Welcoming Our Friends to the Village "Feria"

Last Friday evening we ventured out after the sun had set to the long promenade lined with plane trees in our village. We were met by numerous stalls, lights, people, music and much frivolity. The middle of the promenade was lined with tables and chairs, the idea being that you chose your meal, found a good spot to sit and joined in the conviviality. Eddie & Alfie loved it: the odd chip or piece of bread frequently came their way. Our delightful carpenter, Jean-Louis came and filled our glasses and introduced us to his wife, his son turned up with his young family. This was a truly French celebration.

As for DJ Fanjou: what a guy! We had expected something fairly low key, this being a tiny rural village. But not a bit of it: his show was stunning, with fantastic sound, great tunes, a laser and light show, smoke machine and the rest. “This is really professional,” said Mr. Fix It who knows about these things and before long we realised it was getting on for 2 am and our first guests were arriving the next day so we headed home, amazed at the sheer scale of this celebration.

John and his daughter Phoebe were our first guests. Although we have masses still to do, our house is perfectly comfortable even at this relatively early stage for welcoming guests. Mr. Fix It duly rigged up a couple of lamps in their large bedroom overlooking the Church, I draped a chair with a pale throw and cushion and adorned the marble fireplace with a candle or two and some roses from our garden. “Shabby chic,” said Mr. Fix It. Despite the work still to be done, somehow this bedroom looked so welcoming.

Phoebe loved the Feria. “The French are so friendly and seem calmer than people at home,” she remarked, with the clarity of youth. Spending time with a bright 12 year old keeps one young and I found myself joining her sliding down the huge blown up bouncy castle affair. Mr. Fix It declined: he gets enough exercise in our house he muttered.

On Saturday we watched the horses, ridden by gauchos, parade through the village to the small bull ring at the end. We watched the show, a simple affair of young matadors jumping over – actually cows, not bulls! On Sunday there was a mass at our Church, the horses standing guard literally outside our house as the priest blessed all animals: what a beautiful sight.

We could not let our visitors go back home without seeing the stunning “cite” of Carcassonne and the fortified village of Minerve. Fascinated by the history of this beautiful area of France, I bought myself a book on the history of the Cathars. Mr. Fix It is still astounded by the Cathar monuments which remain. “It took me a day to drill through brick and rock with a POWER tool,” he remarked, “how on earth did they build on this massive scale?” Perhaps this has given him the incentive (as if he needed one) to carry on apace with our house renovation, grateful that we no longer live in medieval times….

So our visitors have now left and we await with eager anticipation the permission to take the tower down in the garden, rebuild and enlarge our balcony and create doors instead of windows from our kitchen and small reception room to the garden. Jean-Louis popped round to see us yesterday, a simply lovely man, a true craftsman. It turns out he knows one of the people at the Mairie and understands that our aim is to retain the character of this house. No doubt he will put a good word in for us and next week we will have our permission. Then it will be all systems go and I will be spending many a happy hour in garden centres planning the layout of our outside space. My France Buying Guide always comes with me on these trips, what a useful tool this has turned out to be for us.

http://www.francebuyingguide.com/

But for now, we retain happy recent memories of times with good friends.

Making Friends In Our Village

Our village is a “circulade”, that is to say a traditional village dating from the 12th century which was built in concentric circles. The centre of “circulades” is often a chateau or parish church and our house is a stone’s throw from the beautiful Parish of St. Julien. Thus we find ourselves in the heart of the village and since we have been here we seem to have attracted much interest locally, not least because we have undertaken this massive project of renovation and we have Eddie & Alfie bounding around in the sun.

The spirit of community is almost tangible here: the lovely young family who run the “epicerie” asked me the other day how we got on with the builders they had recommended. I told them I would have no hesitation in recommending them to others, they did a great job demolishing the supporting wall in our kitchen. Then whilst sitting in the sun by the canal we were approached by a lovely American couple who have a holiday house in our village and invited us for an “apero” the next day. Mr. Fix It made a trip to our local tip this week and met a French chap who is renovating the house opposite us – another invitation, another friend. He was telling us that this village was in medieval times the third most important little town after Carcassonne and Narbonne and had at one time no less than 5 churches! The people remain quietly religious and somehow one respects Sundays here: even Mr. Fix It downs tools then and I am able to entice him to some little brasserie for a “prix fixe” lunch (this is actually not difficult).

We have now put in our permission to the “mairie” to take down the tower in the garden, extend our balcony and put in a spiral staircase. Our lovely builders are preparing us a quote for this part and we hope to be able to get on with this in about a month. The sun and light here are quite stunning and the demolition of the tower means our kitchen and bedroom will be flooded with light.

