Sunday 21 October 2012

The 'before' time: 2006 / 2007


2007

My house search on the Internet was gradually providing us with an idea of the type of property we, in theory, could buy, and I found one which looked as it if might fit. It was old but looked in quite good condition.....

Then on a shopping trip to the local supermarket I bumped into Jeral, a fellow student from the French language course I had been half-heartedly attending. Nearly two hours later we parted company, after an interesting discussion about how he got his home in France by remortgaging his house....methinks I was meant to bump into him because it sparked off an idea that perhaps we could do the same. I don’t know why we had not thought about that previously, but we hadn’t. 

So off home I went to present the idea to Lester, that we could remortgage our house, find a French house, then commute between the two for a year or so while we find our feet out there. 

Then other options presented themselves: sell our present house, I go to France, Lester to stay here and carry on working while I roam France looking at houses to buy. Or sell up here, we both go, we both roam France together househunting. Or remortgage this house and stay here for a while, during which we could both go and look at houses in France on our holidays. 

I wondered which of these options would work out, but not really, after all there were far too many obstacles to negotiate, far too many difficulties.....

But one thing was happening, which was that France was being cemented into our future somehow although I did not know it, and no matter where I looked, the south west region of France always pulled me back, particularly the inland border of Aquitaine, not the coastal region. 

February 2007. 

We thought it would be a good idea to have a look at that area of France to which I kept being drawn, so we booked a holiday for early April. We thought we would find an estate agent and see if they would show us around some houses. Just for curiosity really. See what we were going to get for our money. 

Still looking at houses, but looking forward to a holiday although did not have any expectations in regards to houses. Just going to have a look around, that is what we were going to do, and I had managed to find a camp site an hour's drive away from that area of France, Aquitaine, which was forever pulling me to it. 

I think, in truth, that I thought that by going to that area that somehow the reality of being there would throw cold water on my urge to live there. 


A couple of weeks later, and another weekend spend having a look for possible houses on the Internet had left me saturated with the theoretical house hunt project.  It was now Monday morning and  I needed to do other things on my PC. But no, my best intentions were not to be realised as running straight across my mind came an urge to have another house search, and with this urge came the words, ‘Houses for sale. Gascony.’ 

‘Oh, for crikey’s sake, I thought, ‘Now what’. First Aquitaine, and now Gascony. But I put up a search on Google anyway, knowing full well that if I didn’t then it would just stay on my mind until I did. 

A new estate agent’s web site came up, one that I had not looked at before. It had Gascony as a region to look at. So I did. 

And thwack, the breath was knocked out of me. This is no exaggeration. My heart was pounding, I could not breath, and I felt in a state of shock as I stared fixatedly at the screen, at the second house down on the list, on the one which we were to buy. 

This was the one. 

And it was not quite what I had expected......

It was a ruin, or almost. The roof on one side had collapsed. There were no window frames in the windows. It was covered over with ivy. It was dying. But it had five hectares of land, with a river on one of its boundaries. 

And it was the one. 

I called Lester in to see it. He took one glance at the photos and went straight on to the phone to book an appointment with our mortgage company, something which he would have normally left as a job for me to deal with. Yes, well, we probably wouldn’t get a second mortgage anyway, that is what we thought. It was all theoretical anyway, this going to France. I know I keep saying this, but it was. 

Most surprisingly we were offered a second mortgage, if we wanted it. France, it seemed, was becoming less theoretical. 


This took us in to March, and time to pack for the holiday. 

Off we went, this time travelling across the Channel via Dover to Calais. It was a long drive down. Lester was not happy about travelling such a distance. Typical of most motorways, the countryside did not really seem to change much. I was not particularly happy either. But the house had been found. And do you know where it was? Right on that border of Aquitaine! Yes it was! First the house had jumped off my PC screen at me, then we looked at the photos, then we went into shock about the state of the house, and then I looked at where it was. Aquitaine. On the borders of the Gers and the Haute Pyrenees. This I kept in my head as we took that first long drive down. 

A day or so on the camp site, a bit of a tangle with Estate Agents, (which is a bit complicated to go through here, just to say that we were involved in a squabble between Estate Agents and it was not pleasant), but we did see the house. It was exactly as shown on the photos. Half the roof down, the rest tottering. The interior was jammed full of rubble apart from the room to the left of the hallway, and that was dark and damp, with a small pile of belongings suggesting someone was camping out there. It was beautiful, though. 

