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