The pool truly has been in the ‘surreal’ subset of all that had been unfolding. The company had someone available that very afternoon who spoke English and could come to our house to look at the site. By now we had our table from the fabulous Troc in Brive and so Nicolas set up his laptop, inspected the site, did his calculations and, voilà, printed a quote. If we had been so inclined we could have signed there and then. Not quite our style. I must say, though, that our usual considered, meticulous approach seemed to be flying out the window. Perhaps we were starting to live an altogether different life. I didn’t think it was really our style to go ahead and make the momentous decision a mere few months later, either, setting the wheels in motion to actually have a piscine the following year.
What was exceptionally fascinating about the entire process was that there were not any phone calls at all to make the arrangements, very few emails exchanged with the company and, at the end of the process, no emails at all for weeks.
In fact, we were almost entirely in the dark as far as the company, Piscine Ambiance, was concerned — which shows either a huge degree of trust on our behalf, or a staggering degree of naïvety; I’m not quite sure which. Without Jean-Claude, our ‘man on the ground’, we would simply have had no idea at all about what had been happening. So he became our de facto manager (without the pay) and it was simply sheer good luck that he and Françoise returned to Cuzance exactly when our pool started to go in.
Trips to IKEA and the Trocs
Oh, IKEA. We just love IKEA, as do Brigitte and Erick who make regular trips there for their chambre d’hôte. Setting up house of course meant spending bucketloads of euros, but it was so much fun! Another doona cover, throw it in the trolley. Tea towels, towels, kitchen equipment — you name it, we bought it. Yes, the French debit card Stuart had set up had a limit that we exceeded rather considerably. This meant that, in the Bordeaux IKEA on our way back from Martine’s, we were the people holding up the very long queue and attracting the sort of looks you try to avoid, especially in another country. We then had to use our Australian credit card as well, which of course attracted a huge fee.
The Trocs, or second-hand shops, are our idea of heaven, and we were thrilled to find two in nearby Brive. They were full of the most wonderful treasure imaginable: tables, chairs, lights, sofas, dinner sets and artworks. It was in one of them that we found our dining table, complete with two drawers that are used to sweep the bread crumbs into after a meal. There was also a minute scrap of old newspaper; when Jean-Claude examined it, he was able to pronounce that its vintage was around the Second World War.
We had both read The Caves of Perigord by Martin Walker before our trip, and it added another layer of insight into the area surrounding Cuzance and the history that resonates in the French countryside. The nearby village of Cressensac was on the route of the German soldiers marching to Paris. Now, whenever we whiz along in our Renault, I imagine the drumming of soldiers’ feet and the fear in the hearts of the villagers.
We also found a magnificent table and lots of other treasure, such as the soufflet (bellows) that Stuart, with his great eye for ‘transforming’ pieces, thought would be a brilliant coffee table for the barn one day. On another trip, we stumbled across the absolutely perfect table and sideboard for the barn. While new, they look old and are made of oak and modelled on the style used in monasteries. While this was almost enough money for a car in itself, we couldn’t resist it. We thought that, when the day came to search for furniture for the barn, it would be our benchmark and we’d never find anything like it again – so, that was our justification.
Another trip to IKEA took place during our three weeks of intensive renovating. It was yet another huge buying spree, but this time with all the measurements for the kitchen we’d chosen. Part of the planning had been to put Post-it notes up on the wall and move them around, trying to get the placement of everything right. Very fortunately, while everything was sitting ready in boxes for his first project the next year, Stuart found time to put one piece together. Just as well, as the top, which the catalogue had clearly stated should be included, was missing. He used all his mobile credit trying to sort it out with IKEA; without success. We then turned to Erick to check when he would be having another IKEA trip. Erick swung into action and went there to buy us the missing piece and made another round trip to deliver it to us — keeping in mind that it was their busy summer season, with numerous bookings and guests. Stuart was prepared to wait until the following year to get the missing piece but I felt that it might go out of stock. Thank goodness for Erick, especially when he made the delivery and also appeared with two cushions for us to use on our stone steps. That transformed our level of comfort to no end.
Days of Renovating
The long days continued but the hard work was immensely rewarding. Stuart’s mornings were usually consumed by bricolage and supermarché trips, to the point that I actually did all the sanding of the beams and window and doorframes. I also rapidly developed new renovating skills, such as stripping paint off wood — very challenging indeed. One of my best memories was a Monday morning when Stuart was out and my first task was to take the wallpaper and plaster down. As I did, I uncovered some beautiful old wooden beams. It was a very exciting moment to carefully peel it all away and bring the old farmhouse back to life. It was also lovely to find out the old owners, who stayed in the house into their eighties, were both very much liked and respected in the village. Perhaps that’s why there was such a warm feeling in the house, and it also felt that the petite maison itself felt happy being brought back to life.
On the last few days of our first trip, we started to frantically tackle the garden. A huge job was wrenching all the ivy and growth off the back of the barn. Meanwhile, I cleared some of the beds and unearthed some struggling little roses behind the barn. No trips to garden centres were needed, though; instant mulch was the hay stored on top of the carport while I just gathered moss-covered old rocks to edge my beds. Much to my horror, I encountered a snake while pruning the wisteria outside the barn. While not venomous, it was still hugely unnerving — especially as I’ve had more than my fair share of ‘close snake’ encounters at home, including in our house! Who else has come home from work to the utter horror of discovering a snake curled up inside a rug? As if that wasn’t terrifying enough, I’m sure that I am the only person in the world to go on holiday and then find, to their utter horror, a snake curled under the rim of the toilet. Mind you, I also gave up the offer of an afternoon relaxing by Jean-Claude and Françoise’s pool to continue my feverish work. And so, on our very last day of frantic activity, a snake to taint our piece of paradise.
The days here are punctuated by the village church bells, marking the rhythm of the day in a markedly different way than at home. The bells start at seven and finish at ten. What is particularly lovely is that there is a longer pealing at midday to signal the downing of tools at the start of the oh-so-very civilised two-hour lunch break. This happens again at five to mark the end of the working day. Or, in our case, a glass of delicious French wine to revive us to continue working. Some nights we laboured so long and hard — and here we were in the land of the most phenomenal food imaginable — that often our evening meal was bread-on-the-run and another glass of rosé. Hard to believe looking back, but so frenetically where we working that