Not Even a Week
In just six days we had done more work and had more social interaction than in six months at home. Right at the start, Stuart had to draw up a calendar so that we could fill in everything that arose, both socially and all the planning for the house: plombier, bank appointments, Piscine Ambiance and the car registration in Cahors. It was evident almost straight away that the squares for each day should have been twice the size. Each day we had a plan that was utterly jam-packed — work schedule, bricolage, supermarché, decisions regarding the petite maison and all the renovations, and the plans for the jardin. Then, every day, even more events unfolded to fill each twenty-four hours to an even greater capacity. We could not imagine possibly fitting in any more and yet, somehow, we kept doing so. We woke at 6.15 — this was a holiday — and yet the day went on forever as the daylight hours were so long. The exhaustion was a constant backdrop, both physical and mental from all the decisions and communication in French, coupled with the presence of the roofers, who had become an extension of our daily lives. While we had developed a fondness for them and they seemed to have been absorbed effortlessly into the fabric of our days, the fact that they didn’t speak English and there simply being no time for me to learn French, even pronunciation of simple phrases, constructed using the dictionary, was a problem for me as I attempted to convey that tomorrow we were going to Cahors for the day. I stumbled to communicate that we were going to the Préfecture to register the car and yet I discovered that communication also depended on regional dialects, so even my few simple words were not grasped.
Stuart had an afternoon away from the intricacies of assembling la cuisine as he had been invited on a walk with Jean-Claude’s group of friends, who met once a month to explore the countryside. Well, I had been invited, too, but I declined and chose to stay and work on the petite maison. The choices I make at times are interesting. The country amble that we had imagined turned out to be an arduous hike, scaling steep rocky hills and getting terribly lost in the depths of the country. Meanwhile, I vigorously sanded walls, stripped wallpaper and stripped paint off beams. It was actually a joyous feeling to reclaim the old wood lying buried under layers of paint. While it was yet again another solid day’s hard work, I enjoyed the solitude and the way that, with each piece of wallpaper that plummeted to the floor as I stripped off another piece, I connected more and more with our little house that we were so close to abandoning.
In all our years of renovating houses, I had never felt such a strong sense of breathing life back into a home. I paused at one point and raced down to the Hotel Arnal to buy a lighter, and even the basic purchase of a Bic was not readily understood by Monsieur Arnal, as apparently my pronunciation of the simple word ‘Bic’ was not drawn out sufficiently. The Maire briefly came in to the restaurant and greeted me, ‘Ça va?’ and shook my hand. Later I wondered whether I should have politely attempted to make a reference to the roof and convey my appreciation that it had been a mere one day before work commenced and not the possible fifteen that we had been told only two days previously. I decide to sidestep such a conversation.
I resumed my frenetic wallpaper-stripping and then Françoise called to let me know that she could not possibly start the afternoon tea that she was providing for the walking group without me. She was expecting them back by five and I was conscious of the French protocol of being there at the precise time for when you had accepted an invitation. We had read, in the many books on France that we devoured, that, especially for formal occasions, no-one is served an apéritif until all the guests have arrived. So I reluctantly downed tools, hastily transformed myself and dashed down the road yet again. And then we waited for nearly an hour and a half for the walkers to return. I drummed my heels with frustration, thinking of all that I could have still been doing despite the fact that, actually, I was exhausted by my arduous labour. Finally, they staggered in and we were all rewarded by a delicious abricot tarte and artisan chocolat glace made by Françoise. Everyone was gathered round their long dining table and I looked around in wonder to be in France and part of an old group of friends. Once again, I paused and thought how lucky we were to be so readily accepted and part of the patina of life in Cuzance.
Finally, we returned to Pied de la Croix for a simple meal of — what a surprise — pain and fromage … again. Stuart was very tired after his demanding hike, and his idea of relaxing was to read a bricolage catalogue in readiness for his hardware outing the next day. Me, I’d rather be up a ladder any day than peruse a bricolage catalogue. To end the day, before we fell into bed exhausted once again, Stuart called Erick to arrange that he come to Cuzance on Monday to help with the kitchen plumbing. Now that would be a significant day in the petite maison, one step closer to having a real cuisine. Erick was also renovating and it was their busy season with their chambre d’hôte, so we were even more grateful that Erick was prepared to make the three-hour round trip to help us. And, in the considerable history of our renovating life, what a day it turned out to be!
Our friend Sylvie sent a text to organise her arrival to stay for a night. We then got a text from Dave at home to let us know that another friend might also drop in to stay with us. Another visitor. We were already expecting John and Liz, and while we were really looking forward to family and friends staying with us for the first time, we were also glad no-one would be staying soon. We were too tired and too busy at the moment to attempt to be convivial. We kept changing the boundaries that we had set ourselves about what we hoped to accomplish this time. Our plans and goals fluctuated between what we hoped to achieve this year, next year. One thing for which we were profoundly grateful was that there had been a noticeable lull in the traffic.
It was particularly evident at lunchtime, when all were gathered round their dining tables. The roofers were often concerned when they left for their lunch break, as we continued to work; they were clearly perplexed by the strange choices of foreigners. We had been told a story that, once, some artisans abandoned some newly mixed cement and downed tools for it was the sacred lunch hour — fresh concrete or not.
