Our House is Not in Paris (20 page)

After this, I went back with Jean-Claude to ring my mother, who had just arrived in England and would soon be on her way to Cuzance. He and I then had an
apéritif
and chatted together under the pine tree on their elevated terrace. The view over their
jardin
took my breath away every time I saw it. Françoise returned home from her daily church duties, this time changing the flowers, in the nearby village of Cressensac. As we caught up, Jean-Claude disappeared to his library high up in his attic and returned with
Les 3000 Meilleures Plante de Jardin
: a book that has 3000 plants for the garden. As always, I was moved by his kindness; he was lending it to me as a reference for when I had further discussions with Christian about our
jardin
design. Perhaps ‘design' was rather an ambitious description of my plans; ‘layout' was possibly more accurate. I was always amazed that I was so familiar with so many of the trees and plants in France. A quick look through the book showed that that there are indeed many of the same shrubs, plants and flowers that we have at home. I then asked Françoise for yet another favour. On Friday night we were having our very first visitor to stay in our
petite maison
, our French friend Sylvie, whom we met in India, and her son Axel. I asked Françoise if it was possible to borrow a very old tablecloth as I'd not yet had a chance to buy one. While we didn't use one at home, I was aware that it is the custom in France, especially as
pain
is not placed on a plate but rather on the tablecloth. Françoise willingly lent me one, as indeed they helped with absolutely anything that we ever asked for help with. She returned with one that was perfect for our little old farmhouse: delightful red and white checks. When she told me it was a wedding present forty years ago, I was touched and honoured to be lent such a piece of the history of their lives. With Françoise's superb skills in her
petite cuisine
, I was sure the tablecloth could tell many marvellous stories. So, once again I walked back through the village laden with a book and tablecloth from our generous, kind friends.

The evening finished with yet another late meal followed by a walk through our village and its surrounds. There are many walking tracks around Cuzance. However, as always, there simply hadn't been the time to explore them. Though it was time for bed, we were tempted to follow the sign to ‘Fontaine' and we found ourselves deep in the country; sure enough, there was an ancient well. We continued along the rocky path and marvelled at the walnut orchards and rolling fields. Although the path came out in the village right opposite Gerard and Dominique's, it was far too late to visit. A quick
apéritif de noix
on our little steps and we fell into bed.

I slept in the next morning and my day started in a way that I knew I would never have again in my life. A one-off Cuzance morning. As I flung the creaky shutters open — an act in itself that I always found symbolic every single day — the roofer had just arrived and was outside to greet me with a cheery ‘Hello'. In just a few weeks, Jean-Luc had started to use this greeting with us instead of his customary ‘
Bonjour
'. The process had been very much two-way; I was sure they were as fascinated by us as we were by them. Still, it's not often in life that you wearily wake up to the sight of French roofers just outside your window. It was now just Jean-Luc and his teenage son Jordan.
Les vacances
had started and I was impressed by Jordan's ability to work steadfastly all day. He worked alone, high up on the roof, while Jean-Luc continued work on the pigsty roof that adjoined the barn. Later in the day, Poppy joined them and I could see the business was being passed from generation to generation. Jordan gave me a cheeky, typical teenage grin as I captured his image while he put the ridge capping on. When the roofers left after five weeks and we ran into Jean-Luc at a
vide-grenier
, I found out — well, Stuart did, as my skills didn't run to understanding — that the little scenario I had vividly constructed about the family of roofers was completely wrong. Jean-Luc, in fact, has three daughters; Poppy is the owner of the business and not his father; Jordan is not his son. I preferred my three-generation family of roofers that I had imaginatively constructed. What I did know in the two-way trade of
bonjour
and hello was that, like all the roofers, I adopted the use of Poppy too — and they all seemed to like it, including old Poppy.

I had a late start working in the orchard and once again marvelled at the fact that I actually had my own orchard to even work in. Stuart continued his labour on
la cuisine
and grappled with the fact that the door hinges were the wrong size yet again. Ah, IKEA. I had now progressed to taking the ladder down to the orchard and perched precariously, hacking off old limbs with my pruning saw. I lost myself in the solitude and felt immense satisfaction as I saw my mounds of dead branches and suffocating ivy piling up far beneath me. I briefly contemplated borrowing Jean-Claude's chainsaw for the big branches that I couldn't manage with my little pruning saw. However, as I was getting older, I seemed to be becoming increasingly clumsy and I realised that way disaster lies.