Fiona, our Estate Agent lady, tried to get us to buy elsewhere. She could not see why we would want to buy such a place, but it had ‘spoken’ to us, so that was that. This was the one. There was no electricity apart from some bare wires hanging loosely on a side wall of the Tall Barn, there was no running water, apart from a cold water tap by the Front Porch, there was no loo, well actually there was but it was laying on its side in the middle of the rubble in the back of the house, so no facilities did it have. Surprisingly we were not fazed by all of this. This house had told us that we were to be her new owners, and, as I say, that was that. 

Fiona phoned her partner, a builder, and he came and had a look at it. Said that it was do-able. Well he would. He was a scammer, but I shall tell you all about that in a few pages time. 

I saw in my sixtieth birthday parked up in a motorway services area near Calais. I remember jumping out of the cramped space of the campervan, still in my tracksuit pyjamas, feeling excited, very excited, as I trotted off to the loo, but was left with a feeling of great sadness as we boarded the ferry to cross the Channel and left France, not knowing when we would return.

Back home all that changed, because I went into a panic about the state of the house in France. At this advanced age of sixty, did I not deserve proper facilities, like a proper loo and shower, like central heating, like carpets, like hot and cold running water, like a roof, windows, and proper doors. And where would I put my stuff, and where would we sleep. My comfort zone would be shrunk considerably if we went to live in that ruin, indeed, there would not be a comfort zone. For two weeks this panic lasted. Lester was the same, although more concerned about carrying two mortgages. If I had given in to this panic, then we would have shelved the France idea for good.

Ah, but that house had spoken to me. Of all the houses we had looked at, both on the Internet and in France, this was the one which had impacted on us. 

Time was running out on the mortgage offer. To do, or not to do. 

So we did. We signed. We took the leap. 

Tuesday 16 October 2012

The 'before' time: 2005 / 2006


When one has been away on holiday, after the first flush of enthusiasm about being back home again, there will often follow a sense of anti climax. This we had. It made us restless and dissatisfied with our lives. We started talking about moving to France, but made ourselves feel even worse because there was no way we were ever going to be able to do so. And, anyway, what we would do there. How would we earn enough money to live on. What about the language..... 

So we shoved the idea away. It was no do-able. 

And then I started browsing the Internet, just to have a look to see what properties were available. It was a most enjoyable pastime, but theoretical because we could not afford to move. But a seed had been planted. 

Over the following months, and after many discussions, thoughts started evolving about maybe running a smallholding. Lester held the line that we would need to have land which had running water on it, like a river or a stream, and that it must be flat so it would be easy to farm. He started talking about wanting to keep animals, like pigs, chickens, sheep, and goats. I was keener to do veggies. I felt very squeamish about providing our own meat. It meant deceasing an animal. Cutting it up. It seemed a messy business. I therefore felt no keenness to have animals, no desire to be involved in the recycling of them, but I went along with Lester’s enthusiasm, and just agreed when he spoke about how what types of animals we should keep: Tamworths, for instance, were to be the breed of pig we would have. ‘Pigs? You must be joking’, I thought. Chickens, maybe. Bees, definitely. But pigs? That was pushing imagination too far. 

Time plodded on.


2006

I found chateaux, lots of them. Big, glorious,.....and expensive. And I found myself talking about maybe running a place of rest and recuperation for people, a place where a person could get off the merry-go-round of their life for a few days. They could join in the running of the farm if they wanted to, or they could rest, it was their decision as to how they wanted to spend their time. Splendid daydreams, but dangerous to our everyday lives, because the restlessness kept on growing. We found ourselves irritable with each other, we argued, then came together for peaceful pow wows about what we would do when we moved to France. 

The months were rolling on. Everything was still the same as it was before France, only we were not the same. 

I started becoming addicted to Internet searching, and stretched out my search for possible homes to embrace the world. For a while America captivated us, then South Africa became a passing focus followed by brief thoughts about New Zealand. Even the north of England, Northumberland perhaps, was thought about. But always, always, it was to France that we returned. 

So where in France... it is a big country with plenty of choices. I began to understand the different regions of France. Perhaps the north coast of France would be best, our thinking being that it would be easy to travel to and fro between the UK and France, and easy for people to visit us as well. Perhaps the middle of France, where we had friends who could look after us as we adjusted to French living. Of course, this was all still theoretical. We had a high mortgage, some collateral but not much, and some savings because Lester was insistent that we should not spend money on the current house, but should save money just in case he was made unemployed. The mortgage was like a noose around his neck, and his fear of having to find the money to pay those monthly payments was a raw and constant worry with him. So money was building up in savings because of Lester’s worry about our finances. This frustrated me because I wanted things done to the house. We argued a lot about this. I wanted to spend the money on the house because I was feeling restless and unsettled so thought making the house more comfortable would solve these feelings, and Lester was worried about paying the bills and wanted a cushion against falling into debt, and so he forced us to save. 

