It has been a busy week here at Rouffiac. With temperatures climbing and blue skies reaching the horizon, the place has been full of builders, metalworkers and the ever present Denis. The new outdoor staircase is almost completed and the big house now has stunning tiled floors. Pauline, the diminutive specialist ‘wall finisher’ (to difficult to translate from French) is painstakingly covering the kitchen walls with combinations of chalk, hemp, sand and clay to allow the stone underneath to breathe. Everything is done by hand, I feel rather inadequate watching her work. I have however been tasked with sanding the new timber floorboards, my small contribution to the cause. Arry of course, has been extremely helpful by dropping his favourite rocks under everyone’s feet.

I got the chance this week to take a trip down towards Montpelier, an area of France I haven’t seen before. The scenery through the Corbieres was breathtaking and I even got a glimpse of the sea in Narbonne. Now that we are back in lockdown, it will be a while before I can do another road trip. Still, we are lucky to be in Aude, cases are lower here and both Carcassonne and Limoux are within the permitted 10km area. I’m still on the waiting list at the doctor’s surgery but at least Mumo finally got her jab yesterday. We did have a mild scare when one of our top builders had a call to say he needed to collect his son from school immediately as a teacher had tested positive, mercifully both Alain and child tested negative. With most of the team here being local, everyone breathed a sigh of relief.

Next week I hope to see the potager start taking shape. My brother, Moth, keeps poaching Denis – he is useful for all sorts of jobs about the place. However we do need the veggie plot in place before we can start on the pool, there is only so much space for earth to go. After a sensible discussion on the phone, my siblings and I concluded that we need a much larger pool than the one I originally marked out. My measurements would have meant anyone diving into the pool would have bumped their head at the other end after a single stroke. Maths has never been my strong point. Denis is worried that there might be a water source under the back garden, since both our immediate neighbours have pools I’m not worried but as always, Denis knows someone who can check such things. I don’t think there is a single tradesman within the 10km range that Denis can’t reach on his phone.

Despite the newly-imposed restrictions and snail-paced vaccine rollouts, life here is still magical. Waking up every morning to see new flora and fauna breaking out into the Spring sunshine can never be replicated. Even the ungodly hour that the work starts in the main house is not going to dampen my spirits. Lockdown life isn’t that bad down here in my little slice of paradise lost…….

“Where flowers bloom so does hope” (Lady Bird Johnson)

One of the lucky things about going to the vet here in Aude is that we can go in with our pets, some being more unusual than one would see in London. A recent visit (all will be revealed soon) bought a tinge of tears and a giggle, you see all sorts at a rural practice. As I parked up, I noticed one of the vets attending to a client in the back of their car and conversing quietly with the owner. The man was sobbing and wiping his face, my heart went out to him. All you want to do is go and comfort someone and you can’t, you have to just walk by and pretend you haven’t seen it all. I went and sat down in the surgery with our Alice to wait our turn feeling rotten instead. That was until a couple came in with a chicken in a box and sat down in the ‘cat’ section, a little ironic I thought. The vet duly called ‘le poulet‘ family and they trotted off into a consulting room only to come out 10 minutes later without it, laughing and chatting with the nurses. What happened to the chicken? My mind wandered through various possibilities. Had it gone in for surgery and if so, what kind of surgery would a chicken need? Was it a gift for the hard-working team – a nice Sunday lunch? Did they find it on the road and given it in for a rescue centre? I couldn’t hear the conversation but it must have been a happier outcome than for the poor man in the car.

Vet visits aside, the dogs are soaking up the sun now that Spring has really sprung here. The temperature gauge is creeping up into the 20’s and prone pooches decorate the garden and flowerbeds. Having my incredible verandah facing East and means I get the sun pretty much all day and the light streams into the lounge. The older dogs are warmed by the rays whilst they spread themselves across the sofas, the tile floors offering a cooler alternative when a canine needs to chill. The new balustrade is still waiting to be assembled but I’m hoping that will be sorted tomorrow. With pool design under discussion and the digger booked in, it won’t be long before we move such activities to there. Exciting times on the horizon.

With work still ongoing in the main house, the other two family dogs Sappy and Gunner have to have their meals up here. Mumo finds the feeding of my lot fascinating, she only has to feed two. Mine have a certain routine when it comes to mealtimes, mostly involving high-pitched yaps from Evee and painful whining from Yogi until the bowls go down. Since all but Gizmo are fed in slow feeders, I have a strict order in who gets their munchies first. Arry and Simi are fed outside mainly because I like Arry to feed at table top height and Simi won’t steal his food, then the line goes he/she who eats fastest gets fed last. Sappy and Gunner who are fed after mine, always sit and wait for their food – the pack could learn a thing or two.

