Surprise Holiday

19th April
The journey door to door France to UK takes 16 hours. On Thursday at 5am The Director slammed the car boot shut ready to start the drive.

Then it dawned on me that we weren’t supposed to be leaving until the following day. Builders have been busy in our house and we’d agreed that they could destroy the place until Friday tea time, then it all had to be cleaned up. After a lot of tutting and eye-rolling we decided to set off anyway and stop somewhere en route - a surprise holiday.

I did a quick internet search and found an interesting-sounding place to stay that night, nearly all the B&B’s in France are run by British citizens, this one had a Russian proprietress (novelty value) and was in a rural area we were unfamiliar with.

Svetlana is as extraordinary as her house which is a combination of royal hunting lodge and the sort of sweetie-trap that Hansel and Gretel wandered into, our bedroom ceiling all pointy wooden slopes, the walls lined with deep-coloured, ornate fabric. Throughout the house there is curly-legged antique furniture and lots of gilt, in the salon a shiny grand piano. An astonishing dinner (for dessert: hot strawberries in port) was cooked and served by Svetlana who modelled a full-length, shiny turquoise evening dress. over the course of the evening we listened to her life story; she’d been a concert pianist but with the arrival of her children she’d become a music teacher at a school in an area with a lot of social problems, apparently the teachers there were expected to act as a sort of über-social worker, she’d visit the children in their homes and they stayed with her when their parents were ill or in prison.

She met her English husband in Russia and he convinced her to go to England with him for a 'better life’. In the UK she worked as a shop assistant at WH Smiths, newsagents, an isolated and friendless existence with scratchy teenage children but she persisted, got promoted and a few years ago, children now away working, she exchanged her Surrey semi for the gingerbread house.

R.I.P Kevin

6th March
Driving a large van and an overloaded estate car, The Director, two Camera Boys and myself set off for France in the very early hours of Tuesday morning, it was a long drive and my putting diesel into a petrol-fuelled vehicle didn’t make the trip any faster.

We got to the Lovely House well after midnight and got the kit and computers locked away before we fell in to bed. The cats are still pretty wild so I’d expected them to stay well out of our way for a while. In the morning I heard an awful sound, outside I found Julie pacing around in front of the house howling, Kevin’s body was lying by one of the outbuildings, we think he must’ve got swiped by a car and used his last energy to make a dash for the house.

A Visit To The Lovely House part three

2nd March
I've finally got it together to get one of those flicker accounts and put up the photos of when we first arrived at the Lovely House (if the slideshow actually turns up on the sidebar). I have already gone on about this place at length here and here.

The Deluge

10th January
The freeze went on for a few days and wasn’t a huge problem. I was using the fire for cooking anyway, the ironware fixed in the chimney (the cremaliere) includes a hook to hang cauldrons of lake water over the fire to heat for washing with. A few days ago My Dutch neighbours came by to see if I was OK and stayed for lunch – Kitty is petite and has showbiz pzazz, her voice is a husky purr, her enormous husband has a champion moustache. As they were leaving Kitty told me to call if ever I needed a beer and a warm up with her and the Walrus.

Then mid-morning yesterday Bruno the Knob Destroyer turned up with a bag of beetroot. He found me working outside.

You frozen up then?
Yup
Landlord never wanted to pay to wrap up the pipes – happens every year. You got any leaks?
It’s still frozen, I don’t know yet
Better go and have a look then

We went into the icy attic and looked where the pipes run along the wall - there was a slow drip from one place, it didn’t look serious but I went and turned the stopcock off, Bruno identified the source with a chalk mark and I left a phone message for the plumber.

Bruno went off and I went back out to work until the plumber came, I got completely lost clearing another area of brambles to feed my ongoing bonfire. I wandered back to the house in a filthy state, starving for lunch, it was much later than I thought. Then I heard a gushing noise as I approached the front door. I ran in, saw the flood, called the plumber - a little more hysterically this time, then set to work sweeping the water out of the house. The plumber arrived quite quickly he fixed the pipe and I continued to sweep the water. It turned out that the damage was in the hot pipe, a whole tank of hot water had emptied into the house.

When the worst of the water was out of the house, I sopped up the last puddles with a big cloth, using my hands to wring out the water into a bucket. The house walls are made from clay bricks mixed with ash, the water was very soapy and I realised that the hot water had washed down the bricks making the water caustic, I didn’t notice at the time because my hands were numb with cold.