Still I continued to fuel my addiction about searching for a theoretical new home in France. I had a look round all of France, but the area I was always drawn back to was the inland border of Aquitaine. But it was theoretical anyway, it passed the time, but that seed had started to grow roots although we didn’t know it as yet. 

Another addiction, apart from eating, mostly junk food, chocolate, which is what both of us do when under stress, but I suppose it is better than other addictive behaviours like getting frequently drunk for instance, well that other addiction which arrived was the hours I began watching the ‘Moving to France’, ‘Living in the Sun’ and ‘Starting a New Life’ programmes on TV. But here’s a curious thing. Although I watched many of these type of programmes, of which there were several during the day, I never became caught up in the sales spiel of them. What I mean is, that I never put myself in the shoes of the people whose lives were being filmed. I always saw through the story that was laid down by the film makers, never wanting what we saw on the television for ourselves, realising that it was false reporting most times, the programme makers having a need to fill air time. 

But did we have a ‘dream’ about going to France? I don’t think so, because the ‘dream’ would have started before we had that holiday. Most times we didn’t think that we would be able to go. Really, I suppose, during this time the France Project was more a case of, ‘If we could go where would we go. If we did go, what would we do.’ And although we were restless we didn’t wish that we were there already because we didn’t think we would ever go in the first place, but there is nothing wrong with hoping, so to contribute towards the France Project I enrolled us in an Adult Education French language course and bought some French language books. 

We really did try to learn French but could not maintain the enthusiasm to do so, maybe because, as I keep saying, we never thought we would go anyway. As for the French classes, we drifted away from them during the second term, me because I felt silly speaking foreign words out loud, and Lester because he had heavy pressures at work. The books challenged me because I could not keep the words in my head, and I became very good at avoidance tactics whenever I went near them. Lester did not have time to read them anyway. 

This twinning of lives, of feeling the pull of France despite trying to unhinge ourselves from that land, meanwhile continuing on with our life as we knew it, sapped us, making life itself seem an uphill struggle and hardly worth living. Stress built, and kept on building. 

And one question bugged me the most: How on earth could I be homesick for a foreign land. This did not make sense to me, and endlessly I fought hard to keep happy with being a UK citizen. It was not so bad for Lester, although he had other worries, but at least he was being kept busy at work which made the time pass quicker for him. I think, in hindsight, that I probably almost drove him nuts with my constant hunt for houses though. It was driving me nuts as well. 

Thursday 11 October 2012

The 'before' time: 2004 / 2005

Once upon a time I was a resident in the UK. Having spent all of my life in my original homeland, never for one minute did I think, nor yet want, to move anywhere except within the UK borders. I am not a travelled person, just a few foreign holidays to the usual places. Lester is more travelled, being born in South Africa, but he, too, does not have a thirst to travel. It was all I could to get him to go on camping holidays two or three times a year, even then he was keen to get back home, back to his computer, back to his own bed, back to his home comforts. 

And then, in 2004, a bubble of an idea began floating into my mind, and that was to have a trip to France in our campervan. It was a surprise, this idea, and bothered me mostly because I was worried about venturing forth from a country which I knew well into a country I didn’t. Driving, for instance, wasn’t that on the wrong side of the road. And what about the language. I did have schoolgirl French but it was minimal, not exam standard, just some basic words, some verbs, nothing else, and certainly no conversational skills. 

So I pushed the idea away, considering it too complicated and potentially terrifying a holiday to have. 

It wouldn’t let me go. For a while the idea remained dormant, and then it would bounce back into my head again, surprising me because it was so unexpected and making me increasingly interested in undertaking such a venture such that I started thinking that perhaps a little drive along the north coast of France might not be such a terrifying ordeal to go through. But I didn’t do anything about it. I didn’t look at maps or make specific plans. I did, however, get Boolie, our Springer Spaniel, passported so he could travel abroad with us. Nothing else did I do in regards to France. Nope. It was not to be. Too much effort required just to go on holiday.

So we continued holidaying in the UK, travelling to North Wales, Derbyshire,  and Somerset, while I, determinedly, kept trying to put the France idea into deep freeze. 
Now it was 2005, and I finally stopped fighting with the France idea and booked a holiday there, but not to the original plan of the north coast, no, for some reason, and I know not why, I booked us in at a camp site further down, in the Tours area of France, travelling via the Southampton to Le Havre ferry which was a longer Channel crossing but it meant less driving in France. 