Mr. Fix It is working on 2 ensuites for our bedroom and the one next door and I have been mulling over kitchen design. We are lucky to have a great space and for my part, I cannot wait to have a proper cooker, decent fridge and good accessories to fully indulge my culinary skills, such as they are. I have had no complaints so far though, it is not difficult to create excellent meals when one has good ingredients: oh the joy of shopping for fresh vegetables in the many markets here. Even Eddie & Alfie seem to be thriving on French dog food!

Many of us dream of doing up a property in France and we do really seem to be living that dream. I would urge anyone to pursue their dream and if yours is to do likewise, do arm yourself with a copy of our excellent France Buying Guide, it has become a veritable bible for many: www.francebuyingguide.com/guide.htm We have our own copy with us here and seem to be constantly referring to it, just lately for the list of shops and outlets for building materials and the like. Mr. Fix It has become rather good at finding obscure pipe fittings, aided by the Guide, his book of “French Building Terms” and his innate ability to mime.

As with most things in life, you get out of it what you put in and gradually making friends here makes us feel we are slowly becoming integrated.

An English friend of mine asked me what, in essence, makes life so wonderful here in the south of France. Mr. Fix It and I mulled over the reasons the other day over a glass of Corbieres wine in the garden. “The sense of space and lovely community springs to mind”, he said. “The sun helps too”, I replied. Then we both realised what really makes us so happy to be living here: it reminds us of how England used to be with its people who take pride in their community and look out for each other, a feeling of safety in one’s home and renewed value in what really matters in life.

The longer we are here, the longer we want to be here, it is as simple as that.

Our village in the early evening sunlight

BLESS OUR FRENCH BUILDERS!

We bought this huge house from the Church, it is an old Presbytery. Indeed, it looks on to the beautiful 14th century Church of St. Julien, just a stone’s throw away. We are not religious people but there is something about being here which gives us a real feeling of calm: the house has a lovely atmosphere, even in its present somewhat rough state.

This week we have reason to celebrate as the local builder, whose very reasonable quote we accepted, has taken the supporting wall down between the kitchen that was and the next room (complete with corner marble fireplace). He came with his brother and another chap when he said he would, got on with the job and now these two rooms are one. We keep looking at the space, it is wonderful and we can now get on with designing our kitchen. So religious or not, we really do bless these builders. Now how many times can one say that?

It pays to shop around, get at least 2 quotes and to trust one’s gut instinct. We both liked this chap and now that he has done such a great job, we have built up confidence and shall ask him to quote for further work (of which there is a great deal). He is local, lives in our village and was telling me just today that he has done a lot of renovation for other English people in the area.

Meanwhile Mr. Fix It is designing the kitchen, making the best use of the space we have. Preliminary thoughts include black granite worktops, an L shaped breakfast bar at the kitchen end and then a large dining table at the other end looking out on to the garden. As for me, I shall soon be sourcing a large range cooker, a fridge and dishwasher. We are just half an hour from Carcassonne, on the edge of which is a large estate filled with shops such as Brico Depot, Weldom, Tridome and many more. The concept of DIY is relatively new in France but becoming more popular and we look forward to shopping for the best deals. If you are not sure where to start, you could do worse than arm yourself with a copy of my France Buying Guide: aside from the main Guide, there are 2 bonus sections with detail of the best shops to go to for everything from DIY to mushrooms! www.francebuyingguide.com/guide.htm

Our future bedroom is coming along, we have stripped the rather strange wallpaper (the French do love their wallpaper) and Mr. Fix It has run pipes up to it so that the ensuite shower room can be put in place shortly. This room faces due south-east so once the tower in the garden is demolished, will be drenched in early sunlight. I envisage many a morning sitting on our new balcony with a cup of coffee and a croissant from our local boulangerie.

But that is yet to come. Last Friday I took Eddie & Alfie to their first class at our dog club and they did rather well. Their French is almost as good as mine now, they respond to “bisous” (kisses), “promenade” (walks), “manger”, (eat), “viens ici” (come here) and their vocabulary grows apace. My main goal is to get them to walk to heel and the lady at the dog club was pleased with their willingness to learn. We met a couple of lovely people, one of whom has a puppy Yorkshire Terrier which looks remarkably like a hairbrush. Eddie & Alfie, although sometimes timid with other dogs, rather took to this one.

So this week has been a productive one and we look forward to a very sunny and warm weekend. I hope to encourage Mr. Fix It to take a well-earned break and go exploring a little more in this, the most beautiful part of France.