Our House is Certainly Not in Paris

by Susan Cutsforth

  Our new plantings of lavender and laurier droop with fatigue in the relentless heat.

  Their leaves curl up in brown protest. As we trudge across le jardin with our heavy watering cans, I fervently whisper to them to survive the extremes of the elements in our absence. I find it hard to comprehend that the temperature has a span of sixty degrees in our petite village.

  Almost overnight there is a sudden change in the evening light. An utterly golden radiance suffuses the village and all the stone maisons. An otherworldly quality seeps across the twilight fields. Meanwhile, throughout each day, my relationship with the paving continues to be a close one. Too intimate at times, for when I am especially weary – read always – it sometimes slips out of my grasp and leaves gashes down my legs. When the heat becomes simply too unbearable, I slip away for stolen time at Jean-Claude and Françoise’s piscine. The respite is pure paradise. Despite the blanket of suffocating heat, Stuart and Jean-Louis continue their paving crusade. Like being given a prize for his endless sweat, quite literally, we are rewarded with an impromptu dîner invitation, a simple supper of omelette, salad and the most delicious mushrooms we have ever tasted. Françoise tells us that the cepes were picked and preserved by her friend Elizabette. We have long known about the revered cepes and their secret places, buried deep in the woods; so secret that one French person will never reveal the source of their precious mushrooms to another.

  The fifteenth of August is a national religious holiday, the Assumption of Mary to Heaven. We too take the opportunity to have a holiday and head to St Chapelle Aux Saints to a mid-week vide grenier, one positively brimming with treasure. I rummage through piles of long-abandoned finery and my persistence once again pays off when I unearth scarves adorned with designer labels and the magical word ‘Paris’. We eat déjeuner at a wooden trestle table, one of many laid out in rows, expectant of a huge holiday crowd. In front of us there is a stand of one hundred soldier-straight poplar trees and a farmer demonstrates the wood-moving skills of his cart horse. There is an entranced audience and the children in the crowd are invited to work beside the farmer and his horse. As I watch, I hope that it inspires one of the young children to follow in his footsteps so that the traditions of the land live on.

  Our departure date looms ever closer, and as always, we have set our goals too high.

  We again moderate our aims and adjust our short list of what’s critical to complete before we leave. Repairing the sagging, broken barn doors is high on the list. We have no desire the following summer to find another litter of French kittens has taken up residence in la grange. Meanwhile, plans are already being made for our return. Françoise has suggested that after our stay in Paris with Patrick, we go on the train straight to Lyon to stay with them. She already knows us very well, for she realises once we are ensconced in Cuzance, it’s hard to leave, even for the delights of big-city lights.

  The changing light at least means that we have to slightly adjust our working hours.

  It means that we have dîner somewhat earlier rather than just before falling into bed, exhausted after another day’s interminable toil.

  We continue to work in temperatures that we would never contemplate working in at home. The days pass in a glimmer of a moment. It becomes more and more imperative to place some satisfying ticks on our final checklist. Progress is hindered when Jean-Louis cannot quite get the hang of how to correctly apply the concrete for the huge pavers or how to level them correctly. There is certainly more to laying paving than meets the eye, for these were tasks I simply couldn’t grasp either. His methodical approach is perfect for fastidiously concreting the gaps between the pavers but it is becoming only too clear that we will certainly not be fin this summer.

  I have a well-known propensity for tidying and cleaning. Sometimes it gets me in to trouble as I scoop things tidily away and out of sight. I realise just in time, that it may have been a bit more than a mere ‘Where is my... ?’, that I have swept up a still-smouldering cigarette from the work site and put it in the rubbish, which consists of empty cement bags. And yes, cement bags are made of paper, and yes, to use the Australian summer cliché, it is tinder dry... The rubbish is piled up in the barn. I frantically – and surreptitiously – pour water over the flickering flames. I take care not to share this with Stuart. It has been a trying morning; the temperature is tipping forty; tempers are rising to match the mercury. All our dreams for la grange would have been literally up in smoke. It simply doesn’t bear thinking of.