And so the days unfolded like a bolt of fabric flung upon a cutting table. The difference was that our pattern was frenetic and evolved in a frantic design, hardly haute couture fashion in the salons of Paris. Instead of scissors carefully gliding through silk, it was the laughter of French roofers and the cooing of doves that were a gentle background to the weft and warp of our days.
The Roofers
The work of the roofers was impeccable, and their timing for each component of their day was down to the exact minute. At lunch they finished just in time to change into clean T-shirts and were heading down the road to the restaurant on the stroke of twelve. How they managed this so precisely I’m not sure, for none of them ever wore a watch. Their bodies must simply be in tune with the village clock and poised for when it was to ready to strike, not when it did strike. Similarly, they finished on the dot of five. It was a short working day but a hugely productive one — when they work, they work. They didn’t take any breaks at all. They answered calls on their portables, perched high on the roof, and cigarettes were smoked high up near the sky. Watching them use a chainsaw, with one foot balanced on the beams and the other on the plank that served as a rudimentary scaffold, was like watching an art form. There was no scaffolding at all; instead there was a series of planks that they nimbly walked across. I held my breath as I watched the two younger roofers toss cheeky, happy smiles my way. They knew that I was impressed.
By just the third day, all the old rafters had been removed and the huge new beams were all in place as well as all the smaller crossbeams. When we arrived home from our day in Cahors, they had started to lay the slate and it looked magnificent. The four men each had a section and they worked side by side across the length of the roof, chatting with good humour and laughing throughout the day with their radio always playing in the background. The slate was now placed in stacks for each of their sections and they worked
with a steady rhythm, overlapping them to form a pleasing pattern. They knew I would be delighted by their day’s work and called to me to take photographs — by now they had seen my enthusiasm about capturing a visual record of each step of the roof ’s progress. While their working day did not seem very long to us at all, watching them work every day, we realised that their six hours of work was exceptionally fruitful. It was obvious, too, that the lunch break fortifies them for a solid afternoon’s work. Whether they had a glass of wine or two at lunch is something I will never know. If they did, I am not at all sure how they managed to work so high up and remain steady on their feet. Even more remarkable was when I heard the whine of the chainsaw start and glanced out to see them braced on the roof cutting crossbeams and notches to place the slate. They tossed the chainsaw to each other and took delight in the fact that I was awestruck by the way they worked.
What also constantly struck me was their sustained high spirits and admirable teamwork. I somehow got the sense that they probably socialised with their families outside work time, as they seemed to be such a close-knit team. Meanwhile, I couldn’t wait to tell my senior girls back at school that they haven’t lived until they’ve seen young French roofers working in the summer heat with their shirts off …
Once all the beams were off, La Forge was fully exposed to the light and the elements. When the roofers wandered down to the restaurant, I took the opportunity to slip inside and inspect it. I took photos of the pool that was perfectly lined up with the huge barn doors — just like our vision that one day we would walk into the grand entrance and see the sweeping vista of the pool. It was extraordinary that the design and measurements Stuart emailed from afar had now come to fruition. I stood there in wonder and, in my mind, the design of the barn unfolded. I saw la cuisine on the far-left wall; I saw the two upstairs chambres; I saw the mezzanine study, the staircase, the fireplace; I placed the Chesterfield and the bellows coffee table. My imagination was strong. My vision was clear. The reality was that it was dusty and abandoned; there were mangers still in place with remnants of straw from the long-ago days when cattle still lived in the barn. There were fragments of the La Croix’s lives in the abandoned tools, the rickety old ladder, the heights of children long gone, marked in chalk upon the wooden wall. It was wreathed in cobwebs but I knew that we were both fuelled by dreams and, one day, it too would be transformed and become the pièce de résistance of all our renovating years.
On Thursday, like every other day, no matter what time I got up, there was simply never enough time for everything that needed to be done. We were up early again, ready for Jean-Claude and Françoise to take us to Cahors. Like every other day, too, it was destined to be a ‘big’ day. We were slightly anxious about going to the Préfecture to register the car, for, like any bureaucratic department anywhere in the world, there was a strong possibility something may go awry. Before leaving, I stepped outside the front door to hang the towels out, only to find four roofers sitting on our steps. Quite a surprising way to start my day — though not unpleasant at all. There was a chorus of bonjours all round and much shaking of hands. Stuart joined us to check the gutter placement on the barn roof, and off we went.
