven't watched any tv or films since I arrived and have to say that I haven't missed them. Ask me if it will be the same in winter and my answer will probably be different. We spend more time outside so there is no need to coop ourselves inside as we did in London because we didn't have any outside space, except a balcony in full view of the street. I keep thinking that someone is going to tap me on my shoulder and say 'er, excuse me, I think you're living someone else's life and they want it back, awright?'. In between looking after little Mooh I'm doing the shopping and smashing up the house ready for work to commence, and because of that I feel like I have lost some weight already, woohoo! Even though the house is a right old mess I could still live here, with it in that state, for the end of my days.

I started a little project a few weeks back taking a picture of the sunflower field opposite in the same place at around midday-ish everyday and posting it on Facebook, just to see how long it would take the army of yellow heads to rise and fall. It's such a beautiful sight to look out of the kitchen door window and see these stoic flowers standing, waiting to face and greet the sun every morning. Their heads are getting heavier now and bowing, almost kneeling with the weight, almost like the sun has offloaded some of its weight on them.

We spent an afternoon going through papers at the Mairie with one of its employees to see if we could find any more history about the school. The second floor of the builiding still has wallpaper from the fifties, peeling off and dusty. In a room piled with papers we attempted to help sort out documents while at the same time digging for documented gems for ourselves. We did find some lists of pupils and sundry papers, one of which seemed to indicate that at one time the playground had been cobbled. Fab! We then dreamt of finding these cobbles and using them to bring back the asphalt drive to life. We eventually want a garden there. There are still two old tennis court net posts in the playground and so Seb in his enthusiasm to see if there was anything underneath pushed and pulled it out of the ground, butch or what, only discover rubble underneath. Oh well, it's only a small part on the far side so we may yet discover some yet.

Poor little Mooh was spayed yesterday and was a bit sheepish when we got her home. I think she sees the Vet as Dr Death now, so that maybe a problem. When he gave her second injection she was almost climbing over me to get out. But she got her own back that night when we put her in her pen to sleep. She howled for an hour, and not just howled, cried, yelped, mewed and generally tore at our heart strings as he lay in bed wondering if we should go down. Seb went down at one point and nonchalently went to look at something on the kitchen table just to make sure she hadn't attempted to self harm and we'd find a bloodbath in the morning the noise was that disturbing. It really is like having a two year old. She was fine and eventually stopped. The Vet had even given us a morphine pill which we had administered and seemed to have made no difference whatsoever. I think next time we'll ask for a hardcore horse tranquiliser. She's sensitive but a tough bird.

Mum and dad are coming out in early September and we are really looking forward to showing the place off to them. They may be a little aghast at some of the work needed doing but we'll get there. Sebs Papa and his girlfriend Michelle should be down too so they will finally meet, which will be interesting as neither speak each others language. But my Dad can be fluent in anything after a couple of beers!

Heard Mooh whining at 4.30am so took her for a wee (see we are dedicated parents really) and looked up and saw the clearest darkest sky speckled with a sheet of stars. Amazing! I count my lucky stars we live here.

28. new friendships

Mooh is sprawled across the threshold of the kitchen's French doors leading to the playground, stretching every now and then, snoring to her puppy's heart's content, Fox is cutting the small trees we chopped down into tinder for this coming winter and for the first time in weeks I can actually sit down and do something other than working or falling into a slumber. Life is good today. Bar the little fuckers flies that seems to come out of nowhere in their droves as soon as the sun is up.

I was at the Galopin few days before Fox's long awaited arrival, talking about our overgrown garden (Mooh isn't allowed at the back, we fear never to see her again the grass is so high) and the lovely Marina and Philippe casually mentioned they would come and make a start on it sometimes. I thought it was lovely and neighbourly but I have to admit I was a bit doubtful about it actually happening.

Then few days later, as I was driving back from work I saw, sticking out above the wall of the school, a man's head in the playground. I'm now used to finding people wandering on the school ground so wasn't alarmed, just slightly annoyed. But as I turned into the school's playground I found Marina armed with a rake and Philippe with a machine strapped to his body, cutting down the grass, as they said they would. It was baking hot, they had been working that day, but still, here they were true to their promise.

Marina then took me on a tour, showing the rescued Wisteria and rose bush I didn't know were there and we carried on for a little while. I was then invited for dinner. I was very touched, and felt a bit guilty for my initial scepticism. what a lovely thing to do. That night I ate a delicious home cooked dinner, listen to them playing the piano and bass guitar, talking til late, enjoying new friendship.
Then the day following Fox's arrival, as we were having a drink at the Galopin, Marina announced to me that they, the usual crowd I got to hang around with, had had a talked and thought we had enough to do in the house to get ready for the coming winter and therefore should not worry about the garden anymore. They would deal with it. So-and-so had a tractor and an attachment for the back that could take care of the overgrown field at the back, who had the number? And off they were organising the tasks.

Then Stéphane dropped by the next morning with his trailer to help take some of our rubbish to the tip. I went into the caravan to make him a cup of coffee to find him when I returned up the ladder, taking down the bell that threatened to fall down.

It's a quite strange for Fox and I, after years of living in London where people ignore one another and certainly don't want to get involved, to be
looked after in that fashion. There have a been dozen or more such selfless deeds to help us since I arrived, and even more wonderful evenings getting to know the folks of our lovely village.

But all those new friendships are no substitutes for the old ones. I miss my friends terribly and wish they could be here to enjoy a glass of wine and the wonderful night sky with us. Remember, the caravan is now ready for guests.