It never ceases to amaze me just how quickly the dogs have settled here. Of course, they are spoilt having 2 acres of garden to themselves which is fortunate since they live in a much smaller house. Yet they have moved to a different country (not that they have noticed), relocate several times whilst our place was being renovated and now put up with builders all over the main building. Even Neo has calmed down although a couple of labourers have had narrow escapes and aside from having a shouting match with Mina the next door spaniel over the back fence, they are all a lot quieter in general. And a happy pack makes for a happy mum……

“Yesterday I was a dog. Today I’m a dog. Tomorrow I’ll probably still be a dog. Sigh! There’s so little hope for advancement” (Charles M Schulz)

The ongoing demolition and deconstruction of the main house over the past week has meant that Mumo has had to move in with me. Fortunately little big brother, Moth, has managed to keep Sappy and Gunner on the upper floor out of the way of the builders so I haven’t had to entertain another two dogs – there is only so much floor space here and I knew it would unsettle them even more than the constant drilling. I think Sappy would go to pieces if she had to share space with Arry who she considers an annoyance at the best of times. My woofers however, are delighted with their new guest and all bar a few, decided her bed is more comfortable than mine. Loyalty tested and failed me thinks.

Having just got used to (and enjoying) my own space, I was a little worried at the idea of having someone else share it but truthfully I love having Mumo here. The weather has been cold and windy all week, typical for this time of year here as the tramontane moves through. This is a seasonal wind that passes through the Pyrenees and the Massif Centrale rather noisily. Not exactly good gardening weather so Mumo and I have spent most of the days up-cycling old bits of furniture and talking. We can talk about anything and nothing for hours and yet we are both happy to just be in each others’ company doing our own thing. Neither of us like the cold so a good old gossip is best over a cup of tea indoors. Mumo is one of the few people who knows me better than I know myself most of the time (my bestie Irene is another blessed with such a ‘gift’). As someone who is naturally private about her innermost thoughts and conflicts, it is refreshing to be able to share them with another who not only knows where you are coming from (both of us being widows) but also listens without needing to offer unsolicited advice.

In one of our more recent conversations, we discussed my decision to have my teeth fixed. I have never had great teeth and the last decade or so has had dentists taking more of them out than putting back in and let’s not forget last year’s disaster when I knocked out my front tooth at the beginning of the first lockdown. Despite a desperate visit to the local dental surgery in Streatham just before I left, I managed to dislodge the same one not long after I arrived in France. Thanks to a request on a local Facebook group, I have found a wonderful dentiste in Carcassonne and it was she who suggested I got the whole top row remodelled. Anne is a firm believer that everyone should like their smile and since I have never, I’m going for it. Let’s face it, I have done so many things over the last year that I never thought I would do and each one has given me a little more confidence in myself.

I have much to be thankful for since moving down here. I am fitter than I have ever been in my life and, I think, found a sense of peace living in this little village. I have made new friends and have almost got to grip with the change in language. Of course I still miss my gal pals back in the UK but I know I would never have been happier there than I am here. I didn’t think it was very nice however for the NHS to tease me with a text earlier in the week telling me I could have my jab, especially as the local pharmacy here had just been told to suspend all stabbings until the Bureaucrats in Brussels had changed their minds again. There have been very few cases in this area of Aude so it is difficult to get frustrated by the lack of vaccine here. I am told that they are re-starting in the next couple of weeks so hopefully I can get my name on a list somewhere. It’ll give me something to smile about…..

“A smile is a curve that sets everything straight” (Phylis Diller)

After a week of rest and super-strength antibiotics, my hand is almost back to its usual size and colour and I am back pottering around the garden albeit with rubber gloves and a healthy respect for arachnids. The latter not only because I got bitten but the same thing happened to my dentist and she still bears a scar on her forehead. Such creatures are not to be ignored it seems. Nevertheless, the heart has been lifted with sunny weather and Spring plantings pushing up to the sky.

The peacefulness of such a rural life has been shattered over the last few days by the arrival of the builders. The 8 man team appeared en masse loaded with hammer drills, jack hammers, a couple of trucks and an abundance of expertise. Within a day, most of the ground floor had been stripped bare and piles of concrete were being ferried out in relays to the dechetterie. And they certainly put the hours in; 8 a.m to 6 p.m. with lunch break of course (this is France) every day, any chance of me having a lie-in fading into the dust. The rooms are directly below my bedroom. Despite the dust and demolition, seeing original features being uncovered is quite something. Now that the shoddy plaster and fake ceilings have been removed, stone walls and massive wooden beams finally see the light again – the place will look incredible once it’s finished. We have already had lots of locals pop by to have a peek, village gossip spreads fast.