We started the holiday as two people who were not looking for change, did not have dreams about moving even in England, did not have any thoughts about doing anything else other than continuing along the same tracks when the holiday was done. But France hit us straight in the face. It was so different to the UK. Of endless empty roads, of a country so big that it took hours to get even half way down to our holiday destination, of dilapidated old houses, of no road side pubs,  and lots of other things as well. But it was not any of this. It was the fact that France hit us in the heart as well. I cannot explain this to you. It was not that we thought we would like to live in France. As I say, it was that France pushed itself into our hearts, not that we had the thought that we might move there. Oh no, not that. Just that France wiggled her way into our future. Of course we didn’t know this. And if you had said that we would eventually come to live here I would have laughed my head off at such a suggestion. 

........ in the middle of the night during the holiday, ..... needed the loo urgently, ..... had to get to the camp site loos across the field, ..... it was dark, no stars out, ...... busy shining the torch to see where the numerous pot holes were, ...... didn’t want to trip over, ...... thought drifted into my head, ..... ‘I wonder where we might live here’, ....... arriving straight back came, .... ‘Aquitaine’...... oh so where the hell was that, I thought, as I did the necessaries and headed back to the campervan, and anyway, what nonsense, there couldn’t be any town or region of that name in France because it was an old and ancient name, wasn’t it? Ah, but it wasn’t. A map search the next day showed Aquitaine to be a region down in the South West of France, and a long way down it was too, being almost on the borders of Spain. Far too far to even go on a holiday, let alone live there. Anyway, we weren’t going to move anywhere, let alone to France, let alone down to the lower regions of that country.

And so the holiday became finished. The idea of visiting France had been accomplished. Back to the known reality of our UK lifestyle we headed. Getting on to the ferry to head homeward, looking forward to living in a house again rather than the cramped environments of the tent and campervan, and so why did I feel homesick as soon we drove on to the ramp of the ferry. Why did I feel a wrench in my heart.  How could this be, when I was travelling to my home, and yet it was feeling as I was leaving my home. 
Strange that. Still don’t know why this was. Perhaps it was the future beckoning us, perhaps that was it. Lester, in his way, felt the same. 

I had followed through with that idea about coming to France, which wouldn’t let me push it away no matter how I tried, and our perspectives on life had been changed forever. Now it was only a matter of time before France saw us again.

Monday 8 October 2012

June 2008. Day One (3)


Mid day: Sara had said that there was a place just down the road where we could eat, so off we traipse. The place is empty. We could see no menu. I fumble in my head for some school girl French. I think the man says that it is too early for lunch, I think he says that he can do ‘petite dejeuner’. What us four fetch up with is four coffees, a strip of baguette each accompanied by a lump of butter and a bit of jam. Ah well, the coffee was hot.  

On the way back we think it would be a good idea to have a look at the River Adour which is on one of our boundaries. Man oh man but it is looking angry. Full of mud, very active, decidedly unfriendly, and frightening. It is in a fierce rage, this river, this is what I think. In time I shall grow to love the moods of the Adour. It is a busy river, and has work to do. Sometimes it is extremely busy, sometimes it slows down but still maintains its pace. I like that it is so alive. But that love of the river is in the future. For now, this day, this long day, this first day, I feel in fear of this river. It is not a day for paddling one’s feet in it. 




Mid afternoon, and Gary & Co have finally unloaded everything, the strimmer having finally been found, it being one of the last items to be unpacked.  Lester is pleased. More manly to use a machine to cut the grass rather than using dressmaking scissors. 




 A phone call to the UK confirms that our house in the UK has undergone completion and is now in the hands of its new owners. Feel relieved that the transaction has gone through successfully. Feel relieved that we have got here. Feel relieved that we are unpacked despite not knowing where Gary has put everything. In fact he has stashed the most important boxes in the worst place, which is the cobweb hell of the Hut, this I know but refuse to think about. 



Have managed to find the food supplies, and a barbeque is made out of bits of wood lying about the place. In the middle of the Courtyard we have our first meal here. 

Late afternoon: wave Gary & Co off finally, after he had fiddled about with his sat nav for what seemed like ages. Feel relieved that he is on his way, but abandoned at the same time. For a while we feel like two orphans. 