I worked manically for hours but it was under control, I couldn’t see any lasting damage, it had happened during the day … could be a lot worse etc.,

It was only when I sat down and waited for a kettle to boil that I realised how tired I was and that my hands hurt. I then discovered that we had no electricity in the main part of the house (the Landlord had done the rewiring here himself because he hadn’t wanted to pay to have it done). Suddenly the house seemed like a cold wet monster and it was dark by this time.

I went into the bathroom with a torch and saw my face in the mirror – I looked like I’d been blasted from a cannon, I laughed at myself – then I started crying. I pulled myself together, had a cup of tea and decided that if there was ever a time to call Kitty for a beer and a warm up - now was it, I picked up the phone;

Hi Kitty are you busy this evening?
Yes darling we have guests for dinner
Oh never mind, another time
Is everything OK darling?

I assured her that everything was fine but she couldn’t understand what I was saying through my gulping and snotty hiccupping tears. Within ten minutes The Walrus had come round and made me get in his car.

The dinner party was in progress as I arrived and everyone insisted that I joined them, the other guests were two English couples, I knew them slightly but my disaster bonded us all in a sort of Dunkirk Spirit and soon everybody was fighting over who got to take me home.

I’ve ended up at Freddie and Nina’s ranch and it’s quite funny there …

Yessssss

3rd January
I was woken with a phone call from the landlord, he tells that he won’t be putting the Lovely House on the market until we choose to leave, and we can stay as long as we want, and yes he’ll put that in writing.

How did that come about you may ask?
After the landlord's call before Christmas to say that the house would be on the market and after I’d got the flames coming out of my nose under control, I deduced that he was hoping that we'd buy the house, and anyway it would be easier to sell while inhabited – and he’d still be getting our rent.

Clearly the man is a No Good Duplicitous Rotter. I asked Mme B. to help me write a letter explaining that due to the security risks of unknown visitors and the disruption ensuing we would have to find other premises forthwith – I now feel so euphoric, triumphant and smug I've just had to hang that dartboard and fling a few darts at this image, which is as close as I can get to a likeness of the landlord.

Happy Christmas

24th December
Friday
concrete floor laid and paid for
Saturday
fill the car many times with piles of old planks from the woodyard
Sunday
fenced off the area that will become a vegetable plot for filming
Monday
landlord calls to say that he's putting our house on the market and that we should expect visits from estate agents in the new year
Today
I stopped frothing at the mouth

Back Story
Back in October our Landlord paid us a visit, shot at our cameramen, stayed for lunch and assured us that he had no plans to sell his property

A Visit To The Lovely House part two

14th December
I've been working outside a lot these last weeks, it's getting slightly obsessive - as the ground around the quince, cherry, plum or whatever tree is cleared there are new views of the landscape. Also I really like making bonfires.

Visitors coming inside the Lovely House tend to keep their coats on. Sometimes we need to step outside to warm up. Once in the front door there is a terracotta flagstone hallway with stairs directly in front, there are doors to either side. The door on the left leads to a large square room with a mosaic floor, this room is cold damp and empty (in summertime it can be used for computer use), there is a door at the far end of this room to a small, mouldy bedroom.

The door on the right in the hallway leads to another large square room with the same terracotta flags. This is our main room and is dominated by a huge fireplace - I also cook here. I keep a small fire going all day but it needs to really blaze to warm the room properly. A crémaillère is attached in the fireplace -  an iron contraption with hooks and an eye at different heights so cooking pots can be suspended above the fire.

All the furniture in the main room is wooden; the worm-ravaged settles by the fire are pine, but the dining table and the big cupboard are of a more vermifugal sort of wood. Against the wall by the entrance door is a wooden trough that was once used to scrape the bristles off dead pigs, a wide plank is covering this, I use it as a sideboard and stack the crockery on it.

On one side of the chimney one door leads to another  small, mouldy bedroom and another door, that won't close properly, opens onto to a vast bathroom tiled entirely in small dark blue tiles*. The suite is ointment pink, the effect is gothic. Next door to the bathroom is a scullery kitchen with a concrete sink and glass-brick window, mice eat the dishwasher cables so we can't use it. From the scullery is a door to a large rat-ridden 'back kitchen' - a damp, windowless room with thick cobwebs over all the old junk and the old bread oven, there is a door out to the wood shed from here.

Another door in the main room leads to a grand dining room. This has the best mosaic floor, intricately painted ceilings, wood-panelled walls and a built-in walnut sideboard. With it's tiny north-facing windows this is the coldest, darkest room and is impossible to be in, it stores camera kit. A door leads out to the big barn from here.

