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Let’s begin : )

Alethea x

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Welcome to La Rentrée, when rural France empties out of non-local license plates, the bus scolaire returns to zooming past the property at terrifying speed and, although there’s still summer temperatures, there’s also a hint of early morning / late evening coolness – enough for Miss Romy to get back into her second walk routine. Yay.

My TBI treatment has recently been transferred to Toulouse, which I’m delighted about. It’s a huge relief travel and cost wise but, most importantly, it feels like a whole new world of progress. In addition to the icky injections, my first treatment with the new neurologist saw me return home with a full spectrum seven-pronged treatment plan, including various proper muti’s, additional specialist appointments and my very own electrode machine. Interestingly, I wasn’t in as dire a state as usual after treatment either which feels positive.  

With friends Adriano and John visiting, and me not quite so tip-top post-head treatment, they kindly kayak-chauffeured me along the Dordogne. Well, I was also swiftly barred from sticking an oar in the water – wrong left!! 🤦‍♀ Amazingly, no boats capsized or sunk either! (Unlike a previous time, link).

A few years ago, my sister inadvertently created a blackberry monster in Miss Romy. Now, as soon as there’s a hint of blackberry in the air, our walks are basically me being dragged from one blackberry source to the next to facilitate said addiction. Adriano and John were dragged into the hunt too, with the faint hope of saving some of the hedgerow bounty for us and the freezer. It was essentially, one for Romy, one for the pot : )

Although, with the best (healthy) cake maker in the world staying in my house, it felt foolish not to take advantage, and so a blackberry and fig pie was duly delivered. But… with a little filming, and somehow, we all got roped in! Here’s the finished result, VIDEO: Adriano on Romy’s blackberry addiction, and some cake : )

I also had a lovely, brief visit, with my uncle, aunt and cousin, not far from here, in Brussac. It was the first hound and parrot encounter in a few years, but fortunately, neither Romy nor Antoine egged the other on into any bad behaviour. Nor was Antoine in authoritarian mode – unlike with his guardianship of another cousin, Charlotte, which resulted in her temporary incarceration with an entire poolhouse full of spiders. Link to that episode, here.

Yesterday was my first night in months, without any guests. Rather a strange feeling, but not for long, as new Airbnb guests arrive tomorrow!

Other random things:  

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Need a peaceful rural retreat? There’s still one week’s availability for La Petite Maison in September and some October availability too – when it’s lovely and warm, but not blazing hot, and the colours are fabulous!

La Petite Maison is also available for longer term Winter rentals, up to three months, between November and the end of March, perfect for anyone house hunting, writing or just needing a change of scene.

Madame’s* main renovation lasted 18 months and, while there are still some small things left to complete, it’s sometimes only through other people’s eyes that you realise just quite how far you’ve come. 

Having friends here recently – seeing the changes first-hand for the first time rather than just through photos and videos I’ve shared along the way – and hearing their exclamations at the sheer amount of work that’s been done has reminded me: yes, that really was rather an enormous job! 

I think though I may have some form of renovation amnesia. It’s the only explanation I have for why, having been through four renovation rodeos and enough builder’s dust to last multiple lifetimes, I looked at this 1730s farmhouse and thought yes, excellent idea, let’s do this again. It’s not like I was unaware of the disruption, stress, expense and upheaval that they cause. 

Apparently, I’m still not cured. On countryside walks, I often wonder about the abandoned buildings I stumble across, what they once were, who lived there, where the windows would have been, the views and most dangerously, the potential! A collapsed roof, trees growing through walls, far from any utilites, pah, mere details, haha, my brain has already mentally redesigned the whole place and started planting roses by the door! It’s almost impossible not to look at those and imagine a project – it must be some sort of affliction.

As it happens, on this day (this edition’s publication date) exactly three years ago, the demo team arrived and began turning Madame’s insides upside down. The start of a big renovation project, especially one you’ve been planning extensively, dreaming about forever, and cannot wait to get into, has its own special form of excitement. Suddenly all those drawings, plans, spreadsheets and research are about to become real. 

Though, the further I get from that day, the more rose-tinted the memories become. You start to forget the delays (well, almost…), the horrifying budget increases, the difficult characters and the point when the excitement has evaporated, replaced by dread at what new expense you’ll unearth next. That middle period, when you’ve made 4,000 decisions, everything costs more than it was supposed to, you’re thoroughly sick of the noise, and would happily go the rest of your life without discussing another tap, layout or piece of plasterboard. You even forget what it was like having hundreds (ok, only 104!) of artisans trekking through your property every day 🤦‍♀

Trying to host work Teams meetings whilst effectively being a DJ with the mute button, removing yet another piece of plaster ‘chew-toy’ from Romy’s grasp, stepping out of La Petite Maison’s door straight into a trench, refusing to go onto the second floor for almost three months due to floor-saga, dealing with endless ‘mais, le probleme est’ shrugs, and feeling like a valet managing tetris-style van parking. Many of which were ‘the final straw’ until the next final straw came along, haha!

There are some things my renovation amnesia has been slower to erase. Being ripped off is one of them. I wrote about that saga (here), and it remained a sore point for far longer than I should have allowed it. Partly because, at the moment the budget was stretched to its limit, the amount of money that disappeared was almost exactly the amount I needed. I felt like an idiot, and was furious about it, for a long time. 

Oddly, I realise I may have finally let that go. Perhaps that’s partly because the past few weeks have made me think about the renovation, and the people who came into my life through it, rather differently. I still bump into many of the lovely artisans regularly, and after 18 months of seeing each other far too much (!), inevitably we came to know something of each other’s lives too. 

This week, we said goodbye to someone who quite literally made his mark on almost every room at Les P. John’s funeral was held in the beautiful church in Cénac-et-Saint-Julien. Throughout the renovation, and after, I’ll remember many chats, some grumpiness, much laughter and more than a few comedic moments. Yet, there is some relief he is no longer in pain ❤ He was particularly stern in his declarations that I’d regret the tiles in ‘the folly’. Once it was finished, however, he delighted in directing newer artisans to said ‘design-thing’ loo purely to gauge their reactions. Though, perhaps my favourite moment was when almost grudgingly, and seemingly by mistake, he admitted that it wasn’t ‘that bad’.    

Renovations are strange things. While you’re living through one, it feels overwhelmingly about the work: the decisions, the invoices, the delays, coffee supplies, the dust and the seemingly endless lists (guilty!) of things to be done. A year and a half since the dust settled, I can walk through Madame without thinking about most of that. Instead, rooms remind me of conversations, laughter and blaring radios. Something beautifully finished reminds me of the skilled hands that made it that way and, of course, the person behind them.

So, perhaps, renovation amnesia isn’t such a terrible thing. If the aggravations fade, while the house, and the memories of stories, laughter and, most importantly, people woven into it, remain.

*For newbies, Madame is the name I give this grand old dame of a property.

More Snapshots of the Domaine Les Plonges ‘journey’ next edition.

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