Not wanting to sleep in the campervan tonight, we set about pitching our tent. It is quite spacious. At least we can stretch out even if it is on the ground. We are tired, and flop down. We feel excited, though, and pleased to be here. 

Darkness falls. The thin walls of the tent make us feel very vulnerable. A flashlight being shone onto the tent from someone outside makes us feel even more so. We huddle under the duvet, me and Lester, waiting for the person with the flashlight to do dreadful things to us. Nothing happens. Except sleep. Bools and me snore, Lester gently zizzes, all three together in one heap in a tent in the middle of the Gascony countryside of SW France. We have used this tent and campervan before, but for holidays, after which we have returned to the same lives that we had before the hols. This time there is no return, no going back. This is not a two week holiday and then back to normality.

I can’t find anything, but tomorrow is another day. And the absolute joy that completion has gone through and that the house is UK is no longer ours, that we have got out of the UK, and that we are bold enough to have done so even if we are now living in a courtyard of a ruined house in a foreign country.

And so we sleep on.........

June 2008. Day One (2)


Time to unpack. Uno problemo. The house has a walled area, which I call the Courtyard for want of a better name. 



Attached to the house on its left side, and at right angles, is the Tall Barn......




Its roof is up but only just. It is very pretty, being open fronted with curving front beams.




In between the Tall Barn and the house is the Middle Barn. This is a total ruin, with a collapsed roof although the walls are still standing. 



On the other side of the Tall Barn, and at a slight angle inwards, is the Porchway.....



It has had two huge old oak gates in the past, one is still in place, the other is lying on the ground. Looks like someone has barged it down. Attached to the Porchway is the Hut. It is quite tall, and shares the roof of the Porchway. This has attractive cross hatching in front, but a small doorway which we have to stoop through. All is intact inside. A much smaller space than any of the other buildings, the roof is still good, and it is dry. It is, however, a black hole of a space. I have never seen such thick, dark, cobwebs in my life. They are in profusion. One cannot move without brushing against one of them. 

I retreat at speed. 

On the right hand side of the house is the Side Barn. It is smaller, and has a sloping roof. It also has a big wooden door still intact. This Gary & Co remove so they can get inside....



......The floor is uneven. Looks like someone has started digging it out. The roof at the end has tumbled. Thick fronds of ivy trail gracefully through the space where roof tiles used to be. Very rustic. 

At right angles to the Side Barn is a tall wall. This provides two sides of a square, and meets with the Hut. This, then, forms the Courtyard. 

The house has not been inhabited for a long time. It has the calm tranquillity of a house slowly ending its days, ivy romping itself hither and thither to camouflage the decay. It is beautiful. And within the Courtyard itself there is much natural growth. A large fig tree inside the wall, some smaller trees outside the wall, the ground covered over with a profusion of greenery, mostly grass. Tall grass. Wet grass. It is like a jungle. OK, so that is an exaggeration. But it is June, the grass has just had its early thrust of growth, and it is lush and it is vibrant. 

The strimmer is needed. If Gary & Co are going to unpack the vans then they need to be able to get through that grass. Time is pressing on. Where is the strimmer. We don’t know. Inside one of the vans. Don’t know where. Need something to cut the grass with. Breadknife. I know where that is because I have just made sandwiches with it. It is easily found and given to Lester who then embarks upon the task of hacking a pathway for Gary & Co to get to and fro. 



It is slow work. 




“Helloooooo”, a voice calls. It is still early. “Helllooooo” again, followed by the appearance of Sara, who introduces herself as our neighbour down the lane who owns La Maison des Chameaux. She is on the school run. Does not stop long, Promises to send some tea along. She is English. Nice to know we have English nearby. 


Another car draws up. Out gets a grim faced man. French. Starts waving his arms about. Barks French words at me. Lester appears. None of us understand each other. Another car arrives. A man gets out with a tray full of cups of tea. It is Paul, the husband of Sara. He knows the Frenchman. Speaks with him. Says the Frenchman wants to buy a strip of land from our field on the opposite side of the lane, the field which adjoins his property, so he can run a track from the lane to the back of his place. We have already said no, by email the request came through several months ago when we were still resident in the UK, absolutely no, the answer has been given. 

Paul thinks that we are not being good neighbours. Says that we should help our neighbour out. 

The neighbour continues to fume and shout and wave his arms in the air. 

Gary & Co meanwhile keep on unloading the vans. 


Lester is now starting to fume. He says that this it is his land. Things are getting heated. I am concerned lest Lester throw him a punch. Not a good thing to start our new life here with a physical set-to with the first Frenchman we meet. 