Upstairs the house has two large and two small bedrooms, all at the front of the house. the whole top back section is one big long attic full of ancient saddlery and farm machinery.

*That bathroom has recently been the cause of acute embarrassment. When on my own in the house I don't bother to wedge the door shut with a piece of heavy furniture anymore. The lavatory is several paces from the door.

The house front door has no knob or latch; entry is achieved by hefting a shoulder to the door until it gives way, getting the door open from the inside is more difficult. English visitors have developed a habit of bellowing out as they shove at the door and let themselves in. This happened last week as I had just got seated. Anxious to spare their eyes I hobbled too hastily across the bathroom to shut the door. Realising that I'd wet my knickers in the process, but safely behind a closed door, I slipped the knickers off, threw them behind the long mirror, pulled my jeans back on and sauntered out to meet my friends. Unfortunately they had brought their dog who wandered off while we were having coffee. Suddenly the mutt reappeared and with a big dribbly grin dropped my sodden underwear at his master's feet.

A Visit To The Lovely House part one

13th December
If it's your first visit to the Lovely House you'll have driven a long way along windy, ill-signed roads, when you suddenly see the house through the gates you have to make a sharp turn. If you get your vehicle through the iron gates without the stone pillars scraping a groove down the side of it you will be feeling relieved. You'll park alongside the big barn doors, look back at the stable block and thank the Jesus, Mary Mother of God person who is living in the niche above the stable doors.

You'll see trees in the yard; there's a big cedar by the gates, then some lime trees, a persimmon and some flowering bushes, including a big pink smelly rose bush that has been flowering since we got here.

Beyond the walls on this drawing is the 'park' (staff would lay out picnic lunches here in Ye Olden Dayes) with grand specimen trees; mature chestnuts, redwoods and cedars. There's a Giant Sequoia which has been struck by lightening - the resulting split houses a large bee community. Wandering further you would come across a couple of large ponds (mare), dug to provide the clay to make the bricks to build the house (which doesn't have foundations). The resulting pond fills with water from the many springs around here and provides irrigation for the farmland. Old Landlord dug the second, much bigger mare (it's pronounced 'mar') in the 'fifties, partly because he wanted more water to irrigate his expanding farm empire but also to fill with fish.

Beyond the biggest mare is a vast bramble-bound walnut grove and a hay meadow, Mrs Druid will be bringing her sheep to graze here in the spring.

Catnapping

28th November
I went back to the Gardeners yesterday. The whole cat thing has got me a bit anxious. As a child I went on and on about wanting animals and my parents drummed it in to me that pets are a Big Responsibility, and have a habit of either living for unfeasibly long amounts of time or, conversely, dying just when you’ve got very fond of them.

As an adult I’ve been far too unsettled for pets although years ago I did keep animals that I planned to eat. I loved scratching the pig’s bellies and spent hours watching them make straw nests. My first pig was a very sociable gingery Tamworth called Urquhart. When the time came, I got him in the back of my Morris Minor (my first car) for a trip to the butcher, he scoffed the nuts that I'd put in the car for him then worked out how to push the front seat down and get into the passenger seat next to me so he could look out of the window for the rest of the journey.

I’d asked the butcher to simply halve the dead Urquhart longways, but when I went to collect him his legs were sticking out all stiff, I had to manoeuvre the pig halves into the car diagonally, poking the extremities out of the front window and drive home with my head cocked to one side and Urquhart’s head rolling around in a plastic bag on the back seat.

Now, temporarily here in a French farmhouse, I'm still not settled enough for actual pets but wood pile cats seem an ideal arrangement for all concerned. Being old enough to fend for themselves I’m simply offering them an alternative place to live that won’t involve too much emotional investment on either side (will it?). My neighbours advised me to keep the cats shut in a shed for 3 days when I get them here. There is a pigeonnier and some odd little outhouses next to the Lovely House which seemed a good place to keep the cats initially. The pigeonnier is linked to the house with a tiled roof and a back wall making an open-faced barn where we keep our piles of firewood. There are various openings through the walls and lots of perches and hiding places. I think it must be cat paradise.

This time the Gardeners had managed to stuff a pair of yowling cats into two baskets, which I quickly put on the back seat of my car and drove carefully home, they growled like that girl with the revolving head in The Exorcist all the way. My heart was pounding as I placed the baskets on the new straw in the pigeonnier and left them to calm down for a while.

To release the cats into the shed without having to open the door and risk them escaping, I’d devised a cunning plan of attaching strings to the basket lids which I pulled from the outside through a little hole in the wall, this worked great, the lids flapped open, the cats shot out of the baskets like bullets, there was a very high up window - they bounded up the walls, through the window and escaped like rockets.