27. now we are three

After a 'few' drinks after work I got up at 4.30am in a 'slight' alcoholic sweat, with a liquid memory of Paul urging me to have 'just one more' and packed my last items. I didn't want a huge leaving drinks at work or with friends, I wasn't dying after all, and I hope to see them again soon. It was a Thursday, therefore a school night, so not the best time to get people together, which suited me in any event because all I wanted to do was get on that train to Sebastien anyway. I had the best luck as a friend of mine was working on the same Eurostar train and was able to get me upgraded, which meant free hot breakfast, my saviour! I arrived at Lille and had to change to the local station and drag my bags over the bridge to the other station. It was hot, humid and sweaty. You might as well have told me to drag six dead horses with me it felt so endless.

On the train to Poitiers I was dreaming of roast pork for some reason, maybe something to do with the farewell burrito I had at Exmouth Market with my friend Leeloo. It was a small parcel of sheer heaven and the memory of its deliciousness still haunts me now.

I arrived at Poitiers and searched for Seb and there he was. We had one giant hug and I felt at home. We had been too long away from each other and the last few days seemed endless and determined to keep us apart. It was a joy to get in the car and aim for the life we had both been planning for quite a while.

I have been here a week now and I never want to leave. The caravan was far too small for two and so we were determined to move into the house. I cleaned the very basic kitchen area, we moved a large oak table that had been left behind into it and with a microwave, et voila, a kitchen. It has been oppressively hot and without a fridge it has been nigh on impossible to live properly without a cold glass of wine or unwilted salad. But thanks to our new neighbours and publicans we have had the use of a coolbox which has been a boon. Annie and Alistair run the Galopin, the village bar and social hub of the village, and have been incredibly welcoming and looked after Seb while I was in London. It's a great place, where Ringo the Labrador greets you with wag tail and Annie and Alistair with a deliciously cold beer! French and Brits mingle happily. I love this. Language is no barrier, and I'm hoping mine will improve because of this, you only need to be friendly. Sebastien has the double edged sword of being the lucky one to speak both languages fluently, but because of this he has been a conduit between people and helped to explain lunguistic differences, my husband is very clever. In fact, the day I arrived he had reserved a table at Le Galopin and had pre-ordered our dinner, roast pork! That's how clever he is and why I married him, he can even read my pickled mind on a hot train through France.

So we are sleeping on an inflatable bed in a shabby house and I couldn't be happier. I have swapped a flat in London with a view of three tower blocks, with lazy taxi drivers hooting their arrival, boom boom music in open cars and stroppy girls rowing with each other at four in the morning for a view out of the kitchen door of a growing field of sunflowers that will blaze into life in the coming weeks, the tolling of the church bell announcing the hours, the chittering dive bombing swallows and a big blue sky. Why would I want to leave?

Seb and I knew that having a dog in London would have been impossible. Having seen an ad on French internet page I saw some labrador pointer crosses that were being given away. Having discussed breeds and their pros and cons, do we want a jack russell, a boxer or a labrador? A small one or a bigger one, a girl or a boy? There are lots of dogs in the area so we wanted one that would be sociable. We arranged to see the puppies that are left and it turns out that from a litter of 14, poor mum, there were two left. We arrived and saw two gorgeous bouncy little pups. The dad was a huge show labrador and the mother was a liver and white patched pointer and both were very friendly. How to choose? We agreed on the slighter darker and sleeker coated one and put her in the car. She seemed a little worried so I had her on my lap all the way home and we didn't a whine or a whimper out of her. So now we are three and the proud fathers of a little puppy called Mooh, and we are totally soppy about her. Real little house on the prairie stuff.

So last night we sat on the kitchen step, with a glass of wine as the sun went down watching little Mooh sleeping, who needs TV?

26. it's the final countdown.....

Yes, well as the song goes 'It's the final countdown....'. My final week at work. When I'm asked about when it is I'm leaving at work I fill the air with a jubilant air punching 'YESSSSS!!! Not long now!' and they look at me with sideways eyes with as if to say 'awright, calm it down'. A slight exaggeration, but not too far from the truth. I'm very happy to swap a sedentary job with groundhog days for a new life and new challenges, but most of all I can't wait to see my husband. Seb has been out in France for two months now and we have seen each other for one weekend during that time and it's been too long. In fact it has felt more like a mini-bereavement. Of course I will miss my friends, but I know that they will be coming to see us and they will understand why I had to go when they visit. It's simply a life I could never have in Britain. I feel we are more ahead of the game.

My friends put on a wonderful leaving party at Dominic's house at the weekend. It was just perfect. Perfect people, perfect weather, perfect food, just wonderful. Dominic and Paolo made wonderful food and John and Tom brought a box of champagne what more could you ask for. I think it has only just dawned on me that this move will affect my friends a lot more than I thought. There is a lot of love with my friends and that is something we all take for granted from time to time, but when something life changing happens it shakes you up a bit and makes you focus on the important stuff. I cherish that love and know that distance won't diminish it.

So, as I write this, it is four more sleeps until I can be with Seb, who I am sure will cling to me like a happy limpet, and something that makes me smile, even now, as I type. La belle vie, j'arrive!!!

25. a tour of the house

a tour of the house, June 2009

24. head cheese & mind's eye

Yesterday wasn't a good day. The usual lack of information and organisation brought yet another day of chaos and long faces among us in reception. I thought it couldn't get any worse and headed for the restaurant of the hotel for my dinner break. The chef always cooks something juicy and meaty, and his wife often bakes something mouth-watering for dessert. But to crown this shitty day the worst ever since my starting at the hotel, head cheese was waiting for me on the table. I could see something with that was wrong the moment I laid eyes on it. It looked like cat food way past its sell by date. I asked what it was and stopped listening after "pig's head". Fortunately his wife came through for me with clafoutis and chocolate mousse. But I was starving throughout my shift.