Paul hands the now cooling tea around. 

With a last tirade of words, the Frenchman leaves. Paul leaves. Lester continues to breadknife the grass. I hover around. All of us have damp feet now. It must have rained quite a lot yesterday. 

Gary and Co keep on unloading. Some items in the Tall barn. Some items in the Side Barn. And horror of horrors, quite a few are being put in the Hut. Feel that I want to organise the placement of these items so I know where to find things. Start giving directions to Gary’s co-worker, who does as I ask and puts things where I want them to go so I can find them again later, so that I have a map in my head of where everything is.  It is not to be. Gary is boss of this move, and asks his co-worker to put the boxes in a different place. So I give up, and help Lester with the grass cutting. I find my dressmaking scissors and use these. They were never the same again. 



Wednesday 3 October 2012

June 2008. Day One (1)


How did we get to this madness, this insanity. It is dark. We have been on the road for hours. It is early morning. No lights are shining anywhere. I want to go to the loo. There is no ‘proper’ loo, only the porta pottie, and that is buried underneath stuff. I want to have a cup of tea and a warm bed. All I have is the camper van in which I am now sitting. Lester is out having a pee somewhere. It’s easier for men. A zip, that is all they have to manage. For us girls, there is a  waistband to undo, knickers to drop, then hold a squatting position whilst trying to keep all the lower half clothing out of the way of the dribbles. But I need to go, so I do. Outside I go, into thigh high grass which is soaked through. I stumble a little way from the campervan until just out of range of  its lights. Fortunately I have a skirt on. It is easier to go to the loo when wearing a skirt because it can be lifted up out of the way leaving just the undergarments to cope with. Less to have around the ankles. 

Job done. Hem of skirt now soaked, but with wetness from the rain soaked grass and not from anything else. Bools bounces out of the darkness towards me. He is also feeling better after his loo trip. Easier for him. He just cocks his leg. He is our Springer Spaniel. He at least is full of joy, I am full of ‘What have we done.....’

Indeed, what have we just done. Only sold up in the UK and shipped us and our belongings to South West France. In a convoy we had travelled: two bright red vans, and us in our white campervan. Despite the satellite navigation system which Gary, our removal man, had insisted would get us all the way to our destination but which had had us going round and round in circles on the Paris ring road because the sat nav went into a hissy fit and kept taking us off the main road towards somewhere else despite the signs telling us to keep straight ahead which Gary ignored having more faith in that thingumyjig of a device. But it was done with grand bonhomie. No one lost their temper. On all of the drive down none of us became irritable. But now we are. I want my bed. Lester wants his bed. But our proper bed is packed in one of the vans. We have a bed in the campervan but it is drowning beneath stuff piled high upon it, this we throw onto the driving seats or on to the floor leaving Bools a small space so he can sleep too. Thankfully we lie down. Sleep does not come easily. We are too tired. Images of the day are stamped in our minds too strongly. 


It is daylight. I look at my watch. 8am. I have a peep through the curtains. Feel an urge to explore my new home. Lester turns over, needing more sleep. No lie in for him today. We need to get on with unloading the vans so that Gary & Co can start back to the UK. 
In the dark the house had looked like a big black lump. Now it looks smaller, less intimidating. Only half a roof of course, but we knew that, and less of it as well so more must have taken a tumble. 




Some of it has fallen into the hallway almost blocking the front door. Not to worry, we can still see inside our house, just about. The rooms to the right are bright in the morning sunshine. Well they would be. They have no roof, and the tumbling of the roof beams have smashed the ceiling down as well. The heap of rubble in the middle of the floor sunbathes. 






The room on the left of the hall is the opposite. Dark. Not lit by the light of the day. The roof is still hanging on, the ceiling therefore is still intact, although is festooned with cobwebs. There are puddles on the floor, on the earthen floor. It looks like someone has ‘borrowed’ the clay floor tiles. They were there when last we saw them, over eighteen months ago.

We retreat back to the campervan. Can’t find the kettle, but manage to make a sandwich for us all. Hear a door slam. Gary. I get out of the campervan to greet him. Lester appears from around the corner of the property. It has a side path round the back into the fields. This is his temporary loo area.“You’ll never believe this,” he says, “But I have just seen a big deer standing in the middle of the corn”. His face is lit up. Seeing the deer has lifted his spirits. It lifts mine as well. “Must be a good omen”, he says. It reinforces that we are not surrounded by suburbia, that we are really out in the country. From then on the day starts lighting itself up, together with the sun, which also decides to shine.