All the banging and crashing hasn’t bothered the woofers at all, most of them love having the extra attention from the workmen. About half the team are Romanian which I had thought might trigger some interest from Simi, Neo, Mo and Coco but apparently they don’t recognise fellow countryfolk. They do love the lunch leftovers though, I have had to clear up a few piles of vomit this week.

Once again we are the talk of the village and such gossip is not limited to the beaucoup de bruits or septicaemia spider bites either. Denis and I cleared the verge running alongside our front garden, for the first time in its life we are told. I shall take a picture next week when we have planted in a bit of colour. We’ve certainly made our mark on this little bit of French heaven….

“If you would be known, and not know, vegetate in a village; if you would know, and not be known, live in a city.” (Charles Caleb Colton)

If I have learnt anything from the past week, it is to never ignore a rash. What I thought was a simple allergic reaction to a plant turned out to be a spider bite. And a rather nasty one at that. My hand swelled up and red, mottled sores appeared all over the back of it, thankfully more itchy than painful. Denis of course, immediately pointed out the culprit on the wall which he had finished cleaning for me – a brown recluse spider. Tiny little thing but could pack a punch when disturbed. By me. I popped into the local pharmacy where my hand was inspected with expert knowledge, given a load of anti-histamines and told to go to the doctor if it didn’t clear up. It didn’t so the next day I popped in to see Dr Lefvre, a man who has been treating our family for weird ailments for two decades. I walked out 10 minutes later armed with a powerhouse of antibiotics and orders to rest up for a week. Slowly but surely the infection is now receding as is the infernal itch.

Such a rarity has caused quite a stir in the village and with my pustules regularly checked, given rise to many opinions on the seriousness of said bite. Most of them on a scale from dire to practically fatal. My neighbour (Louise the octogenarian) was very concerned having Googled the rash and sagely pronounced I had septicaemia. Not really all that comforting. On the plus side Denis and the rest of our workforce traded stories about various arachnid onslaughts all of which had happy outcomes. Apparently my English skin is a bit soft so I had a reaction to the bite, their skin is too tough and weathered for the little devils. Needless to say I shall restrict my gardening activities to planting as not to upset the ecosystem further.

As per doctor’s orders, I haven’t touched either the garden or the main house which is just as well as we had a surprise land on notre terre yesterday. My younger brother, Moth, has touched down in Rouffiac. Actually we knew it might be a possibility but until he landed at Toulouse Airport having left Nairobi the day before, we weren’t counting on it. Having Moth here is a huge relief for Mumo and I as he can crack on with demolishing the old kitchen and get the builders up and running even if he is in quarantine for a week. And I don’t feel guilty at not being able to get my hands dirty for once. I am however, eager to see what my new superpowers are going to be…..

“Dear little not-so-innocents, beware of Old Grandmother Spider: rump her endearments – She’s not quite as nice as She looks, nor you quite as tough as you think.” (W.H. Auden)

Irritatingly, I managed to injure myself this week. I decided I would help Denis the gardener out and remove all the vegetation and roots around the wall below me so it could be painted. Little did I know that back pain wasn’t going to be the only downside to such an activity, a day later lesions appeared on my right hand and it began to swell. A hungover Denis (he’d been out drinking with the Mayor the night before) gave his less than sober thoughts to my throbbing digits, I had had an allergic reaction to the racines (roots). And a very itchy one too. I dug out various anti-histamine creams, gave the whole thing a good clean and hoped for the best. Naturally, this being my right hand, it wasn’t going to go down without some element of suffering, sleep deprivation topping the list. Since I barely get twenty winks most nights thanks to Evee’s snoring on the pillow next to me, I was beginning to feel somewhat depressed and emotional until a friend suggested I try a poultice. For such an ancient cure for all ills, one must mix white breadcrumbs and milk into a paste and slap it on the sore bits. I had to settle for brown breadcrumbs as we don’t tend to eat the other stuff but I dutifully prepared the gloop, pasted and wrapped everything up in a bandage. It worked! I have no idea why but I woke up to find that the redness had significantly reduced and apart from one finger, the puffiness had disappeared. Considering Alice spent half the night trying to eat my hand, I even managed to get some sleep. I still have bit of the miracle concoction left so I shall reapply later and from now on, garden in Marigolds.

Despite my enforced inactivity, I did manage to fulfil a little dream of mine and bought some citrus trees for my verandah. Set against the newly painted white walls in traditional Grecian urns, they bring a little touch of the Med to the space. I read and YouTubed various articles on these delicate creatures and so crafted a protective frame out of an old futon base to keep them warm at night. And I thought having 9 woofers was a commitment. Still, I look forward to those sultry summer evenings with a nice G&T, decorated with fresh off the bush lemon slices.