I thought that was the end of it and figured the cats would be well on their way home but a few hours later I went to clear away the food and water that I'd put out for them and caught a glimpse of a tail disappearing, I saw some eyes watching me from a high perch this morning - I think they are considering staying - I put out a dish of chopped ducks hearts.

My internets are being taken away tomorrow - who knows when I'll be back online…

Pacing

October 9th
I’m impossible to have around now that I’ve got worked up about what the landlord’s impending visit might mean. Apart from the fact that I don’t want to leave - ever, the more pressing need is to be able to finish the filming next year. What we’ve done so far is just research; getting to know the area, find good habitats and set up systems for filing and storing the footage. We’ve also spent a lot of time clearing out the outbuildings in preparation for studio filming.

We didn’t actually have a contract for the series when I came location hunting so I hedged my bets and made a 3-month notice agreement with the landlord. Only idiots or mad people would consider buying the damp, crumbling pile that is the Lovely House. We have those qualities in spades but we also have plenty of debt - that idea must be put firmly aside.

I am in danger of getting stabbed if I don’t get out of the house so I accept Mrs Strange from the bar’s suggestion to take a walk together. Mrs Strange spends most of the walk being very agitated. When I tune in, it seems to be about her neighbours - I don’t know them but I have noticed that they tend to wear matching stripey jumpers which must be annoying her, but Mrs Strange also thinks that they’re into 'weird stuff’ - druids or something - and Mrs Druid parks on her driveway sometimes too.

As we got back to my place Mrs Strange tells me that she and her husband are going 'abroad’, they will both be leaving next month - but I mustn’t tell anyone. I think she wanted to talk about it, but I excused myself as I’ve formulated a plan, actually it’s not a plan - but it might become one if I can go somewhere and pace in peace.

Discombobulation

7th October
Today, instead of snoozing though interminable alarm calls, something possessed me to leap out of bed, and go straight off for an early morning walk (OK I dressed first). Mist rising off the rolling hills – very poetic. I stopped in with M and Mme Bert for coffee on my way back. M. Bert is the twinkly man who first showed me the Lovely House he has an impeccable potager, and is an archetypal French Paysan, bright blue trousers, dark wrinkly skin, always in a hat. Mme Bert is tiny and has bright blue eyes that she uses to gaze in admiration at her husband the expert shot, collector of mushrooms and gardener extraordinaire. She follows conversations mouthing along with the talker, which is disconcerting. She tells me to check my walnuts.

There are great numbers of crayfish in the lake, of various sorts but dominated by a very invasive species; the Signal Crayfish which they are keen to eradicate in France. I’m doing my bit for the cause – these days the crayfish are busy having sex at the edges of the lake. I put on a rubber glove, creep up behind them and put them in a bucket.

I accumulated masses of live crayfish, so I delivered a bowlful to Mme Bontette, the French lady tells me at length about the court bouillon she will make to cook them in and all the rest of her planned evening menu. I then took a bowlful to Mrs Strange from the bar, she has just been round to return the empty bowl. She told me that she couldn’t be bothered with them and just dumped them out (still live) in the stream at the bottom of her garden.

I went to check the walnuts, their skins are splitting, I picked a few and took them round to the Berts to see if they are ready enough. M. Bert tells me to take off the skins and leave them in the open for three days. My fingers are like prunes from wearing rubber gloves to catch crayfish so I do the walnut job bare-fingered. I now look as though I have a very heavy smoking habit.

For our supper I made a bowl of aioli, salad and steamed potatoes to eat with our crayfish.

The landlord phoned this evening to say that he’s coming by next weekend (he lives a four-hour drive away) and would like to see us. Having fallen in love with this place and anyway dreading the day when we will have to go, I am now convinced that he has decided to sell the property soon and is coming to ask us to leave. An hour after the call The Director is already tired of the sound of my gnashing teeth.

Fish Pomade - mmmm

7th August
It’s taken all day to unpack the van which should have gone back to the UK this morning. Last night we noticed it wouldn’t start so I headed to the cafe to see if I could borrow a battery charger. A football match was on tv there with all the local men watching. I’ve realised by now that you can’t just kiss hello to the people you know, you have to greet everybody. By the time I’d gone round the whole crowd I'd forgotten that I had a mission and got embroiled in drink and gossip. It wasn’t until the Director came looking for me that I remembered about the charger.

Despite securing a charger the battery still wouldn’t work, so this morning the van was declared dead and towed away which is a good thing because now we don’t have to drive it back to the UK.