  Scorching air is sweeping across Cuzance like an open oven door. The very air is hot to breathe. The washing dries virtually the moment I hang it out. Our energy levels are as frayed as the cuffs on my work shirt. There is no choice but to advance the apéritif hour. We eat sunshine-warm Quercy melon that gleams in golden crescents on our plates. The glace clinks in our antique glasses of pink-rose coloured rosé.

  After dîner, Stuart browses through advertising catalogues. He shows me an astonishing jardin implement – Dèsherbeur thermique – a blowtorch to destroy weeds.

  If that’s the sort of product available to fight garden weeds, no wonder my battle against les herbes is a losing one. Nevertheless, I prudently decide that it would not be wise if I was let loose with a blowtorch in le jardin.

  We have long declared that Sunday is supposed to be sacrosanct, our one day of compete rest. In previous years, despite our perpetual exhaustion, we never failed to set the alarm clock for our vide grenier quests. Now, our bodies are so in tune with getting up early to work, that even now on our second-last Sunday, we still tumble out of bed at the same time as squirrels start to scamper across the road in the fresh dawn light. We break our self-imposed rules and lay weed matting for several hours before heading to the stunning hilltop village of Turenne. It is a market we have visited in previous years and one we have come to love. The heat, almost but not quite, defeats our treasure hunt.

  The find of the day – for there is usually one esteemed find that stands out from the crowd – is a magnifique large, hand-carved wooden bowl. Heads turn to look and admire it as Stuart carries it in his arms through the thronged market. We even hear admiring comments about our bowl, floating on the still air. Indeed, a true find, and worth traipsing through the enervating heat to discover.

  By now, almost the end of August, the heat and weather seem to have a life of their own. It is the one constant; dominating daily conversations and dictating what we do and when. We know that at home everyone would find it hard to believe that a French summer can match, indeed at times surpass, the hottest of Australian days. When rain finally cascades, the leaves unfurl greedily to lap up the rain drops. Soft yellow light washes the orchard and the sunset-sky is smudged in a palette of pale red and pink.

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  Rural Parisians

  We are not the only ones to escape to the solitude of country life in Cuzance. Indeed, quite a few Parisians have found their way to this quiet corner of rural France. Nearby, a couple from Paris are living in what was once a chicken slaughter house. They in fact fulfil the reputation of Parisians, for they are haughty and aloof. At times however, they are more like mad dogs and Englishmen for they labour in the unbearable heat during the middle of the day. There is not a murmur or stir in the rest of the village for all are slumbering and seeking refuge from the sun that burns like a fully fuelled furnace.

  We watch askance as Monsieur Paris constructs a very strange lean-to structure, out of galvanised iron, at the rear of their maison. As for its purpose, we cannot possibly hazard a guess. Perhaps it is for more poulet. If so, we can only hope that it does not house a raucous rooster to disturb our serenity. The maison does not seem to have progressed much beyond its days as a poulet slaughter house, for outside is piled all manner of household flotsam and jetsam. As we walk past, we try to peep inside the ivy encased windows. We have been told that inside there is such a state of chaos that even the stuffing from the sofas is escaping, trying to join the jardin detritus.

&nbs
p; Meanwhile as I muse on life in Paris, far away, I have progressed to sanding the doors and windows in readiness for a coat of thick varnish to ward off the icy tentacles of winter. No task is ever straightforward however. To sand and varnish the window over the original kitchen sink, I climb on the sink and precariously lean far out the window to sand the rickety old shutters. It proves to be yet another vantage point to watch the world go by. As always, I am only too aware that this type of vacances is not going to feature any time soon in a glossy holiday brochure.