On the plus side I started to see the house in my mind's eye. I began to appreciate the space, to visualise it, to see light and colors. It stopped being this demanding, derelict monster and has revealed itself to me. And the same goes for the garden and the playground. I can spend a long time in the house, in the corridors or in the bedrooms, or on the steps that lead to the garden, looking and seeing. It's a lovely feeling. It's still big and overwhelming, don't get me wrong, but it's home, our future, and it looks beautiful.

23 . wildlife update

I think I should give you an update on the wildlife as it has become so centre stage on this blog.

Lazarus unfortunately was put down by the vet, the poor thing was in too sorry a state to be able to recover and survive. I hated being there, in the vet's examination room, and even more being there while he was injecting Lazarus with the lethal dose of pink fluid. I felt awful for the next couple of days after that, remembering how I had found this little hedgehog beautiful, with its plumped padded paws.

As for the swarm of bees that elected residence in the chimney, I spent about a week in complete denial and preferred to ignore the problem, secretly praying for that collapse syndrome or whatever afflicts the beehives the world over. But hell no, no such luck for me. After I found about a dozen, everyday, in the ground floor bedroom and bathroom, and being reduced to a nervous wreck with bees flying around every time I showered (I’ve never been stung you see) I could no longer dodge the issue. And Dave wouldn’t let me either, his last message when we were discussing a plan of attack I tried my best to avoid was “just do it”. I could sense the tone.

So I put my lovely pink Marigold gloves, put the fumigating bomb in the chimney, blocked the hole and ran out. I stood for a while outside and after a few minutes some escaped flying in all directions. Haven’t seen them since.

And we have new squatters. The classrooms, and occasionally the house, are being used by swallows as their own private M25 motorway. I love listening to them singing.

And to finish on the wildlife of our village, I have encountered a new threat to my nervous system: cats. There are two of them that are playing chicken every time I come back from work around one in the morning. It’s like they’re waiting for me, and when they see my car they tell one another: “Look mate, I’m gonna make him shit his pants” before throwing themselves in front of the car. I am now entering the village in first gear in heightened state of paranoia.

22. Lazarus and the thunderstorm

Any fears my friends had about me getting bored in the countryside were unfounded. It seems the wildlife and the locals have taken upon themselves to keep me entertained no matter what.

My day started rather well yesterday, I went quite nervously to a job interview, and was offered the job there and then. I came back to the school somewhat elated in the knowledge that Fox would now soon be able to join me. I got changed and then went to the outside urinals for a wee. There I noticed some big black loud flies, coming out from a hole where a water pipe stuck out. I was a bit worried (flies = magots =rotten flesh = dead animal) so I had a look. It was quite dark but sure enough, in a corner was a hedgehog. I poked it with a stick and got no reaction. Dead. I cursed Fox, who uncovered the hole and cleared it in the first place, leading to the unfortunate demise of this little animal. It must have fallen in the hole and was unable to get out. His fate had been sealed. And now I had to clean the mess before more flies and the stench of decomposed animal carcass set in.

But first I had a meeting with a woman from the tourist board to talk about possible grants for B&B's, the poor little creature wasn't going anywhere anyway. And in all honesty, I was in no hurry to deal with it.

Four hours later, I couldn't dodge the issue anymore. I armed myself with a shovel and two small brooms and headed for the hole. I thought I would pick up the hedgehog with the brooms, put the corpse on the shovel and then head for the back garden where I would toss it over the hedge in the adjacent field, far, far away from the house and the caravan. With wimpering sounds, I started. But the little animal, even dead, wouldn't make my gruesome task any easier. It was stuck. Its head was lodged in a small opening where it had tried to escape. Cursing Fox again, I realised I would have to touch the bloody thing, to grab it and dislodge it. I went to fetch some rags in the cellier and then braced myself for the wave of nausea that threatened to overcome me. I inhaled deeply, held my breath and went for it. I grabbed the hedgehog and the little fucker sprung to life. I screamed my usual girlish scream, jumped to my feet and backed right off.

It was no longer a question of playing "toss the dead hedgehog" but a rescue party. I took me 40 minutes to get it out. I had to break and bend the pipe (I was being very butch then and redeemed myself for my girlish screams) in order to get better access and dig underneath and then around it to obtain a better grip. The poor thing was in a sorry state, not too responsive. I fetched an unopened Round Up box that I knew contained a pipette, still holding it in my left hand, filled it with water and dropped some in his mouth. It struggled a bit, quite weakly. I got more rags and a carton box and settled it in there. I put some pâté in there too, with some water, covered the box and left poor Lazarus to recover.

Lazarus

You would think that this had been enough entertainment for a day, but mother nature thought otherwise and treated me with a show of her own. It started with constant lightning above the clouds, the sky looked like a nightclub (see videos below). The wind became stronger and things started to fly outside. I looked out to check on Lazarus and the cover of the cardboard box had been blown off. I took him inside with me and covered it again. The ground shaked each time the thunder rumbled and the lights in the caravan kept flickering. I felt like Dorothy, about to take to the sky, with a hedgehog in a sorry state instead of Toto. It started to pour down and the water crept all the way to the caravan's step. I didn't dare go to bed until the rain eased off, which was quite late.

Lazarus seems to have recover, I heard him move in his box during the night and this morning. I'll call a vet for advice and will release him tonight in the garden. Who said countryside living was boring?

21. it's a jungle out there!

Since experiencing the countryside of France I think we have seen more wildlife in one year than all the time I have spent in Britain. Bees in the chimney, bats in cellar (now rediscovered in the loft), beautiful sparrowhawks taking flight over fields, mummified cats under the floorboards, a cheeky little robin flitting around the forecourt and a house full of flies. Our friends have had spiny poisonous caterpillars following each other tail to tail, looking exotic and invitingly tactile. We may have moles in the garden and had giant hornets swooping through the windows. While Seb was driving back from his mothers, he was nearly attacked by such a deadly looking creature, and these things look evil, all yellow and black and stingy.