In the bar last night I started finding out about our landlord’s father. He bought the Lovely House in 1943 in pristine condition and, according to my companions, set about destroying it. His main farming activity was pigs but he diversified. I had noticed how the once rather grand carriage house had been carved up by concrete divisions with an enormous feeding hopper bursting through the ceiling. Old Landlord was famous for his meanness and lack of hygiene standards. Stories abounded, how he set traps and ate whatever fell into them - cats, hedgehogs, crows... One of my companions told how had turned up at the Lovely House one day to see Old Landlord using a knife to eat sardines from a tin. Fish finished, he poured the oil from the tin into his palm and slicked back his hair with it.

Social conventions

4th August, France
We got to the Lovely House late on Friday and have been preparing for tomorrow's arrival of kit and personnel. Beds are made, fridges filled with food, and we’re planning the best places to make sets for inside filming.

I’m still fumbling my way around local social conventions. In this village at least, I'm greeted with kisses rather than a handshake at first acquaintance. This apparent intimacy is combined with the fact that most people continue to address me using the more formal vous. No-one asks personal questions and, not wishing to inadvertently cause offence, I'm letting them direct the conversation. So far the favourite subject seems to be National Habit Comparison, I’m often asked how the English do things. This is a typical exchange:
French Person: 'Do the English eat soup?’
Me: 'Yes we eat soup’
FP: 'Soup like our soup?’
Me: 'Yep, pretty much the same sort of stuff’
FP: 'What time of day would you eat soup?’
Me: 'Breakfast usually'

Clearing the decks

20th July
Going a bit further afield to check out locations now, photographing the life I find there. This weekend I’ve been heading up into the mountains and the cool watery places looking for good dragonfly habitats. There are beautiful places, areas where riverside flowers are crammed with numerous sorts of wasps and beetles, lilac bushes being visited by hummingbird hawkmoths, but not really finding dragonflies.

I’ve also been sorting out the Lovely House. The windows have all been open since I got here, I’ve put the mattresses out in the sun and heavy old bed linen is getting laundered. Strange and unmentionable things are discovered. I dismantle a mattress mountain, interleaved with the linen I find paintings, clothing, jewellery, tools. I open the cupboards and turf out incontinence pads and douche bags, old medicines. Every flat surface in the main room is crammed with knick knacks, which I pack into boxes. Strange and curious artworks have evolved like the brass bedwarmer hung on the wall with spare light bulbs stuck in it. There’s a big long bit of metal with a hook on one end which I think is a weighing device, it’s hung horizontally, I like this kind of stuff so leave it up. There are curious things in bulk, boxes of penknives, corkscrews made of vine stumps, bundles of ticking fabric and quite a lot of hunting-related curios; stiff uncured skins, implements for hanging carcasses and a furry handled carving set made out of the limbs of little deer.

The Lovely House seems enormous but only a quarter of the building is house the rest is animal housing, granaries, barns and storage spaces. Perfect for making places to keep insects and for filming. There’s a huge long attic-type space full of bits of bathroom fittings, rusty birdcages, old ploughing harnesses, clothing, books and lots of unidentifiable broken stuff. The debris I've cleared from the living spaces seems to belong here.

We get the gig

16th July, back in France
The month has been tense and life-sapping. Our financial and emotional resources depleted. The new pilot was delivered but the Big Controller is on holiday so we have to wait an unspecified amount of time before we find out if we pass Go. Pacing around in the UK is killing me so I get on a plane to the Lovely House. As I walk through the Arrivals lounge there is a call from the Director 'the Big Controller said "Yes"'.

France is hot, hot, hot. I go to the supermarket and get Champagne to celebrate the ‘win’. Meet Mme Bontette. at the meat counter. The village is en fete this weekend, she suggests I come and help with the preparations on Friday.

Still no phone.

Getting the keys

13th June
The Director has been working round the clock rewriting the pilot script, and recutting the images - something that has already been done and redone for the last two years of development as various Big Controllers have toyed wih the idea of commissioning the project. Joy and Spontaneity seem to have been gone a long time now.

Despite all the uncertainty The Director and I drive to France to get the keys to the Lovely House. Le proprietaire gets us to sign more papers, takes us to see the rubbish dump and introduces us to the ageing and floppy Maire, there’s something about the way he stands a little bit stooped and holds his hands together in front of his chest that makes me think ‘Vicar/vulture’. Le proprietaire then takes us back to the house where we open champagne and he shows me how to catch crayfish out of one of the lakes.