  Stuart is fond of saying when offering me another apéritif or crème glacée, that we are on holiday after all. I tend to look at him quizzically whenever he makes this statement. Certainly it is not the normal routine of home, but how it is normal in any sense of the word, to endlessly renovate on vacances is quite beyond me. I long for the day we will be fin. It is a day on a far distant horizon that I simply can’t envisage. Roll on perpetual walnut-tree-days, I at times think mutinously.

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  An Enchanted Evening

  There are moments when time itself stands still. Even as you’re living it, savouring every moment, you already know that it is one of those rare enchanted evenings in your life that you will remember forever. At the height of the Cuzance summer, we have dîner next to Jean-Claude and Françoise’s la piscine, overlooking the jardin at the peak of its seasonal beauty . In many ways it is like sitting in a garden at home, for there are bright blue agapanthus and vivid red hibiscus. There is an old wooden table on which Françoise has placed two elegant silver candelabra. The atmosphere is magical, for the soft flickering candle light is the prelude to the darkness that will soon creep across the garden. We dip in the pool and then have icy glasses of chilled rosé followed by a simple salad, freshly prepared from their immaculate vegetable jardin. The dessert is a truly exquisite confection that Françoise has conjured up in her enviable Michelin style: poached abricots, melted warm chocolat and vanille crème glacée.

  As darkness descends, la piscine lights are switched on and the lights from the village church opposite, flood the still, evening garden. There is not a whisper of wind or a murmur in the soft summer air. Henriette is now the focal point of all our gatherings, and after just a few short weeks, no one can imagine life without all the joy she brings us. The herbaceous border of lavender, the bright splashes of petunia and the burst of orange bougainvillea; the sweeping lawn, the towering walnuts – all floodlit by the lights around the pool; creates a scene yet again straight from the studio of Canal+. Yet, for now, we are the ones living this moment, rather than characters observed and envied, with a director’s call to ‘cut’. It is a tangible moment of pure pleasure, a distillation of time; the essence of which I try to consciously capture and preserve.

  In just a few short hours though, I know that the shrill of the alarm will summon us to continue our relentless rénovation. For now, I savour it all, lean back in my striped director’s chair, for in this brief moment, I am indeed the director of our own French vignette. I sip my wine, Henriette sound asleep at my feet.

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  Fin – Rénovation – For Now

  In a decision that is unprecedented and a strangely uncharacteristic one for us, we decide to draw a line in the sand a week before leave. We have not reached our goal of finishing the paving yet unless we stop and have a proper break before returning home to work, we know that we’ll still virtually have our tools in our hands when we are boarding the return flight. Enough is enough we declare in unison. This is a decision we make in complete harmony.

  Some things never quite change though... Mmm, what few minor tasks will we ‘just’ fit in? The two grapevines arching gracefully on la grange have had vigorous growth spurts in the heat. We’ve noticed from looking at vines in other gardens, that they are at their most attractive when the main stem of the vine is the feature, forming a long bare length at the bottom, with the branches and tendrils then shooting sideways and upwards. So, this too is our aim.

  It has long been Stuart’s intention to do the pruning. But time ‘waiting for no man’, seems to be in full play in Cuzance. He is frantically still paving as much as possible, before the line is fully drawn. Wasn’t it already? Perhaps the sand is wet and the line keeps disappearing. No, in fact, it is the concrete that needs to be kept damp, and the refrain is now, ‘I’ll just finish this bag of concrete before I stop.’ I have heard these words before – or a variation upon them – many times over our many renovating years.

  So, what can I possibly accomplish in the time remaining? I decide to try my hand at pruning, with the intention of creating the feature stem. This proves to be a little more specialised than my pruning in the orchard, which when all is said and done, is really only sheer hacking of old branches. It all goes terribly wrong. With one simple snip of the secateurs, I miscalculate where to cut. Voila, all the splendid summer growth tumbles to the parched ground. In fact, not just the growth of summer, but, how many years old must it be judging from the thickness of the stem? Quite a few I’d say. And how many more years to re-establish itself? Again, suffice it to say, more than a few.

