Renovations start
The house we bought when we first moved to France was in a small village of 65 inhabitants and a million miles in difference from London, where we had lived most of our lives. The building was derelict and in order to stay in the house we had to buy a tent. We erected it in what was going to be a bedroom. Until such time as we got a kitchen, and at least one room finished, that was going to be our home for the next few months. The ground floor of the house had earth floors and the villagers had filled the building with rubbish over 25 years, hardly expecting anyone to want to live there.
Our first problem came when we ended our first day’s work. Wanting to shower I made the decision that we didn’t want water running over the earth floors and making them so muddy that we couldn’t work the next day. It was eight in the evening, and completely dark, and so, I stripped my dirty clothing off and using the basics of a garden hose I popped out into the garden to shower.
Our neighbours were indoors having their evening meal, and I was enjoying some cleanliness, when I was suddenly bathed in floodlights. My neighbour halfway through the meal had decided that she wanted something from the refrigerator, that was kept under an awning at the back of her house. You can imagine my panic to re enter our house without being seen. Realising the impracticality of trying to shower under a hosepipe in the garden, we elected to buy a bath, but in modern times it is almost impossible to find an old tin bath, and so opted to buy a baby’s plastic bath, and that served us for about two months. A description of its use would not do it justice, and probably even cause offence so you will have to use your imagination as to how a man weighing 220 pounds was able to bathe. We were a lot younger then and having lived like that once. I would never do it again. When I spoke to Eliane, our neighbour, some years later about my shower in the garden, and the possibility that I might have offended her so early in our residence, she swore that she had seen nothing, but she was always a very good diplomat throughout the ten years we lived as neighbours.
VILLAGE TROPHIES
One day in the village I overheard one of the villagers talking to his cousin who lived in the next village. The cousin was saying “Last week we had a new road sign put up in our village”. Our neighbour in reply said “The Mayor is talking about putting up street lights in our village”. Each response was obviously meant to prove that each other’s village was more important and lively than the others, an important thing for a wine farmer who sees little outside the village, except for his vines. When finally our neighbour could think of nothing more to boast about against the claims of his cousin, he thought for a few minutes and then said “Oh, but we have got two English people living in our village”. I was never sure if the cousin had finally admitted defeat, or whether he had decided that no response was called for, but the conversation died at that point.
THE REVOLUTION TREE
	When France was celebrating the 200th anniversary of the Revolution it was decided that each village would plant a tree in commemoration. Our house was next to the church and when we first moved into the village the churchyard had become overgrown. Carol and I decided to clean it and to care for the plants, also to plant some new ones. After a while, the garden was beginning to look quite nice, and was being used again by the villagers. One day a workman from the Marie arrived carrying “the tree”. I was in our garden when I heard the man call me. “Where do you want me to plant this tree?” I explained to him that as an Englishman, I was hardly qualified to tell a Frenchman where to plant his tree to commemorate the Revolution. However he was insistent, and reluctantly I pointed out to him where I thought, was, perhaps, the best position. He then dug a hole and planted the tree, whilst I held it upright to enable him to refill the hole with earth. I therefore claim the honour, of being the only Englishman to have planted an official Revolution tree in France. After some years the tree flourishes.
Village Funerals
Our first funeral in the village, after we moved from England, was something of an eye opener about the relaxed ways of the south. Our neighbour informed us that someone who originated from the village, who had moved away, had died, and was now to be returned to the village for his funeral. Not wishing to cause offence by continuing with our building work, we decided to clean around the front of our house, as we adjoined the Church. Normally the Church was only used once a week when a visiting Priest came and a half dozen of the village women would attend. Having cleaned and washed the area in front of our house we decided to continue along the street for a short distance and also in front of the Church Porch. The whole area looked spotless. We then hid away indoors as the time of the funeral approached, which was heralded by the mournful ringing of the church bell. We couldn’t resist but look to see what was going on, and peeking out of the window, was amused to see the coffin being carried along the street by a couple of wine farmers, the baker from the next village and the two men who worked on the dustcart, whom by now we had christened Bill and Ben.
