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.