We have seen deer in the veils of morning mists, pretty red squirrels gathering breakfast and felt the hoary breath of a bison.....ok now I'm exaggerating, but you get the picture. But it's a wonderful thing to become reacquainted with nature again. The closest I get to it in London are the skinny foxes I see at three in morning around Stoke Newington when I come back from work, oh and the pigeons.

But living in France you also acquire animals, chickens, goats, pigs, dogs, cats, bees, fish ( I would love some Koi carp) and other farmyard stock. And we are both looking forward to having a puppy, something we would not be able to care for adequately in London because of space, time and commitment to caring for another living thing. So whether invited or uninvited we wholly appreciate this addition to our day and something to be continually discovered.

20. bees, bat and beetle

I was finally driving home after a long week travelling. I first went from London to my dad's, then to Cathy & Dave's from there before heading to my mum's for a couple of days, driving a total of 1500 km in one week. It felt strange to criss-cross France without my co-pilot, it wasn't as beautiful as it usually is when we travel together. That's the beauty of my husband, he makes everything wonderful. You can stop putting your fingers down your throat, I'm done. So there. A jealous lot you are.

Anyway, I was thinking about this when driving down a country track the sat nav has chosen to take (I swear, this thing must have a fetish for dirt tracks or a serious phobia of tarmac) I spotted a red squirrel hopping along. Having learned from my mistakes and now knowing that animals are sometimes suicidal and throw themselves in front of passing cars (see post 15), I slowed right down until it disappeared in the grass. Five minutes later, a doe came in view and she too quickly disappeared. For a brief moment I felt like Sleeping Beauty in Disney's cartoon (and tired as I was, I was worthy of the name, at least the first bit).

That is, until, the mother of all hornets was sucked in from God knows where and came crashing against me. It was flying furiously from left to right, and from my face to the windscreen. I pressed my head against the headrest as far back as it would allow, breaking hard, all the while shouting "fuck!!! fuck!!! fuck!!!" through my clenched jaws until I came to a stop. It finally went out the window. If my knickers had turned brown at that point I wouldn't have been surprised. Looking back it's a miracle they didn't!

beetlejuice

So after all that, the enormous beetle I saw this morning trying to get into the caravan, was nothing. I quickly named it Beetlejuice. I'm allowed to give names to mini-beasts, I live alone in a caravan for God sake. I scoop it up (with a piece of cardboard, I'm not that brave yet) and put it away from the house. But the really great surprise was when I reached the toilets. I was there doing my business when I saw, looking up, something dangling from underneath the stairs (the loos are under the staircase). It took me just a second to recognise it was a bat. It started to sway, which means it was waking up, so I switched off the light and quickly left, quietly. I went to fetch my camera in the caravan but by the time I came back it had gone, probably to the cellar. I was very happy of its return.

Less pleasing to have around are my new squatters. Last week, when Dave and I dropped the washing machine off my dad gave for the school, we were having our sandwiches underneath the préau, when we heard a loud buzzing. We came out into the playground to see a huge swarm hovering above the classrooms, slowly rising to the roof of the house. We follow it from the ground and saw it, pardon the pun, make a beeline for a chimney. Within minutes it was covered with bees. They all went in. Dave, the bravest of us two, having been in the countryside for a lot longer, went to check if they were coming out of the fireplaces but luckily they were closed. So now I'll have to call the Fire Brigade to get rid of them, which is a shame for bees are disappearing at an alarming rate and Fox, if he had been here and ready for them, would have given them a home and looked after them.

the squatters (click on the picture to enlarge)

19. headway and honey

Had a text from Seb yesterday. He had gone to the house and we had bees, yippee! But they're in the chimney, not so yippee. So I've wanted to keep bees for a while now and was wondering how I might get my hands on some and find they make an uninvited visit, such is nature. So now, ironically, we have to get rid of them. I was trying to find out on the internet what the process is in France, and I think the Pompiers (Fire Brigade) come round and sort it. Which is a bit of a shame as I would love to have started my bee husbandry with a swarm arriving right on the doorstep.

He also reported that the dreaded Japanese Knotweed seems to be looking rather sickly. Good! We're making headway with that damned plant. Thank god for agent orange. Hopefully it will be sufficiently weakened for us to continue our onslaught and erase it from the garden and start planting pretty things that don't strangle the life out of other shrubs. I'll put the flamethrower away for now.

18. sat nav love

So Sunday finally comes. The day Sebastien leaves for France. We got up early and kept ourselves busy and before you knew it 11am arrived and it was time to part. I think we were both being brave for each other and I was feeling a lot more teary than I thought. After he left I didn't quite know what to do and wasn't feeling particularly sociable so I popped on a film I knew would be a bit of a crier and bawled my eyes out, ha ha. But I felt much better after. I was keeping an eye on the eye waiting for the text to confirm that he had arrived at Papa's safe and sound.

One of the things that reassured me about Sebastien traveling on his own was that Stephan (Seb's best friend) and I had bought him an early birthday present, a Sat Nav. His birthday is in two weeks and he wanted something to help him get around France and to and from interviews. I have to say that I was a bit dismissive of them, thinking they were for lazy drivers, but after the guy in shop had demonstrated one to us I was a total convert. Seb tested it out going back and forth from work the week before leaving and was very impressed with it and so far in France it seems to have done a good job.

So I left my husband in the good care of a little plastic device gently guiding him around the highways and byways of la belle France. How modern.