The roads in front of our house and the church was too narrow to allow a normal car to drive along, and this was the only way of bringing the coffin to the church. What was so amusing about this solemn occasion you may ask? Well, all the men were still in their working clothes. The farmers covered in blue copper sulphate, the baker with traces of flour all over and the dustmen who had parked their vehicle a short distance away, to perform their task, were still in their dirty ‘french blues’.
The women of the village were inside the church, but almost to a man all the men remained outside, in groups, chatting about the vines and the weather, and hardly looking up as the coffin passed. When the final ceremony was over, the coffin was carried, the two hundred yards to the cemetery by the original pallbearers, and the mourners left. We then exited our house to find that our spotlessly clean street had turned into an open ashtray where the male mourners had been standing, and so we had to start over again. This continued with all funerals during the ten years that we lived there, before we moved to our present house.
Our village was a satellite village of a larger village, and there, they had an old Peugeot 504 estate car that doubled up as the school bus and hearse. It was painted black with the name of the village emblazoned along its sides. It had certainly seen its best days, and the parents were getting anxious about its condition. Things came to a head when several children arrived home, one lunchtime, each one clutching a small bunch of flowers. When asked where the flowers came from, the parents were told that they had found them in the back of the car after a funeral that morning. Things never returned the same as they had been, and the village was forced to purchase a small bus for the school children.
Growing Vegetables
After living in the village for about five years, we were told that we should have a vegetable garden, and were encouraged to take over a garden that had become overgrown after abandonment 25 years earlier. We took several weeks cleaning away weeds and then discovered that the garden was on two levels, that had been impossible to see before, because of the height of the weeds. We also found that there was a well with an old watering system, that consisted of a channel built into the top of the stone walls surrounding the garden, and at regular intervals, a round basin. By pumping water out of the well, the water ran along the wall in the channel and then into the basins. As each basin filled it over flowed into the next channel to fill the next basin and so on. When the basins were full, and with the aid of a spade, the gardener was able to water all parts of the garden, by scooping the water from the basin over the plants. Our neighbour in the village, who also had the adjoining garden to ours, was our chief advisor. This man was a wonderful source of advice, as he had been either a gardener, or a wine farmer all his life. In fact he often told us a story of how he had been called up into the army at the start of WW11. Within a short time of his joining the army, he had been captured at Dunquerke. From there German soldiers had forced a group of prisoners to walk to Essen in Germany, and on arrival had assembled them in a train marshalling yard. At some stage a call was made by the Germans for any gardeners to raise their hands, he raised his. and also encouraged the man next him, whom he had befriended during their march, to put his hand up, but his friend said, “I’m a butcher not a gardener”. “Just do it said our neighbour” and so the butcher also put his hand up. They were then both sent to a castle in the east of Germany and spent the rest of the war working in the castle grounds, and according to our neighbour lived a very civilized life. The count, who owned the castle, treated them very well and even arranged for letters to be sent to our neighbour’s wife to inform her that he was well. During the time we lived in the village the Count’s son arrived, looking for our neighbour to renew his acquaintance.
Our garden was a huge success, as together with the climate, the soil, and the advice we were given, everything that we planted grew, with one notable exception and that was broad beans or feve as the French call them. The first time we planted feve they started sprouting, and looked very healthy. Then overnight, they disappeared. We assumed that snails had eaten them. The following year we attempted to grow them again, and this time we spread out bait to trap the snails, but again the healthy shoots disappeared overnight. Calling on the assistance of our neighbour he quickly came up with the solution to our problem. It was a badger.
Our garden was located next to a hill covered in scrub and apparently badgers who lived there were very partial to our feve. Each year after that, we planted our feve knowing that we were doing something for the wildlife of the area, and also provided some amusement for the villagers, who couldn’t understand why we would waste money feeding the badgers.