Red Letter Day

Thursday 11th October started in our small but perfectly formed farmhouse in Normandy with my architect chum Nick delivering breakfast with me doing the coffee. Nick and the lovely Rebecca are staying in their recent French acquisition a few minutes drive away, while all around them, various building tradesmen are wielding manly power tools in an effort to render it habitable. Now these fine pair are no wimps, for I called round to the des-res the night before and I swear that, once I’d got my truck un-stuck from all the mud and negotiated the drainage earthworks protecting this English couple’s castle, it was just as cold inside the house as outside. So Nick brought breakfast when he called round to collect a pair of oil filled electric radiators to redress the outside temperature inside the castle.

The day then progressed through a three hour drive to our own newly acquired piece of the Loire and my arrival was really the new beginning, as this is the day where I start my new life in France for real. Driving into Le Puy in warm sunshine felt like coming home and I had my happy face on as I was finally beginning the process of converting our lovely under maintained, but clearly loved group of honey coloured stone buildings into our vision of idyllic contentment. A work of passion I hope and I have a steadily growing schedule of early tasks to accomplish ahead of my retired builder buddy joining me for a very much working holiday in a few weeks time.

After unloading the truck and getting most things near where they should be, I conduct my little private ritual of walking the boundaries and inspecting what we have named Le Clos de la Rose. Everything is neat and tidy, although I’ll need to do some gardening soon and those quick growing conifers leading to the hanger need trimming with extreme prejudice if clients are ever going to park there . . . add a chain saw to the list! Marcel has left some further treasures for us as I discover a tiny school desk in one of the outbuildings. Was I ever that small all those decades ago to learn to write my name on such a institution as such a small school desk? I just can’t believe it now.

In the grenier of the pretty house is another even more nostalgic school desk and this has several pair of small leather boots, an animal’s yoke, doubtless to help haul the grape harvest and a beautiful cased clock. The clock is a real surprise and I must remind Marcel what a kind friend he has already become.

The cellars are still full of his wine, all carefully labelled with dates going back to 1989 and the occasional ‘n’est pas touché’ with the name of an owner added as a reminder. It feels good to have a cellar full of wine, even though it’s not mine and I’m happy to help my friend.

I’ve made a list of tasks to do tomorrow in my day book. This includes phoning my insurance broker in the UK to pay my car and household insurance renewal premiums, begin getting an internet connection and buy a gas bottle for the cooker, so I can start to feed myself properly, rather than rely on tonight’s delicacy of bread and butter spread with pate, with dessert of bread and butter spread with fig jam. As I’m writing this at the kitchen table I smirk, as I turn round to look at the oven and then twirl a couple of knobs and convince myself that (and I’m laughing out load now) it really is an electric oven! The gas bottle will operate three of the hob rings, the fourth also being electric. Note to self: why did the bride not tell me I could cook here straight away? Yes okay, I know that’s because I couldn’t cook beforehand anyway, but I found the situation funny!

Off to squish the lilo and get some sleep and look forward to the next great day.

 A bientôt.

 LC