17. au revoir les enfants

My last day at school came quite quickly and it was a sad affair indeed. I had prepared myself for the goodbyes but looking back I should have taken the afternoon off. Some children kept on asking, through the day, why I was leaving while a little girl in my class kept on coming to me and hugging me. I looked at their little faces, trying to take it all in as if storing memories for future use, not being really useful, feeling in the way and already somewhere else. I wish I could have taken one or two, the ones I know haven't got a good deal at home.

When it was time to leave I could feel my throat tighten and a huge wave of sadness washed over me. I ran away more than walked out, with for last memory little E. calling me, standing at the door in his suit smiling, his bag in one hand and waving with the other.

16. of wrecks, bombs and the Borg

So we're back in England again after a week staying with Cathy, Dave and the kids and visiting the house.

When we visited the house we could see that our friends had done a brilliant job on it. The whole ceiling was down on one side, the false ceiling on the other was down and half the floor was up making it look more like the wreck of the Mary Rose than anything, but that's the point. Before the work starts we have to go through this horrible period of making it look like a haunted house and then bring it back to life.

We made a trip to Weldom and picked up some bombs. Not real ones of course, but fumigation bombs. The place has been like the House of Flies, on the upper floors of the house there are squillions of them, either dead, dying or will be. Lord knows where they come from, after seeing the mummified cats we kinda don't want to know, just as long as they are all killed. I'm sure the house may have some other gruesome find along the way, as long as it's not human I don't really mind. So these 'bombs' are more like fizzy powder candles. I was rather hoping for a more dramatic scenario where you light the touch paper, run and close the door and 'bouf' the whole thing goes off and all you can see from the outside is evidence of a white cloud. It was more of a 'fizz fizz hiss' that just carried on until it was all finished in the can. But when we went back to check the next day it certainly did seem to have done the trick.

Apparently we are the talk of the village. We had a drink in a our local, there is only one. We were introduced to a couple at the bar who heard us speaking english and also the owners of the bar. It transpires that some people in the village thinks the school shouldn't have been sold by the commune and others happy that is now being rejuvenated. You can't please them all, hopefully we will live up to expectations.

The Japanese Knotweed was raising it's persistent head again after we attacked it last time. It was even pushing up the carpet we put over it to try and deprive it of sunshine. We spoke with our neighbour about it and he told us of a weedkiller that was MUCH stronger than the one we had used. Off we eagerly trot (well, we virtually ran) to the garden centre to buy some. It looked evil. More like Agent Orange, well it WAS orange, but when you added water it went milky, and I have always had a primal distrust of any liquid that changes quality in this way, even seeing that crystal clear topaz colour of pastis change to alcoholic milk. When we purchased the killer the lady in the shop was very insistent that it could kill trees and shouldn't be used near a well, river or other water and expect nothing to grow afterwards. Little did she realise that we were envisaging a horticultural Hiroshima if we got our way. We have to be gardening Borg, resistance is futile!

15. roadkills

It had the feel of a David Lynch movie. The mist was thick and the headlights of the car bounced upon it, it was like driving into a wall that kept receding away. We were on the motorway in the dead of night, having decided to drive home overnight as Fox was finishing work at 9 pm. It was very unsettling, at least for me. And then suddenly, what just hopped in front of the car? No, not Laura Palmer but a stupid white bunny that was treating me to my very own experience of "bunny caught in the headlights".

I screamed a scream I would have prefer Fox not to have heard for it was more akin to a 10 year old girl's having a bad dream than to a 35 year old man's driving a van, albeit a small one. The rabbit did what any rabbit is supposed to do when caught in headlights, it froze. And this, I'm pleased to say, saved its life. I started to relax when Fox said: "Imagine if it had been a deer". Indeed.

I had never killed any animal on the road (or off the road for that matter), and after my encounter with the rabbit my eyes rarely strayed from the road. So imagine my surprise few days later when my first roadkill didn't turn up to be a rabbit or a deer but a bird. Yes, a bird. The threat came from the air. The little buggers are darting from one edge to the other on either side of the road and quite close to the ground, in search of food or mate. But oblivious to the traffic. The poor thing hit the windshield with a thump! and ricocheted over the car.

I was mortified, so Fox came to my rescue: "It's probably just stunned hon, they always flight into windows and stuff". Windows travelling at 110 km/hr? Doubt it. But I feel lucky, really, because when I told the story to Cathy she remembered when she hit a bird once. It hit the front of the car, rebounded off the roof and crashed on the windshield of the car travelling behind, going through it and losing its head in the process. That kind of carnage would buy me years on the couch.

14. camping it up

I resigned yesterday. I didn't feel elated or had a smirk on my face, instead I handed in my letter to my superior in a doorway, feeling very conscious of the fact I was leaving a month earlier than previously stated. But I'm sure she understands that sometimes we say something and then do another, after all she promised me during my job interview that I'll be put forward for my level 4 in British Sign Language but turned me down every single year when I asked for it. See?
But the truth is that we can't afford not to be there any longer, my early departure is more of a necessity rather than a choice. We know that local youth is getting into the school (probably through the broken windows, and the buggers don't even switch off the lights before leaving) and when Dave lifted the floorboards this week he found more than the mummies of two previous lodgers (see above and below). He found dry rot. Or so we think. We need to get an expert on site, and pay him of course. More cash out of our pocket and no job has started on the house yet.
And why not? Because our project manager is dragging his feet to find another mason, probably hoping to wear us out in a waiting game (for two weeks he ignored our phone calls and emails). Should we get impatient and get workers on site he would be entitled to denounce a lack of trust and ask compensation under the terms of the contract we signed before leaving us to sort things out. We are of course tempted to buy him out, and it's still an option we're considering, but we are foaming at the mouth at the very thought of handed more money to him for having done so little.

