44) Armistice Day 11.11.11

The other day we received an invitation in our post box from the Mayor to attend an Armistice day memorial in our little village commune of Cezac.  We decided we should go.  It was almost 20 degrees and the sun was shining in a clear blue sky.  The invitation was for 11.30, which we thought was a bit strange.  But, of course, France is an hour ahead of England, so 11.00 there is 12.00 here.

There were about fifty or so people outside the tiny church, many of whom now we know.  First of all the Maire, Maurice, said a few well chosen words, and then he read out a speech from the President de la Republique Francaise.  It was as if Maurice had become the President of France, right there among  us.  Very touching, and very moving.  And the Mayor of Cezac sounded much more sincere and convincing than Monsieur Sarkozy ever could.

Presumably there were mayors all over France reading out that speech all at the same time.  An amazing, and rather wonderful, thought.

Then a young girl read out a poem she had written in memory of those who had died.  To my very inadequate French, it sounded very good, and well beyond her young age.  She read it without fault or hesitation, and afterwards coyly acknowledged the applause.

Then the Maire thanked everyone for coming and invited all to join him in an aperitif.  It was a serious occasion, but not sentimental or stuffy or even too grave.  Despite all the flags, there was no pomp and ceremony, no medals, no uniforms, and no glorification of bravery or war.  It seemed just right, sincere, genuine and civilised.

43) Building work begins

The tremis (hole in the floor for the staircase) begins to be formed in my studio

The builders were due to arrive last Monday.  They rang to say that it was Tout Saints on the Tuesday and most people were taking a pont (bridge day) on the Monday, so everything would be closed for two days.  They would therefore come on the Wednesday.  They then emailed to say they had been delayed by a man digging a trench (which they had to fill with concrete) and they would, instead, be with us on Thursday.  And on Thursday 13 Brumaire an 220 de la Revolution (3 November 2011), they actually turned up.  By now we weren't really expecting them ....

Rubble and dust are the inevitable result of all this destruction

Luckily G was not leaning out of the tower window with no clothes on fastening back the shutters, as she was when the three young blokes arrived to cut down a tree the other Saturday morning.  Great progress has been made over the past week, though it has mainly been demolition.   Apart from the DUST and the NOISE, it is a little bit alarming to see our (once) beautiful house being partially destroyed.

The staircase opening progresses

One of the biggest, and most testing tasks, is to re-locate the staircase.  Initially, this has involved cutting and bashing a rather large hole in the (pot and beam) floor.  Almost all houses in France that have, at some stage, been rennovated in any way at all seem to have these "pot and beam" floors.

Now we are connected to the attic

They put a series of reinforced concrete beams in, drop in honey combed brick "pots" in between the beams, then they pour concrete over the whole lot to form a rigid floor. We were a bit sceptical as to how effective these were but, having now seen how difficult it was to make our tremis in the floor, we are rather impressed and dedicated converts.

Part of the reinforced concrete beams from the "pot and beam" floor construction

The sitting room becomes the main store room

In order to get on with the job of destruction (which takes place in all over the house) we have had to move most of our things into two rooms - and cover everything in dust sheets during the day/periods of destruction. All the kitchen units had to be dismantled and moved into the sitting room, which then made it even more difficult for me to remember where things were (not my greatest attribute at the best of times).  Making a cup of tea became a major project.  First find a mug, then the tea (which container has Earl Grey and which PG?), where did the fridge go for the milk and why the **** is the sugar not next to the tea bags?  Having finally located the kettle, the bloody lead is too short to reach any of the sockets, and then into another room to fill it with water.......

Wall paper stripping in the new upstairs bathroom

While the builders have been knocking down walls and making holes in the floor, G  and I have been stripping off wall paper.  Both of us have become quite expert at this, but our approach is quite different.  I try to get a whole section thoroughly damp and then, very slowly, peel of a complete strip all in one go.  G seems to prefer to pull lots of little strips off one at a time which, in my (humble) opinion takes much longer in the end, and causes an awful lot more mess.  However, in the interests of domestic harmony, I have conceded that this is an equally legitimate methodology.

The wallpaper before we stripped it off

I have a slight worry in the back of my mind, though, that "one day" someone will tell us that we have destroyed part of the l'histoire culturelle in stripping off this jazzy wall paper.  No doubt we will be visiting a museum sometime in the future, and there will be a recreation of a chambre typique from the 1970's which is the spitting image of our house before we destroyed it.

Noise and dust as the destruction continues

The electrics become shockingly exposed

The electrics have become a bit of an issue.  Obviously as you knock down walls, hidden wires become exposed and the switches and sockets once embedded in the plaster no longer are.  We therefore now have lots of trailing wires and electrical bits floating precariously around the rooms.  Very important not to wander about at night with the lights off (though half the lights are not connected any more).

The other thing is the power of the builder's tools, particularly the angle grinder, kept blowing the fuses.  Needless to say, the first time this happened, we discovered we had no spare fuses (trip fuses were evidently not invented, or hadn't been introduced to France, when the house was originally wired).  Once we (they) had blown several of the new fuses we decided to rig up their more powerful tools to the cooker socket.  This seems to have worked.  The only downside is that we can't cook whilst they are working, not that we have really got a kitchen anyway (see photos below).

The ghostly remains of a dead mouse and its newspaper nest

When we moved the old kitchen units it became evident that a family of mice had once lived behind the kick-board for many years in some previous era - yukkkk.

Not so easy cooking in a kitchen full of rubble and DUST and NOISE

The wall is almost down between the old larder and the kitchen

The guys told us they were going to knock down the wall of our temporary clothes cupboard, so we moved all our stuff into our temporary bedroom (about the only place not having a wall knocked down).  Unfortunately they ran out of time, so we had to move all the stuff back again before we could get to our bed (and then, of course, back again the next day so they really could knock the wall down).

The only access to the studio is blocked up before they make a new doorway to the left of it

An interesting sort of open plan en suite loo in what will become our new bedroom

We keep telling ourselves it will all be worth it in the end and we hope, if we do this often enough, we might actually start to believe it.