  The decimation is somehow sadly symbolic for me. Not only is it hard to leave Cuzance again but it is also hard to walk away when our project is not fin. Next year – next year is the echo for everything.

  Weary beyond words and emotions running high, we set off to Martel for a much-needed dîner of steak and frites. Not only is the meal bitterly disappointing – the steak is dry and the potatoes are clearly left over from déjeuner – l’addition is also ridiculously très cher. Strike that restaurant off our list. A bad end to a bad day.

  Grape vines on the barn.

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  Petite Vacances

  The reality of renovating is that fin is never really possible, it is never a finite actuality, particularly once a year in a short hot summer. We enthusiastically embrace our self-declared petite vacances.

  The shadows start to lengthen ever earlier, creeping across the jardin as our days ebb too. Further hints of autumn yellow appear on the trees. Yet, there have been so many consecutive dog days that we can no longer keep count of them. I had thought it was a colloquial term used by our amis until Françoise told us that it is used in the weather reports on television. There is further confirmation that it is an official term when we return from shopping in Brive, and the overhead sign on the autoroute states: Attention. Jours de canicule. Arrêtez-vous et réhydrater. Stuart loses no time in translating it for me. ‘Attention: Dog Days. Stop and Rehydrate.’ Ah, the French will use any excuse for another apéritif.

  All the days of our summer have blurred. The final days though when we declare a petite vacances at our petite maison are even more so. The walnut tree is definitely my new best friend. At least now it is an indolent, indulgent blur. Days of reading, daydreaming, afternoon café and crème glacée, icy gin and tonics in the evening. ‘This is the life,’ is another of Stuart’s favourite expressions and this time it’s true. We sigh with pleasure during our last lazy Cuzance summer days and the sweat, toil, and yes at times tears, recede and fade.

  The church bells ring imperiously every hour, its chimes are always immediately repeated in case you did not grasp straight away, the marching hours of the day. At both seven in the morning and again at ten at night, the pealing is longer and more resonant to ensure that the villagers know that the working day has started and when it is fin at the end of another fleeting day. At midday, there is another clamouring cry from the bell. It commands that tools are downed and that the dîner hour – or two – is duly respected. You can measure life by the ringing of the sonorous bells.

  I know that I am fully immersed in my French life when I take our voiture to the local Renault dealer for a service. I almost manage independently, though of course Jean-Claude is on standby as my back-up. It also gives me enormous pleasure each time I go to Martel, despite being the height of the tourist season, to be a recognised, regular customer by the women who work in Le B
ureau de Poste, la boulangerie and la pharmacie. I never fail to take delight in the courteous exchange of Bonjour and merci beaucoup, and au revoir as you leave. I especially love the ring of ‘Toute allure’ and all that it implies; full speed ahead; have a good day. The greetings on arrival and departure infuse the everyday transactions with a measure of French timelessness and tradition.

  While Stuart’s decision to not press on and fin the paving is not one I would have initially made, nevertheless as we indulge in our petite vacances, I have every reason to be grateful for such a sound decision and not finish it. The toil truly can wait until next year – and the one after, and indeed all the years to come in our petite corner of French provincial life. For a few days of utter indulgence, we enjoy outings for déjeuner and long, luxurious afternoons next to la piscine. For a short moment in time, the biggest decision of the day is what la robe to wear out to dîner and what choices to make from the menu du jour. The world with all its responsibilities and commitments is held at arm’s length. Life is spectacular . A lone kite, wheeling high in the sky, cries plaintively, the sole sound to puncture the heavy summer silence.

  Friends relaxing by la piscine.

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  Le Relais Sainte Anne

  There are few things that I can imagine would be more wonderful than arriving for déjeuner when the entry is outside a high stone wall, so high that it is impossible to peep over. The moss-covered walls encircle an old convent, that in its most recent history – the start of the nineteenth century, was a school for girls. Now, in its latest incarnation, it is one of the most prestigious restaurants and hotels in Martel.