So in the end it became evident that as long as we would be in London there would be little or no progress made on the renovation, so we decided that one of us should go. Speaking French, it fell on me to pack up and move. The project manager might be able to dodge our phone calls for two weeks but it will be interesting to see how he'll do with yours truly camping on his doorstep.

Well, not so much camping as 'caravaning'. We first thought about cleaning and turning the kitchen of the house and its adjacent room into our living quarters and 'roughing it up' but papa would have none of it and within days found us a caravan. The comfort of the caravan will be a small consolation for having to go there on my own as Fox will remain behind until I find a job to keep us afloat for the first year. This is disheartening as we have seldom been apart, twice for a week at a time and each time I have been miserable throughout. This is not how I pictured our move.
I imagined us driving one sunny day, leaving Britannia behind smiling at each other. We would arrive at the school at sunset, we would open a bottle of wine and put fresh sheets on the bed. We would eat amongst the carton boxes looking in each other's eyes. The next few days would have been spent unpacking and painting around the house, walking in the garden sipping wine and the evenings listening to the house talking to us, getting used to its noises. But instead the house won't 'talk' to me but will scare the living Jesus out of me, along with her living-dead cats and army of flies. I will have to hide from the neighbours in the caravan (Fox is the sociable one and would have to do some serious damage control by the time he joins me). Hopefully job hunting and stalking our project manager will keep me busy.

13. la douloureuse

The French have a name for a bill or an invoice. They call it la douloureuse, the painful. When we met with our project manager two weeks ago, I jokingly asked him for la douloureuse and good Lord he didn't disappoint. Fortunately for my ego I glimpsed the final figure before he handed the breakdown of the quotes to me and had just the time to compose a collected and non-expressive expression on my face. But my heart sank. It was 30 thousands over budget. That was a karmic slap across my face for having gloated to the bitch notaire about the school, no doubt.

I looked at Fox, unaware, collecting the tiles that didn't shatter when thrown up in the air when the storm that battered the Poitou the week before hit the roof of our préau. I wasn't too worried about the roof, I was happy to leave it to the insurance to sort it out (if anything I was disappointed that it wasn't the house's roof that didn't get damaged, I would have been delighted to pay the small deductible for a brand new slate roof). He too would be so disappointed, and I was saddened to be the one to break the news to him.

the damaged roof

Luckily, we couldn't dwell on it as we were expected at the neighbours. All those living at the end of the village were up in arms against the Mairie for having stopped the collective sewage system just meters from their home, leaving just a handful, us included, on independent septic tanks. So they were putting up a fight and wanted us to join the movement as well as recruiting the English next door since they couldn't communicate with them. Besides allowing us to absorb the bad news individually, this meeting had the additional advantage to introduce us to our immediate neighbours and giving us the upper hand by being of service to them. But no matter how welcome this distraction was, we knew we would have to go back to the drawing board and rethink everything.

12. the shape of things to come

I can't say I hadn't be warned. Better still, I should have remembered. Yet I am still raging about having beaten to the post by an anonymous buyer in registering a domain's name solely because of sheer incompetence and the legendary French laissez-faire.

Being happy with the service and products of the British company I use for my website I approached their French branch to buy the name of the domain. When I did so in the past all it took was five minutes and my credit card number and within 24 hours my website was up and running. I assumed things on the French side wouldn't be that different. Que nenni!

Fox and I were already gutted to have missed on the opportunity to buy our village's name with the .com address and after seeing what our neighbours had done with it we couldn't afford to lose out on the .fr address, which was still available, if we hoped to attract any visitors. Besides spelling and grammatical mistakes, they describe our lovely village, and I quote, as being "quiet and very much asleep. Nothing happens. If you are looking for a quiet life, L. is the place to live". Now, I don't want to be bitchy but we do hope to run a business and after reading this the only thing I could think about was damage control.

So it is gripped by a sense of urgency that I went on registering the domain. After filling in the usual name, address, email, etc, and keying the credit card number I was expecting a confirmation email and to be able to start repairing the bad publicity. But no. Instead I got an email telling me they were aware of my wishes and will need to call me to confirm my identity to help them in their fight against fraudsters before the registration could be finalised. It was a Saturday and this being France, they were closed.

The phone call never came but on Tuesday I got an email asking me to fax my passport and proof of address. I tried, tried and tried again but it was constantly engaged. By the end of the day and after a furious exchange of emails between their security department and me and yet another invalid number we were no nearer finalising the registration. Fox tried again the following day, to no avail. They must have sensed my growing irritation and my patience diminishing for I received an email confirming the registration which was odd since they didn't have the evidence they requested. It wasn't odd anymore when within hours another email followed informing me they couldn't proceed. Someone had beaten me to the post.

To say that I was blue in the face will be as much as an understatement as calling the Italian rugby team useless in the 6 nations tournament. The poor young girl who picked up the phone to receive my wrath was only saved by my inability to remember how to bitch politely in French. But she got my drift. I could have cried when she told me the guy who bought the .fr address did so a mere two hours before one of their idiots sent me the phony confirmation email, and four days after I placed the original request for registration.

In the end I closed my account with them and bought the .net address with the UK branch. I console myself in the knowledge that having been beaten twice to the post has only fueled my competitiveness and determination to put our village on the map. But I must admit being intrigued by all the sudden interest our little village has generated within only a few days.
As for resigning myself to the French way of doing things, I'm not quite there yet.

11. froideur...quelle froideur?

There seems to be a commonly held view that the French are snooty, cold and unhelpful. It's a view that seems to have trickled into my subconscious from various sources, either written, broadcast or social (including French ones) and something I was steeling myself for. This is a cliche that I am happy to dispel, not in a 'throwing flowers in a field in a romantic haze and la-la-la-ing' as a newly converted francophile, but in a sober 'ah, weren't they lovely' quotidian, kinda way.

