Tales of France... with Sharon Newton
Bonjour! Alors the rusty key in hand I opened the front door hanging on a single hinge and stepped into the kitchen. I was so very excited! Did it matter that the handle came off in my hand, dead mice carcasses strewn the rotted wooden floor, cobwebs housed an array of 8 legged friends and water was dripping from the ceiling? Not one bit. This was all part of the dream. The main body of the house was strong, built of traditional stonework known as pierre (see insert), A-frame and roof joists of solid oak and having been in situ for some two hundred years were unlikely to cause me any problems even if the tiles all needed replacing. Window frames would all need replacing too, there wasn’t a bathroom or toilet and the oak staircase had started to drop into the cellar. All this aside I sat on a dusty old chair and popped the champagne! Where was I to start? One quartile was the ‘home’ whilst the other three quartiles would have housed the animals. This was common in the countryside as the animals would also heat the home. The house part was one up, one down, what would have been the parents bed under the stairs in one corner of the kitchen, the upstairs room had a double bed, two cots and a chair. It really was like going back in time although the family who had grown up there are still very much part of the village. This said, the property had been empty for over 30 years and the smell could testify to that!
is close to a déchetterie, what we know as a tip. I lost count of the number of trips after about 50! The smell was acrid! Eggs which would have been there for years, animal stained straw matted if now dry, jar after jar of French beans swimming in brown liquid and the poo bucket complete with lid! The challenge was not so much of a mass clear out covered with dirt, dust and goodness knows what else but there wasn’t any running water! Having started the dream in the summer I benefited from long hot days and I would lay the hose under the warming rays such I could hide my modesty in a rear outbuilding whilst I showered off. Basic but a hoot especially after Janneau, who will be mentioned a lot, discovered my outdoor en suite!
House and barn all cleared the real works were to commence! Trouble was, as some of you may know, it is either too hot, too cold, too wet, too dark, too dry or a holiday for French builders! Against my better judgement I Dressed to kill I started to make a plan. First therefore brought over British reinforcements, step to hire a skip and empty the place. Skip? In much to my peril! France, no chance. Rather every village or town à la prochaine…. 16