Our House is Certainly Not in Paris (3 page)

Perhaps if Albert does the paving, we can instead work together on our
petite maison
. I don't need to even be there, to have the list ready in my mind, of what still needs to be done in the transformation of Pied de la Croix to completely become a welcoming home, full of charm and ambience. I must remind myself again though, not to be consumed by the thought of lists. However, I do know that the conduit needs fixing in the spare
chambre
as well as requiring new skirting boards. There is still painting to be done and this year – next? – the wall needs to be knocked out from the dark, box-like toilet to open it up into the bathroom and introduce a false element of light. While there is still no window in the bathroom, nevertheless the illusion should work. I have learnt many renovating skills over the years and have surprised myself endlessly by how much I in fact know and how much I can tackle alone. Conduits and putting in skirting boards are not in that category. As my mind ticks over long before our return, I realise that if Stuart's days are consumed by paving, I too will feel compelled to work. What though can I manage this year by myself? Not much it would seem. Ah, the
jardin
. How could I have possibly overlooked my return to that formidable task?

As with our previous discussions the year before related to the car, the
piscine
and the new roof on the barn, the element of utter surrealism adds a strong layer of incredulity that this has become our wonderful other life. I know that I will never, in all the future years to come when we make plans to return to Cuzance, stop being full of a sense of wonder that this now has become our French life. I reflect on the decades and the journey that have brought us to this remarkable point. The early days of marriage when we packed our sandwiches for a rare day out as we couldn't afford to buy lunch.

Our first year together in Canberra, when Stuart's only income was our weekly market stall at Gorman House. We sold kilim cushion covers that we had shipped back from Turkey when we lived there, met and got married. I still remember the penetrating cold of those early winter mornings; your breath itself fog in the air as we scraped the ice from the windscreen to set off in the enveloping darkness to the markets. How we stamped our numb feet and rubbed our hands to try to warm up as we waited for a sale, that sometimes, never came all day.

Meanwhile, like the last few summers, we start emailing Stuart's brother John and our friend Liz in Wales, to take our ‘bookings' for their arrival in Cuzance. I email Liz and say:

My thoughts when I am dreaming, often turn to you and hopefully, time together under the walnut tree when the days are warm and balmy. Books in hand, the piscine will tempt us to cast them aside for a while, then a rosé or two, followed by one of your beautiful meals when you do spoil us so. I do look forward very much to your pears in red wine and this year, I will not work or renovate your room when you are there!

We will have outings, we will buy perfume in the chemist in Martel, we will linger over our choices in the patisserie, we will explore Isabella's petite shop, and – we have an enchanting restaurant already lined up to take you to!

So, are you dreaming too during your wild, wet days in Wales?

In reply, Liz says:

My dear Susan,

How lovely. I now have all those images in my head and time won't go quickly enough!

I don't know if we will manage the pears because I'm coming earlier in the season and they may not be ripe on your orchard trees. However, I'm sure I'll manage some other delights.

I love cooking in your kitchen in France, it's such a social place to be. Shopping, cooking, relaxing, swimming, the possibility of the odd brocante... and I'll only have a few days to squash these heady pursuits into. I'm so looking forward to it.

After just a few years, life in Cuzance is taking on a steady and comforting rhythm.

How would we manage without the internet? It is not possible to imagine all that we have achieved without instant access to information, sometimes information that throws us into a spin. Not only did we buy a car by email, install a pool by email, and organise a new gardener by email, we also had to shoot emails back and forth rapidly in a frantic effort to save our
piscine
in the big freeze. While at home, most of the state was experiencing severe floods, the European winter was one of the worst in memory.

Life at home was constantly awash in a never-ending torrent of rain that consumed our lives and conversation. Deep, deep snow and treacherous ice however, was not on our personal weather radar.

Meanwhile, throughout the year, every few days Stuart logged on to check the weather in France. This was mainly out of simple curiosity to see how the seasons were unfolding on the other side of the world, especially in our own special little place, Cuzance. It was primarily so he could announce to me the extremes of temperature and we would marvel from afar at the depths to which the temperature frequently plummeted. That is, until the winter of the big freeze; suddenly, sheer curiosity turned to extreme consternation. The temperature became an entirely different matter; it became personal – it was an inconceivable minus eighteen in Cuzance. The
piscine
was in peril.

Stuart sent an email to Piscine Ambiance. We needed to know urgently if our pool was at risk, not simply of freezing but if the pump was adequate, if it was likely to break down and if the new pool was likely to crack... As the previous summer had been mostly cool and damp, we had literally only used
la piscine
on a couple of occasions. It was not worth thinking about the possibility of our pool, sitting all alone in an empty orchard, possibly near the end of its days – frozen, broken, cracked and spilling a river of water across our
rustique jardin
. So now we had to call Piscine Ambiance as well, organising the time by email to ensure we were able to speak to someone in the office.

This time it was not the president or Yannick or Nicholas, as in all our previous email communication the year before. It was a new young English girl, Hannah. She calmly confirmed that yes, indeed it was imperative to send a technician immediately.

Naturally the night that the call is arranged for, Stuart is out playing bridge. He assures me it will be a straightforward matter. Naturally it's not. Hannah asks me a series of questions about the pump, the switch and the mechanism's operation. I vaguely recall that Stuart has told me the switch is set to go on for two hours a day. I frantically scribble notes and questions to leave for Stuart when he gets in late at night after bridge. At midnight, he too has to call Hannah to sort out the complexities of the long distance
piscine
. Now why doesn't that surprise me that he has to step in after all to sort it out?

The next morning before work, I hastily check with him what's happening to save
la piscine
.