I love the response French people give if you tell them this by saying 'oh, that's Paris!', which is probably true. My theory is that the denser the population, the angrier and bad tempered the people, which applies to most big cities. In the countryside where time is elastic, people have a much more approachable demeanour.

Having lived in London for over 25 years now, I realise I have been cloaked for a long time in that mind set of 'head down, don't make eye contact, push on through and if people talk to you rush by because they're probably insane'. It's time to let my guard down and enjoy this new found connection with my fellow man/woman/child.

On the day we bought the house a friend of mine called me. He and his boyfriend had been living in France for a few years now and he gave me some advice. 'One thing you have to remember now that you are moving here is that people are nice, and for no other reason than that. Give someone a seedling and before you know it they'll give you a tree and on it goes. Before you know it they've donated their house and their daughters hand in marriage. Just enjoy it! There are no suspicious underlying motives. It's just not London.' Ok, a slight exaggeration but you get the gist.

Now, as most of my friends will confirm, I do possess a healthy dose of cynicism, shaken with a dash of nihilism and stirred with a the steely reserve of a Londoner, but I am pleased to say that my guard is melting, and it's a welcome thaw. I am relishing the thought of giving away homemade jams and chutneys to neighbours, or swapping eggs for a decent tartiflette recipe in my gingham pinny. For the first time we will be able to actually have people round, sit at a table and have dinner. Our flat at the moment prohibits this. I am also finding a renewed interest in cooking again, something I used to do when I first arrived in London and people had dinner parties.

Maybe my spectacles are rose tinted, but anything that gives you back faith in your fellow man has to be embraced. And I'd like to thank all those people who have so far shown us small butterfly wing kindnesses which in fact transform themselves into great bear hugs of happiness in our day. The obvious lesson to be learnt is to pass it on.

10. the bats are gone

It is a hugely frustrating to be physically in one place and yearning to be in another. Every waking moment is spent thinking about what I could be doing at the school or in the garden. And when spoken to I cannot refrain from blabbering about how frustrated and unhappy I am to be here doing nothing instead of there weeding, digging, building things (I know, that does sound wrong even to me but it's rude to point it out) and scouring the brocantes for furniture.
So instead of enjoying being stuck at home for the second day because of the snow, I look like I reverted to my The Cure listening, Bram Stocker reading, chronically incapable of smiling, chain smoking, arguments picking adolescent self, moodily looking at the window while my thoughts turn yet again to the school.

And this morning my concern is about a couple of bats we spotted in the cellar on our second visit last October. Papa and I were trying to make sense of all the pipes and of a flexi-tube slightly buried in the gravel when he asked me to look just above my head. At first I could see nothing, I was still looking for yet more pipes, and then I caught sight of them. They looked like two hairy ping-pong balls in bondage outfit hanging from a beam. And the sexual connotation isn't out of place as I've learned since then that at the time their reproductive period was in full swing (forgive the pun).

When we came back for the signature of the Acte de Vente in December they were nowhere to be seen, neither were they when we came back for Christmas. I thought we might have disturbed them and, feeling threatened, that they had left. That did upset me a little, so I went online to try to find out more about the little leather fetishists look-alike.
The good news is that their absence is most certainly due to them hibernating somewhere else and that, being sedentary, at least one of them, the male, should be coming back next March. I'm just hoping that our living in the school, after 16 years of being uninhabited, won't deter them from staying.

9. resistance is futile

The few weeks between officially owning the school and the Christmas holidays felt like years. We couldn't wait to be back and to make a start. We passed the time by making lists of 'to-do' jobs (lifting the floorboards of the classrooms, taking down the suspended ceilings, chopping down the small trees in front of the windows...) and discussing taps, shower heads (jumbo or regular?) and kitchen sinks. But I was also and above all preparing myself for the eviction of an alien resident, a squatter of the worse type, the Borg of the flora's kind whose very name sends shivers down every gardener's spine... The Japanese knotweed.

For whatever reason, a soon as we became Lords of our castle, all I could think about was a comment the Mayor's deputy made on our first viewing of the school when we were in the back garden and struggling to make our way through some overgrown plants that barred the door leading back to the playground: "We keep hammering it out but whatever we do, it always comes back". It was huge and was spreading all along the back of the préau's wall (it can be seen on the picture of the back garden on post 5). Then there was a piece on the news about this resilient bamboo-looking plant that invaded the countryside. I recognized the pest immediately.
I scoured the Internet in search of a solution, but quickly became alarmed: even the organic gardeners were going nuts and throwing in the green towel, reaching out of despair for the bottles of Round Up in their hundreds to deal with this Borg-plant.

resistance is futile

So it's fresh from a trip to B&Q and armed with secateurs, gardening gloves and Dave's almighty chainsaw that we arrived to the school on Boxing day. Fox nearly thwarted our battle plan by falling down Cathy & Dave's stairs on Christmas day (Cathy had lovingly polished them we learned later) but he managed to clear out the area by cutting down the canes and gathering their leaves. We burned as much of it as we could and sprayed Round Up as if it was going out of fashion. We planned to come back two days later for another burn/spray session followed by heavy work in the classroom when disaster struck. By trying to stifle a sneeze at 4am Fox properly broke his already fractured rib, sending him on his first trip to the French A&E, leaving him in pain and unable to do anything more than pick up the occasional twig. Dave fortunately came to our rescue.

