Tuesday, april 8, 2008

Winter is cold in southern France

From a reader I received recently the question: "nice, all those articles about the barber and the TV, but what about your renovation?". An understandable question. Two years ago I could have asked this myself. Because what you imagine from two hack writers who settle permanently in the south of France? Well, let me say that I also had hoped that we'd be writing our books and articles humming under an umbrella, and our publisher would never abandon us, and we'dd be busy with the renovation of our house.

But the reality is different. For a renovqtion you need time and money and that we just don't have enough of. We must work to earn money and the money we earn we need to live and so the circle is closed. The most urgent repairs and purchases we pay from reserves we don't have, or from donations and loans from family and friends. That's our current situation and unless a miracle happens, it will remain so.

Since a few weeks we have no heating and no hot water. Our forty year old, oil-fired boiler (Chaudière) was empty and a simple equation taught us that even in very very economic use (two radiators, only heating up to four hours per day) would cost at least 300 to 600 euros or more per month on oil (Mazut) alone. When the tank was empty again mid-March we decided that we'd rather freeze to death than spend another penny on the bitching machine.

The parents of Ruud who knowingly wanted to spend Easter here, returned early back to the Netherlands with the presumed intention never set foot in this cursed place again.

And meanwhile we live merrily on in our prehistoric love nest as we know now that you'll even get used to living without hot water. Well, it can always be worse. No water for example. Yes, that's what you get as they work on the road in front of your house. And that happens, preferably on a Friday afternoon, just before the weekend, so you are sure you have no water until Monday. Fortunately, we discovered a mysterious tap in the garage where we could draw some water from, so we could do the dishes and could flush the toilet with a bucket of water.

But there are always things that are worse than things are worse than other things even worse. For example imagine, no electricity and no internet. Brrrr, that really gives me a truly cold feeling.

My favorite workplace: behind my laptop at the kitchen table

We borrowed a gas stove from friends in the neighborhood, for the time being, so we can warm-up the kitchen a little. The warm water is temporarily out of a kettle and we wash ourselves with a pitcher I once bought at Ikea. Such a delft blue thing with a bowl, wich stood for many years being decorative on ourthe bedside has been. I never knew you could get on with so little ... gosh, rural life is so romantic, there must be many many people who envy us.

We have long wondered what do the letters Q and F on the bathroom wall mean. But now we know: one washcloth for your Face, and the other for your Q. See, now those letters really have a meaning to us, and we'll never be able to forget.

How to continue ... from a generous donor we have borrowed some money so we could buy a second hand Godin cuisinière à bois. This is a wood-or coal-fired oven and hob 'en fonte' (cast iron) which also serves as a heater. Yesterday the chimney sweep came to install an eleven-meter-long tube in the chimney place. What I particularly like is the elegant manner in which the aluminum pipe from the chimney is connected to the cuisinière, just look at the photo, really beautiful. Well, he's not connected because there is still missing a connecting piece, but well, I mean ...

The cuisinière, and behind it the wall which i'm restoring with the old tiles.

Anyway, if the pipe is connected we can at least heat the kitchen with six logs per day, and that makes a difference. The question is whether we will still be pleased with cooking on our cuisinière à bois when its going to be thirty degrees outside, but frankly, at the moment I cannot really be bothered.

The tulips are blooming, yes, believe it or not, these are tulips. But they were always like this. Beautiful, jagged little monsters that open when it's hot and close when they get cold.

Anyway, it will be clear that we have other things to think about than renovating. I had imagined otherwise but I already have overcome that disappointment. I have often said that we have no regrets of emigration, with regret, it has nothing to do, it has everything to do with the fact that we have fewer resources and opportunities to finance our adventure than we had hoped. Emigration is a dream for some, but at present, it is for us mainly a matter of survival.

What can I say. I do not know whether God exists (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God), but I light a candle every day for him, because if there is still going to happen a miracle, I can at least say that I somehow earned it.

Poll : how do you heat your French house ?
Selection
Wood - Coal	115 votes
Oil	23 votes
Electric	22 votes
Gas	15 votes
Otherwise	7 votes
162 voters
(endresult 09-2-2012)

posted by Maartje Heymans at 23:33  |  send a comment

Next column ( apr 21 ) - Previous column ( mar 8 )