He fills me in and lets me know that a technician will go to Cuzance as soon as possible – snow and ice permitting – to check on the pool and the switch. I hesitate to ask how much this will cost. The
euro
conversion takes a while for me to calculate. Once I manage to do so, it's not an attractive calculation, especially first thing in the morning. It is now that I raise the question – somewhat hesitantly – of why the technician who came on site to brief Stuart on the complexities of operating and maintaining a pool – especially long distance – hadn't raised this critical point. As it transpires, he most certainly did.

However, and yes, I can understand this, it was on one of the few significantly hot days the previous summer that the technician came to discuss
la piscine's
maintenance and operation. Yes, the issue of extremes in temperature had been discussed, including the possibility of snow and ice. On a blazing hot summer's day, such a thought however, was inconceivable. Stuart chose not to have the switch installed that would prevent
la piscine
being in peril. And so, the technician ventured out on the icy perilous roads to save
la piscine
. As for the water pipes in the
petite maison
, on our return, we knew that would be another matter entirely.

When the whales return each June, swimming north to warmer waters, it signals our return to France. The first winter moon is always spectacular. It shines in a bright river of light across the ocean. As the darkness of winter creeps in ever earlier, the silver path of the moon is in a straight line to our kitchen bench. I gaze out at it as I stand preparing dinner. The next full moon I see, peeps instead in a bright yellow orb, inside our Cuzance bedroom window, late at night.

Winter seems far away once we arrive in Cuzance. Yet I know winters were a harsh time in days gone by in Pied de la Croix. I know this from the newspaper tightly packed into every single crevice of the old farmhouse. It lined each step of the stairs up to the attic and the gap between each outside door and the floorboards. One day, as I am tearing out this tangible sign of the bitter cold seeping in, Jean-Claude tells me about Madame de la Croix's attempts to stave off the icy fingers of winter. He kneels down and shows me how the old oak wood is exceptionally smooth and shiny in some places.

Those gleaming spots are near cracks that are wider than others in the floorboards. Why do you think that is Jean-Claude asks me? He likes to test my knowledge. I tell him I have absolutely no idea and couldn't possibly hazard a guess.

When he reveals the reason, to say I am astonished is a huge understatement.

Apparently, Madame de la Croix, used to roll up small pieces of stale
pain
and then stuff the bread in the cracks to fill them up. The romanticism of days long gone dims with such tales that betray the ferocity of winter and a life lived on the land. I now have two summers, two rhythms and two lives. Yet the spirit of Madame de la Croix lives on in the dusty corners of our rooms.

Actually, while it seems far from Paris, in reality our
petite maison
is just a swift four-hour train trip on the TGV from Brive-la-Gaillarde to Gare d'Austerlitz. However, while in Cuzance, being in our
petite
village in the Lot, it is like being buried deep in the country. Rabbits bounce along the road right outside Pied de la Croix and squirrels scamper over the moss-covered stone wall opposite the French doors in our kitchen.

While the alluring streets of Paris beckon brightly, it's just the way we like it. There is an encompassing sense of being far away from the world. Our friends find it even more so when they arrive to stay and to their dismay, they discover there is not even a
boulangerie
. They try to hide their disappointment, for after all, is not a
boulangerie
the quintessential essence of life in a
petite
village in France? On the eve of our annual departure to our
petite maison
, the enquiry from friends and colleagues is always, ‘When are you going to Paris?' It seems that Paris is synonymous with going to France. We gloss over the fact that most times we simply land at Charles de Gaulle and the most we see of Paris is the metro.

While we no longer have a desire to be tourists in the other famous cities of the world, the romance and beauty of Paris will never lose its captivating charm. Yet given the choice of a Parisian apartment, or our old farmhouse, there is no question in my mind that I would choose Cuzance any day.

Apart from this year when we had a morning in Paris before catching the train, on the last leg of our journey from the other side of the world to Cuzance, we have not spent any time in Paris for five years. However, Paris will always be a city that has captured our hearts in a way that no other has.

Our other life in France, becomes even more astonishing when we start to discuss the details of how we can also spend a few days in Paris this summer. We can leave our Renault at the station and
voila
, arrive in Paris for
déjeuner.
When we had stayed in the Melia Colbert Boutique Hotel, five years previously, after I won a trip to Paris and five nights in luxury, we had discovered a small hotel round the corner that we liked the look of for future Parisian sojourns. Rather than search through my diary to unearth the name, Stuart goes on Google street view and indeed, just round the corner from the Melia Colbert, he finds the small, authentic Les Degres De Notre Dame Hotel. A virtual walk along the street shows a number of charming bistros and the comments posted for the hotel make it all the more enticing. Such is the immediacy of the internet, that from the reviews posted, we are able to even decide that Room 51 will be ours if it is available. It has a sweeping view of the Notre Dame Cathedral. As always, my mind works overtime, and my bag is packed for what I will wear in Paris. While in fact these plans do not eventuate, part of the joy is all in the dreaming, and, the plan will be in place for another year. Once again we are mindful of how privileged we are to know that we will indeed return. A night in Paris on our return leg home, will actually be imperative in the future, indeed, more than a mere luxury, to avoid the mayhem that ensues on this return trip and our almost doomed departure...

The very phrase, ‘A morning in Paris', conjures up so many images and expectations. I was conscious long before our precious morning, that we would have to carefully watch the time – or once, again there would be a recurring theme and we may well see a train slipping away right in front of our eyes. On our first trip to Paris, one of the very first things I learnt, was that the last day of June is the start of
solde
season. Tempting as it is to be in Paris, the very morning the sales start, I promise Stuart not to be sidetracked and slip into any sales – just ‘for a few minutes'. He tells me that I can always meet him at Gare d'Austerlitz if I want to shop while he wanders the streets of Paris, soaking up the atmosphere in a few short hours.