Hopefully work will begin on the main house next week so we shall be once again filled with builders and of course, Max the plumber whose work seems never-ending. The driveway is going to need careful management to guide the various vehicles into their parking spaces without using the front lawn as a roundabout. With any luck, the sunny weather will hold and Denis can finally cut the grass and prepare the potager. To add to this flurry of activity, my new balustrade and stairs are being fitted onto the balcony and the lower wall (the one with the evil roots) painted. For once, I shall be supervising in my pink rubber gloves and making coffee, always black I’m told and served in little cups…..

“There are no gardening mistakes, only experiments” (Janet Kilburn Phillips)

Do you ever feel like you’re living in some sort of alternate reality? That the pictures that pop on your memory pages from 2, 3, 4 years ago are so far removed from where you are now?

I was standing on top of a ladder yesterday ripping plaster off a wall when I had the same thoughts. Even a year ago, I would never have seen myself, the girl who adored her false nails and high heels, wearing dust covered work boots and torn jeans overcoming her fear of heights. And whilst I’m loving ‘la vie française‘, my mind sometimes wonders into the what-if dimension. What if I hadn’t put Knollys on the market? What if Tony hadn’t died and we had moved to the Sussex countryside as planned? What if L’Horte hadn’t got flooded? What if my Pop was still alive? What if we hadn’t decided to foster a crazy, rock-obsessed, utterly lovable German Shepherd pup five years ago? Happy Gotcha Day Arry, life without you is impossible to contemplate. The woofers of course don’t do what-ifs, they have settled at Rouffiac as though they had been here all their lives.

We’ve been here six months now and as February and winter drift slowly towards Spring, the trees are beginning to bring a little colour into the garden and the bulbs are pushing upwards through the regenerated ground. My boots and I are as busy as ever, fencing off the new plantings to protect them from trampling paws and my verandah has been painted white to give it that Mediterranean look. There is something about the gradual change of season that brings a little optimism and a sudden need to get everything ready for sunny days ahead. Time for less what-ifs and more what-needs-to-get-dones.

If I had never made the move across the Channel, I don’t suppose I would ever have wanted a swimming pool in the back garden but here it’s pretty much a property priority. At L’Horte, we had the river (well, actually we still do). The kids learnt to swim there and it was always the first place the dogs would run to after the long drive from London. There’s been kayaks, canoes, zip-wires and catastrophes, memories of another time buried in the murky depths. We will always be able to enjoy the cool waters over there but I still think we need a pool at Rouffiac. After all, not every visitor wants to trek through metre high grass in order to share a quiet paddle with a whole lot of woofers. With a clear idea in mind including a fence to keep Arry away from temptation, I am busy ‘interviewing’ prospective ‘piscine‘ people. In my mind this is definitely a what-will-be-will-be, not a what-if……..

“The adventure of life is to learn. The purpose of life is to grow. The nature of life is to change” (William Arthur Ward)

I shall start today’s blog with some sage advice from one who knows. When packing boxes to go from your old life to your new one, be reminded that at some point you are going to unpack all the rubbish you brought with you. Especially when it comes to items that you never used in the twenty plus years you had them or the number of books you didn’t know you had. This also pertains to clothing, video players and music. We find it easy to sell off or donate pieces of furniture that have passed their useful date but somehow we find it difficult to let go of all the other stuff. Just remember everything has to go somewhere when you get to the other side.

Having finished the apartment decor and dressing last week, the Herculean task of sorting out the boxes of ‘stuff’ awaited. I unearthed numerous books I had never read and judging by the subject matter, have no intention of ever reading. Outdated road atlases buried amongst footballer biographies and numerous encyclopaedias were repacked in favour of old classics and childhood favourites. We shall eventually have two libraries here so I can afford to be picky about what my guests here may want to read. Next came all the Cd’s, cassettes and vinyl. Hundreds and hundreds of them. I spent an entire day alphabetising the Cd collection, I lost the will to live when it came to the cassettes. Unlike the books however, these all have memories attached to them. Days of driving my first car around the winding Somerset lanes to Tony weaving his hips to a heavy Ibiza mixtape, the anthems we sang with friends and the beats no party was ever without. There are songs that remind me of lifelong friendships and those that have faded in time.

