After John’s visit, we went to La Rochelle to stay with Martine for a few days at her holiday house. The invitation seemed like too good an opportunity to turn down seeing another part of France we had not been to before. Or were we still avoiding the inevitable reality of renovating? On the way to drop John off at the station, we stopped quickly at a discount whitegoods shop, as indeed you do when you are heading to the coast to extend your holiday. Within a mere half an hour, we rapidly chose a fridge and washing machine and arranged for them to be delivered when we arrived in Cuzance. True to form, even in a foreign country in a foreign language, Stuart bargained for these two items. This was even more astonishing as it was already Solde season!
The département Charente-Maritime, where Martine’s house is, was like being in a different country. The countryside was very flat, there weren’t many trees, it was far more dry and sun-baked, and the architecture was very different. There seemed to be more homes that were new and rendered rather than the golden stone we had grown to love. Somehow, the experience of being in a part of France that we did not fall in love with, as we had the Dordogne and Lot regions the previous year, meant that we were well and truly ready to start renovating.
On the way to Cuzance to finally stay in our petite maison, we went on the first of two French IKEA trips, the first in Bordeaux. This trip was to get lots of household goods like linen, towels, glasses, cutlery and a dinner set. On many other long road trips we had been caught without any food and nowhere to stop on the motorways when we needed to have lunch. Ironically, this time, when we had made baguettes for a picnic lunch, we discovered that IKEA has sensational lunches, complete with plat du jour and wine. After a few exhausting and expensive hours, we ended up eating our baguettes sitting on the trolley in the car park, which we thought was fairly sad for France! Our next IKEA trip we took full advantage of the cafeteria — we actually thought that being able to have a glass of wine there was hugely appealing. We later discovered that the motorway service stations also fully cater to travellers and have great food, including, again, plat du jour and wine. All very sophisticated.
Before our first night in our house we stayed in the nearby town of Souillac. It was the last ‘normal’ night for quite a while. On the way to stay in a local hotel, we unloaded all the bags and boxes from our car, ready to start camping in our petite maison the next day. Well, we were moving in, but in every other way in my mind it was just like camping except with four stone walls.
To even start staying in our house, we had to buy everything that is conceivably needed to set up a house: from tea towels to coffee machine (essential for us), to bed and broom. So, the next day, we embarked on yet another of many shopping expeditions and the first day of many, many lists. It became the holiday of lists. What to buy virtually every day at the supermarché and bricolage, to the allocated list of tasks for the day and what each of us would be doing. Just like at home, the hardware store became Stuart’s second home. The luxury part of the holiday was well and truly over. The working part of the holiday had started in earnest.
Day one at our house. We left the hotel and headed back to the whitegoods shop. As I said, throughout June it is Solde season everywhere and, as the prices were so reasonable, we thought we may as well get everything we would ever need. Our rationale was that we were going to need it all eventually so why not just buy it all at once? So, this trip: vacuum cleaner, TV, dishwasher, range hood and even a hair dryer. It seemed like we thought euros were Monopoly money.
Now, despite setting up a French account before leaving, there was a daily limit on the card, which we hadn’t been aware of. At just before 11.50, Stuart went to pay for all our purchases on the card and it was declined. The owner suggested going to the bank to get the difference. Now, keep in mind that in France absolutely everything (except restaurants) shuts for the two-hour lunch break, so we ran madly down the road to the bank. The first bank we came across wasn’t ours, so we kept frantically running. I yelled at Stuart to run and told him I’d catch up, as he could run faster. If we didn’t get there just before twelve, we’d have to wait around for two hours — and we had a huge list of things to do, not least of all buying an air mattress so we had something to sleep on that night.
We finally flung ourselves, panting, into the bank at five minutes to midday, gasped our request to the ever-immaculate single teller and showed her our whitegoods receipt. Stuart couldn’t withdraw cash from the machine, either, as we were over our daily limit. The bank manager, who only had a few words of English — and, keep in mind, her sacrosanct lunch break was about to start — rapidly set up a special one-day-only account and in just a few minutes we had a huge stack of cash. We resumed madly running back down the street to pay for all our whitegoods. It was now 12.10: well and truly the French lunch hour. The shop owner had all his shutters down and was waiting impatiently. Stuart rapidly counted all the money out and we too sought somewhere for lunch (and to recover).
The speed at which we were accomplishing things never fully registered for me, because it was always time to move on to the next item on the daily list. Oh, the lists. Our lives seemed to be consumed by them.
Thank goodness for the civilised French lunch hour (or two) that gave us time to catch our breath in the heat of the searing summer’s day. It was always such a luxury to have a glass of rosé and linger for a while over a delicious steak and pommes frites while also recovering from once again spending so much money! Next on the agenda were two bricolage trips — not my favourite places, even in France — and the buying started again. Stepladder, paintbrushes, tools, paint, all chosen quite at random (bearing in mind that we had just painted in Australia and bought five samples of white to choose the right tone). Very fortunately, the white turned out to be perfect. Everything was harder because, of course, all the labels were in French. As always, I used a lot of miming to indicate what we needed, including that the walls had to be cleaned before painting. Equipped with the French equivalent of sugar soap, once again my sense of the dramatic seemed to do the trick.
Two bricolages later and it was the supermarché for essential supplies and an air mattress for the next few nights. The first purchases of bread, ham and cheese — prosaic words that set the tastebuds fluttering when recited in French: pain, jambon and fromage. We finally staggered into our house for our first night at five o’clock. By then it was about thirty-six degrees. Instead of simply relaxing with a beer after the long, exhausting and eventful day, we had to start cleaning — the house has been empty for a long time. Stuart tackled the bathroom and toilet, which I was extremely grateful for. It would be a long, long time before I got used to the French style of toilette. Meanwhile, in the searing heat at the end of a shattering day, I madly vacuumed, sucking up strands of cobwebs.
It was the time of day when the French had wound down and were wending their way down the lanes to their maisons and apéritifs. Yet the first sign of the morning’s horror was already evident as there seemed to be rather a lot of traffic for the early evening and impending sacred dinner hour.
After a hasty breakfast in our new home that seemed more like a camping expedition, I launched into all the work. First, I ripped down the ugly wooden fence on the front porch that served no purpose at all, and swept up all the piles of dead winter leaves. The abundance of dead leaves and weeds growing in the cracks in the stone steps leading to the front door all added to the air of neglect. An immediate improvement. Now, we weren’t novices at renovating. We had ten years of renovating and a few other houses under our belt, and were actually very pleased with our organisation and preparation. We had all the tools and bricolage purchases on hand to get underway on the very first day. That seemed quite impressive in itself to achieve at home, let alone in a foreign country.
We decide to start with the bedroom, so we could have a restful space to collapse in every night and shut the door literally on the dust and mess and reality of renovating. Keeping in mind that we simply didn’t have the luxury of much time at all, in fact a mere three weeks, we decide to take a short cut. After all, we had painted over wallpaper in our terrace house in Newtown and it was a huge success. No-one could even tell there was wallpaper under