Life continued to be busy and demanding, and our days were still consumed by endless lists and notes. There were simply so many things to do and remember that I'd taken to taping (with a piece of masking tape) the most pressing demands for the day to the inside of the front door as a constant reminder. Today's was ‘Turn water off overnight' as by now the water system in the cellar had sprung a leak and we were afraid it might explode in the night and flood the cellar.

Stuart's note for the morning — placed right where I knew he'd see it when he had his
petit déjeuner
— was to remind the roofer to repair the ridge capping on the outbuilding as we knew he'd be finishing in a few days. I was the queen of notes and lists. They gave me some sense of control in our days of ever-spiralling events, decisions and sheer hard work.

When we went to Brive for the afternoon for yet another bricolage expedition, we let Jean-Luc know that the
plombier
might come. He tore the end off a box of crochet hooks (roof nails) and wrote a note. We left it taped to the front door, along with a note of our own, to tell the
plombier
about the problem in the cellar. We then set off with our long list of
bricolage
needs. Yes, our notes and lists had taken over our lives and were now consuming us. And so followed one of the worst afternoons of my life. Four hours of
bricolage
after
bricolage
in the burning heat combined with fraying tempers. Some women love hardware shops; let's just say, quite simply, I loathe them. There were protracted discussions about what type of decking we would get and minute examinations of the type of hose suitable for the
jardin
. The cheap option, bought previously, proved to be exactly what it was: cheap. An inferior option that already had flaws in it, as it was too thin, and when we got it home and rolled it out to use, it simply kinked and was not strong enough to lay out across the rough ground. We then finally found a piece of decking that we were able to agree on. By now it was forty degrees and, for some reason, I forgot to bring my hat and, of course, all the timber was outside. There was a small sample, so we went to pay for it. But no … they thought that we had broken it off and refused to either let us have it or pay for it. For me it was the last straw, especially as we knew it would simply get thrown out. My temper definitely now matched the ever-increasing temperature. Sadly, the
plombier
still hadn't come by the time we got home late in the afternoon. Another note for the next day.

Jean-Claude arrived for his customary
apéritif
with us and I told him all about my hideous afternoon. I hate
bricolage
, both here and at home. I told him I was determined not to go on any further expeditions to them, no matter what. He confided that he felt the same way about Françoise's daily involvement with the church, and we shared a much-needed laugh. By the time Jean-Claude left, Stuart and I had found a moment to relax with a glass of chilled rosé in the rubble by the pool. It was so late that we couldn't even be bothered with our planned meal of a simple barbecue. Instead we had the only meal available. Yes, the daily
baguette
and
fromage
. But it was France, after all; the evening was cooling down, the sky was tinged with sunset hues, the moon was in its first quarter, and even the frantic squealing of pigs at feeding time didn't really matter. The wonder of being here was that every single day brought surprises, and most of them were superb. I had found a small shard of creamy earthenware and Jean-Claude — who always seemed to know absolutely everything — immediately identified it as a part of a soup tureen handle. I placed it on our little white wrought-iron table as a reminder of both the past and why we were here.

Every single day when I woke up there was an element of surprise and excited expectation about what the day might bring. The rhythm of every single day was full of the unexpected. Without Gilbert the roofer on site, we no longer had a long-range weather forecast. If he told us that the day would be cloudy and then sunny the next, he would always be absolutely accurate. I suppose his livelihood as a roofer depended on his intimate knowledge of the weather.

The drought had settled on the village and surrounding fields. It was quite hard to believe that the landscape was so similar to at home in summer. The grass was dry and brown while the leaves on many of the trees had now turned yellow and were falling in clouds onto the grass. Their carpet of gold looked more like autumn. Yesterday there was another first: the tap, tap, tap of a woodpecker on a pear tree in our orchard.