A friend asked me the other night why I kept so much when it was just as easy to load a song on Apple or Spotify. Like many, I have playlists on the these for running or for the car but there is still something in putting a certain record on the turntable or hearing the cassette click into place in the stereo system (yes I still have a working cassette player!) that makes my heart skip a beat. Books can take you to another realm but music can take you back to another time. Even if you have to wind the tape back in first with a pencil. How many of you remember those days…….?

“Music is the art which is most nigh to tears and memory.”( Oscar Wilde)

The only downside to my petite maison is the stairs leading up to it. Being on the second floor does mean I get a fantastic view of the gardens from the verandahs but moving furniture up to the bedrooms requires brute strength and steel determination. Especially when you decide to do it yourself. I can tell you that bed frames are relatively easy to push up a flight of stairs but mattresses are not. Manoeuvring a drunken elephant would be less trouble.

I think there is a family trait when it comes to finishing what you started even if when you take on more than a human should. Pushing a reluctant double mattress up an incline by yourself is one thing but trying to attach a curtain pole to the wall is another. I have to admit failure here. Trying to balance a six foot metal bar and drill a hole through a brick wall was one bloody finger too much even for my DIY skills. Depressingly, I have to wait for the builders to pop in again.

Still, it’s been an unseasonably warm week with temperatures peaking at 19 degrees so the woofers and I have been making the most of it. The front garden is almost ready for the Spring although the lawn does need a bit of a trim. Having planted, pruned and plucked our way through what was once a neglected landscape, the beauty of what the next few months will bring is beginning to show its face. Looking back on the first photographs taken, Denis and I have certainly put the work in. There is still much to do in the courtyard and the back garden still needs its potager and pool but with the lighter days and a bit of sun, the tasks ahead seem less daunting. We have yet to see any construction start on the main house yet which is frustrating, trying to get a team of builders and electricians to set a date is a skill in itself. Alas, even my do-it-yourself single mindedness cannot extend to ripping up floor tiles and laying cables. I have become quite the paintbrush expert though and I’m very handy with the hammer drill these days. As long as I don’t have to be up a ladder with a six foot curtain pole…..

“I must finish what I started even if inevitably, what I finish turns out to be not what I had began” (Salman Rushdie”

Despite my new relaxed ex-city girl state of mind, there are still a few things in life that can raise my blood pressure especially if they appear before I’ve had my morning coffee. It has become a bit of a running joke between the builders and gardener not to speak to me until I’ve finished my first cup. Even the dogs know not to go into a barking frenzy (we have had one complaint, more of that later) until Mother has had her wake up potion. Annoyingly however, technology does not appear to recognise such needs, choosing instead to send my temper into overdrive before you can say good morning. This week, the rogue vacuum cleaner managed to wrap its mile long cord around the wine rack and pull out a bottle of champagne, emptying the frothy contents all over the kitchen floor. If that wasn’t enough, I then decided that I who know zip about anything technical could fix Mumo’s iPhone. Forgetting your passcode is very common according to Apple but restoring the settings is laborious and fiddly. Hold this button down whilst you plug that bit into the computer but don’t let go until your fingers turn blue kind of experience. I’m sure the reason why your call to such support hubs is answered by a soothing Irishman is to prevent phones from being thrown against walls.

As I mentioned earlier, the dogs managed to upset a neighbour. Apparently their volume control needed a little fine tuning, his wife couldn’t concentrate on her work. Frankly I wasn’t surprised, their barking had been driving me crazy and I live here. Naturally his suggestion that we should buy a few electric collars fell on deaf ears ( I don’t think my answer to that would have helped the situation), instead I decided that a little training refresher wouldn’t go amiss. Alice for one, has a yap which can break windows. Now most of my dogs will turn cartwheels on command for a liver treat, Arry tends to prefer kisses and doesn’t bark that much anyway (hard to do with a rock in your mouth) but Gunner’s reward is chasing Arry. He isn’t the slightest bit bothered by food or toys which is regrettable as the chase involves barking. He isn’t the brightest tool in the box.

The kitchen countertops and closets were finally finished last week. It was a little unfortunate that the two chaps that came only spoke Spanish so my new found grasp of French construction lingo was silenced in favour of much pointing and waving of hands. Halfway through the project, I discovered that the main piece of granite was too heavy to get out of the van – you can imagine the sign language for this, could I help? Luckily my kind-hearted chauffagiste (boiler man) turned up mid-conversation and offered himself up to the cause. I pointed out to Max that neither man spoke French, not a problem apparently. He sauntered genially up to the exhausted pair and said “Hola!”. In no time at all, the granite was hoisted into the kitchen and smiles all round. “Vous prenez un cafe, Max?”, “Oui, merci Sophi”….…………

“Without my morning coffee, I’m just like a dried-up piece of goat” (Johann Sebastian Bach)