Three months of entertaining friends and family then before you know it, it’s September. Normally, I’d be back running up the hills with Arry, Alice and Sherman but the weather has yet to realise we are slipping into Autumn. On the one hand, I am grateful not to have had to pull out anything but bikinis and shorts from my wardrobe but on the the other, the garden is struggling to survive with only the occasional downpour.
Louis, my nephew is still here as is my younger brother Moth. Both have been hard at work finishing bits and pieces in the main house so the air has been filled with the constant sounds of saws and sanders. After taking apart the somewhat dangerous staircase that led up to the second floor of our outside lounge area, Louis corralled me into retrieving the wooden one from the smaller of the two houses at L’Horte. Both houses are now boarded up at our former residence but this didn’t seem to phase my darling nephew at all so we packed up my car with various tools with which one could break into a building with and drove over. On arrival, the doors proved a no go as the powers that be had installed new locks but on closer inspection I noticed that one of the upstairs windows was missing its middle – the glass that is and the shutters were only partially closed. Before I knew it, Louis was scaling the wall like Spiderman and with a little help from his aunt’s shoulder, slipped through the open portal and opened the side door from the inside. An hour later and my car packed with bits of staircase, the largest piece of which was tied to the roof with the old washing line, we made our way back to Rouffiac giggling nervously at the prospect of being stopped by the police and having to explain our acquisition.
Whilst that trip to the old homestead was all about sneaking around, a previous one earlier in the week was all about laying Gunner to rest next to Pop and the other two Shepherds; Chrissie and Macgyver. His ashes are now surrounding his master marked with a headstone (okay, I carved his name into a paving slab). I have to say that the above remains of such a special dog had been in a rather swish container complete with paw prints etched on the top. I thought it’d make a nice biscuit tin but Mumo says that’s a bit off-colour.
Since the météo declared storms on Friday, the Bistrot night was cancelled. Sort of. In one of my more brilliant mindsets, I called Denis and before you could say fête, my terrace was over-flowing with fresh oysters, pizza, bottles of wine and friends. I might have been the hostess that night but really Rouffiac was. I wish I had remembered to toast everyone that night as it marked two years since we moved into here. Then, I knew no-one and spoke very little French but was welcomed nonetheless and now, surrounded by friends both native and not, I’m chatting away in two languages. In 24 months, I have helped build a 12 metre swimming pool, re-designed the acres of garden, shifted rocks and endless tonnes of gravel, painted walls, pulled down walls, sanded beams, become at one with a chainsaw and even changed a toilet seat but most of all, I have found a place I can call home. Bienvenue chez moi……….
“No matter how hard the past is, you can always begin again” (Buddha)
Widow plus woofs 