The day began with lifting the heavy oven into place. Of course, as we well knew by now, after having done it for about ten years, renovating never goes quite as smoothly as planned or hoped for. The fit was not flush with the benchtop and cupboard. Stuart summed it up perfectly by stating, ‘A two-minute job turns into a two-hour job.' Another
merde
or two was uttered.

As I sat briefly at the table, looking out our tall windows next to our long wooden dining table, three delicate pink roses from Françoise's splendid
jardin
brought a sense of grace and beauty to our
petite maison
. Then my gaze drifted to our garden; the complete opposite. My first job today was to haul all the cut branches to the far corner of our property, to be piled up out of sight. Jean-Luc and Jordan arrived as we were having our
café
on our little terrace — and so the day officially began. Meanwhile, in the background, as I gathered my gardening tools, I heard Stuart's constant refrain, ‘
Merde, merde
,' as he grappled with the jigsaw to cut the kitchen bench to fit the oven. Such was Jean-Luc's attention to what was happening in our daily lives that he enquired whether the plombier had come the previous day. We could only reply, ‘
Non, non
.'

Then the mobile rang and, though it was still early, it was already an exciting day as the furniture we bought a week ago would be delivered in the afternoon. Just as I was about to head off to the orchard, Poppy arrived and I served him an
espresso
. Unusually, he took a seat on the porch and used the other word he had learnt from me: ‘Okay.' We now had two words in common. We had a brief chat about our Renault, if it's automatic or diesel and whether it would stay in Cuzance. At least I think that's what our conversation was about.

Off he headed, high up on the roof with the others, and I found it wonderful (well, as I still continued to think, at this point, of the romantic story I had conjured up) that the three generations were working together in such harmony. As my life often seemed to be constructed around fantasies that I had created, I imagined that Jordan had a girlfriend and that at night he chatted to her about the foreigners he was working for. I was sure, just as I wondered about their lives beyond the roof, they too must pause and wonder what had brought this Australian couple from the other side of the world to this little farmhouse in Cuzance. As I couldn't communicate with Jordan the way I'd like to, I'd taken to giving him an affectionate pat on the shoulder. It's exactly what I do with my teenage boys back at school in my other life. I knew that a simple, reassuring pat conveys a lot.

Jean-Claude dropped in for his morning visit with another
Monsieur Bricolage
catalogue for Stuart. He was even able to point out the page that showed decking and paving that were
solde
. A sale is a sale in any language. We discovered from him, just in time, that we would lose everything to the drought if we foolishly planted in summer, as we were planning to do very soon. So, too, we also found out just in time that the soil around the pool would significantly subside in the next twelve months. It meant that the paving work — and expense — would have been an utter waste of time. Another source of heartbreak avoided.

I got sidetracked as soon as I went out in the
jardin
. Instead of starting to move my ever-accumulating piles, I started another one. As it was much cooler, I worked for almost three hours and my pile grew steadily into a mountain. The brambles were so fierce they pierced through my gloves. However, I was also jubilant as I hacked and hacked and restored two oak trees that had been smothered on the boundary stone wall. I had to make a decision about something that looked like a rose but decided to sacrifice it. While I was quite familiar with the flowers and plants, this familiarity did not extend to my knowledge of French weeds. In my zealousness, however, I unfortunately destroyed two baby oaks and felt sad about their loss.

It was, as always, a race to do everything. I rushed inside as we needed to go to the twice-weekly fresh produce markets in Martel. We were several hours later than usual, and the whole atmosphere had changed in the space of a few weeks. It was hard to find a park in our little town, and it was evident straight away that the tourist influx had started. It was lively and bustling in the markets, and there were new stalls to cater for the tourist trade. We sampled some
apéritif de noix
and
noix caramélisées
— the flavour of walnut in both was splendid. Tasting a walnut in France, fresh and nutty, was like tasting a walnut for the first time. We were, after all, on the ‘
Route de la Noix
': the trail of the walnuts. Just like melons, duck and
foie gras
, our
département
is known for its walnuts. Eating
fraise
here also made us feel as if we had never eaten a strawberry before. It was like a burst of summer in our mouths.