All went surprisingly swiftly and smoothly. There was a series of steps: official number one, who passed us to official number two, who passed us to official number three. At any point the deceptively smooth sequence could suddenly be halted if there had been some oversight in our paperwork. Françoise and Stuart were the ones in the hot seat before each Préfecture official, while Jean-Claude and I followed in their wake, each holding our breath. At the last hurdle, official number three, Jean-Claude commented that the striking young woman now scrutinising our paperwork would be an attractive asset next to our pool. We laughed hysterically and everyone turned to look at us in admonishment. It was a serious place, the Préfecture, and this was serious business. In fact, our misplaced merriment possibly was our premature relief that the paperwork seemed on the brink of being signed with a flourish. And then, it came to the attention of official number three that we didn’t have a letterbox. Despite copious pieces of paperwork — copies of our passports, Australian licences, and documents for the house — the fact that we didn’t have a letterbox seemed to mean we didn’t exist. We thought this would be our downfall. Jean-Claude quickly stepped in and assured Mademoiselle that indeed there was a letterbox; it simply had to be fixed to the wall of Pied de la Croix. She smiled at him, clearly charmed and, voilà, we were officially the owners of our little Renault. The four of us left full of glee, like schoolchildren on a half-day holiday, for Jean-Claude and Françoise told us with astonishment that the last time they were at the Préfecture the line snaked out the door for hours.
So we were free. As we had allocated the whole afternoon to the bureaucracy of the Préfecture, we now had a few hours to explore Cahors, a pretty medieval city almost entirely surrounded by water, on the Lot River. As we walked the streets of Cahors Jean-Claude told me that two French women turned their heads to appraise my attire in an approving manner. It more than made up for most of my days in France, when I looked far from chic. We asked directions to the river and a young woman embellished the directions with a story about the Devil’s figure on the bridge. She told us that, according to legend, the builder made a pact with the Devil to help with the completion of the bridge. However, at the end of the work, the builder tried to go back on the pact by refusing to place the last stone on the bridge. So, in the 1800s, during a restoration of the bridge, a carving of the Devil was added to the top of one of the three towers. Her story added a layer of intrigue to Cahors and, after exploring, we then drove home via the longer but very scenic route. Jean-Claude pointed out things that we would never learn by ourselves, like the small old round building in the pastures that was originally a shepherd’s hut and the trail that we would never have noticed on the outskirts of Cuzance that was a pilgrims’ route to Rome. Jean-Claude and Françoise harmoniously sang ‘Alouette’ and declared it to be a song known throughout the world. The inside of the car hummed with the happiness of new friends.
The day finished with Jean-Claude’s latest mission to ensure that we understood all things French by showing us exactly where the letterbox needed to be placed. First of all, the letterbox must be a standard size, of course available from any good bricolage. Then he pointed out the faint outline on the stone wall where the old one had been. Until we could buy our letterbox, he had printed our name and stuck it on the outside wall of the house so that we officially existed in the eyes of La Poste.
He told us the post is delivered on Saturday in France and in Paris, three times a day. We then gathered some small pieces of slate to label the plants in Françoise’s vegetable garden and, as I needed a pruning saw for the following day, I walked to Le Vieux Prieuré with Jean-Claude. I returned home through the village with a glossy carrier bag from Paris that Françoise had given me, swinging on one arm, the picture complete with a pruning saw in the other. Our day at the Préfecture ended back home in Cuzance, with the high-pitched squealing of pigs echoing across the fields.
The End of the First Week
The roofers indicated that they wouldn’t come to work on the roof on Friday. As they left on Thursday a huge storm was predicted, so it was fortunate that at the end of each working day the enormous tarpaulin was put back in place. Luckily, the storm didn’t eventuate. As they left I thanked them profusely, ‘Merci beaucoup,’ and Stuart understood that their reply communicated, ‘It is all part of the service.’ We were actually glad they wouldn’t be on site the next day as we had the team from Piscine Ambiance scheduled to work all day on the pool. As Christian didn’t appear on Thursday to mow more grass and spray the weeds, we were thankful not to have three teams of artisans working on our property at once. It all seemed somewhat extreme and nouveau riche.
I finally found time to catch up on sleep and go to bed early on Thursday evening to luxuriate in a long read. By the time I woke on Frida
y, it had been nearly twelve hours of much-needed rest. Could we only have been here a week?
I had just had my petit déjeuner and written a single sentence in my notebook when the first Piscince Ambiance van arrived, ahead of schedule. I went to greet them and managed to convey where the electricity was outside and the water supply in the decrepit old cow shed. Julian turned on the tap and filthy brown water gushed out. I was not sure where the water for filling the pool would come from, but at least this source was just to mix the concrete today. He then indicated that the hose was broken and not long enough to reach the pool. Another item to add to the perpetual bricolage list. I decided it was time to wake Stuart with a cup of tea and let him know that the team had arrived and that I had sorted it to the best of my ability (in a basic few words accompanied, as usual, by many gestures). Stuart had a hasty petit déjeuner before dashing off to the bank to sort extra money on our French cash card. I could never quite fully grasp how it worked, but the balance seemed to always be in a state of flux depending on what you had spent and at what time of the day. Both he and Anne-Marie had tried to explain it to me, but all I heard were Anne-Marie’s words telling me, ‘I know it looks like you are in debit, but, really, the balance will automatically correct itself from your account.’ Just like with all things financial, I tended to glaze over and know that our money was in good hands with Stuart’s considerable financial acumen. He raced back in with fresh artisan bread from the boulangerie, which we hastily ate with luscious sweet abricot confiture that I had bought from the Martel markets. Stuart then dashed back out to the bricolage, mindful that it was a twenty-minute drive; his list was long and, like everywhere, it too would close on the stroke of midday.
Our House is Not in Paris Page 11