Dave at work

8. road trip

Prior to the excitement of actually finally getting our hands on the keys to the house we had charged Papa Claude with the task of locating a van for us to purchase. He took on the challenge with great commitment and found us a Renault Kangoo van. We thought it would be a sensible choice to buy a van as we would be taking trips to the 'dechetterie' (rubbish dump), picking up furniture and white goods and also traveling back and forth from England with the contents of our flat. Hardly the glamourous sporty soft top I envisaged in its place. It was a nail biting time because I had arranged for the cash for the van and the house to be sent a WEEK before so that when we arrived it would be there all ready to go. Simple. But the best laid plans....

We took the train to Paris and then on to Laon, north east of Paris to stay with Papa Claude and Michelle, who is an excellent cook. Our plan was to collect the van, drive south to Cathy and Dave and then on to the house where the moolah should have already arrived to complete the purchase. The money hadn't arrived on the Friday we arrived. No money. No van. No trip south. Poor Seb was having kittens, but fortunately it had arrived in Papa Claude's account by late morning, phew! I thought we would have a short trip to a nearby to see the van owner, but two hours later that evening we found ourselves just north of Paris in Beauvais. Papa had clearly scoured the countryside looking for a 'bon achat'. So that night we drove off in our butch new white van. We giggled all the way back to Laon.

We stayed two nights with Papa and Michelle. The following day there was various tinkering with the van and collecting tools that we had been given and getting ready for our drive south. But punctuating all this were the fabulous five course meals prepared by Michelle. An unforgettable train of food effortlessly emanated from the kitchen at every meal. Every morsel of food was delicious and seductive. But by the time Sunday lunch came I was so full I thought I might have a food hemorrhage. I remarked to Seb that she was killing us with kindness which papa Claude thought hysterical.


So on the Sunday, after a Henry the Eighth style banquet, lots of hugs and kisses, we started our drive down south. It seems that all roads lead to Paris, which was a definite no no. We plotted a route looping around the bottom of Paris and then than dashing south. It was grim up north. There seemed to be nothing but earth and grey sky and the horizon dividing the two, a dull minimalist painting. As though the battle fields of the wars had only recently been ploughed to grow corn. Half way down the rain started. A relentless sheet of water that made sight of the road near impossible, but did anyone slow down? No! They sped up. Cars were whizzing past us in wet splashy blurs. French drivers either fear nothing or have some kind of direct line insurance with god and drive like crazies in the secure knowledge they have a ready brek shield around them.

Having missed a turn off and added a good hour or so to our journey (grrr) we finally arrived at Cathy and Dave's who had kindly prepared a surprise dinner for us. Not in Michelle's five course league but wholeheartedly welcomed.

On Monday the money for the house arrived, so we were all set for completing and the rest you already know. Seb could now at least get some sleep. He has vowed NEVER to move after this as the stress is just too much.

7. the importance of being a native

Being the L-plate french speaker I have been the mysterious silent creature (at least I like to think so) listening in attentively while serious and intense property talk has been flying around me. Without Sebastien, a native speaker, I don't think we would have taken on such an undertaking of refurbishing the house. I totally take my hat off to Cathy and Dave who have bought property without fully knowing what was happening. Even for Sebastien, some of the documents have been hard to decipher, as with any legal document, the legalese can be hard to unravel and turn into every day language. We kept marveling at how brave they were by taking the plunge.

When we finally came to sign the deeds in December it was felt quite Victorian in its arrangement. You all trot off to the Notaires little office. He sits at his desk while all the others are arranged in a semi-circle in front of him then the papers are read out so that all know what they have agreed to. Apart from Sebastien and I there was one of the agents (not the one Papa had called a crook, thankfully), the Area Manager for the Agency, the Lady Mayoress and a representative from the local Treasury ( there to ensure that the filthy luca was dealt with properly as it was a sale from the commune). We had met the Mayor on one other previous occasion when she had kicked the house to show us how sturdy it was. I feared more for her leg than the house. Being a lady of some years (it would would impolite to guess her age) she has great character and we warmed to her very quickly especially when she joked that she was in charge of the water supply in the area and if anyone narked her off she would turn off their supply. Totally appealed to my dark side.

While we stood in the hall waiting to go into the office I got chatting to the Area Manager. I had heard him chipping in with a bit of French earlier and so asked him how long he had been in France, I'm always interested to see what level of French people have after having lived in the country a while. It's an obvious concern as I don't want to end up being the English village idiot who is always sitting there smiling and with the odd 'oui ou non'. I had already made my first faux pas to a 8 year old when I meant to say that I am burping and had actually told him was shitting, which made us both laugh hysterically, for a good while.

When he told me 20 years my eyes must have gogged a little. TWENTY YEARS! I was a little ashamed that a fellow countryman had been there so long and still just had a smattering to get by in a job that was about to rob us of a sizeable chunk of cash that was disproportionate to the work they had actually performed for us (hence the 'crook' comment). There also seemed to be a hint of self-defence about him too which later emerged as a whiny comment during the 2 hour long process in the office. I have to say I enjoyed all the formality and of the reading out of the papers, the general chitter chatter, smiles, jokes and ambiance of being welcomed into a community. Very different from the British system where you chuck the money at each other, grab the keys and move in. Half way through while there was a pause while we waited for a document or during the long signing periods (which you have to do about a million times) everyone was back to friendly chat and Mr Twenty Years said, in a raised voice, across to me 'You're well in there'. Firstly I thought what a rude goof, but could only pity someone who said he lived in the 'Door-doyne', so cloaked myself back in my mysterious silence and pretended to understand everything that was going on around me. After all the formalities the Mayor said that she hoped that we would make the village 'lively and gay'. Careful what you wish for we chuckled.

None of that detracted from the sheer joy were experiencing when we drove back to the house to have one last look before we had to drive back across country to stay with our friends before going back to London, groaning all the way. But we had done it!! Bought our dream home, now we only had to make it habitable, eek!!!