Well, that's how it seems to me, anyway.
We have spent the last three weeks getting acquainted with La Fromagerie: with every tiny detail of our little barn; with how the light plays on the floor at different times of the day; with the sounds of the hamlet; with the daily routine of our neighbours...
The biggest thrill is to be able to spend the night under her roof after waiting so very long! To go to sleep with the moon and myriad stars overhead, the silence of the valley broken only by the faraway call of an owl or the soft thud of our apples, dropping to the ground outside; to wake to the sounds of the countryside, to church bells and birdsong - and the rather quirky sounds of the new fridge, which squeals and squeaks and gurns like a wee beastie; to open the shutters upstairs and down to get the full impact of the views from every window...it's simply magic.
We spent day #1 unpacking and cleaning and installing the bits and pieces that we had had delivered here. The place was a mess, dusty and filthy, and we were disappointed to see that our IKEA bed had not been delivered, in spite of the careful choosing and planning etc (not to mention payment, and two trips to Sydney IKEA that we could have well done without). Out with the foot pump and blow-up mattress, then... Then, for the next few days, we dashed about with lists of must-dos and must-gets, so that we could welcome the family with some of the comforts of home. Towels, toilet paper, plates, cutlery, pots and pans, mugs, a rug for the lounge, basic groceries, bedding; you get the picture.
The last week or so has been a revolving door of extended family - parents, aunt, niece and offspring, and it has been just wonderful to be able to welcome them to our home-from-home and share our folly with dear ones.
The weather has been unsettled - huge skies filled with clouds give way either to bursts of warm sunshine or showers; we've even had a couple of electric storms. No canicule this year - thank goodness - and we are able to work in the garden or in the house without suffering the excessive heat of last summer. Of course, the locals are complaining bitterly - No summer, this year! What a catastrophic summer! - and their veggies are not what they should be. The tomato plants, for example, are tall and leggy and, though bearing well, show signs of mildew. The fruit is delicious, though: Jean-Marie (J-M) has kept us supplied with the produce from his field - lettuces, huge beef (coeur de boeuf) tomatoes, haricot beans, poireaux (leeks) - as well as the usual gifts of advice and mild scorn for our foreign ways. He's a good, kind man, though, and would give you the shirt off his back.
His tractor's steering is bust, so one day last week J-M appeared on his small ride-on mower to cut our grass. Muttering darkly about his mechanic younger brother's slovenly ways with machinery, he indicated the missing footplate, below which the blades whirred dangerously close to his feet and delicate parts. The garden became a blur of activity: G and my Dad kept busy lifting the obvious rocks in J-M's path, I was hard at work clearing the weeds from around the bushes we had planted in April (all present and correct; growing happily), while my Mum supplied cold water and tea to the troops. A lovely, content afternoon.
The tractor sans steering (TSS) played a starring rôle in a farce that unfolded in the hamlet last week. A monster truck with a large consignment of ducts and pipes arrived outside on the road, and there ensued much commotion as a neighbour manoeuvred his fancy new tractor so as to remove some of the larger ducts and deliver them to the carpentry workshop on the hillside below the road. Then J-M's son Jean-Michel appeared on J-M's ancient Farmall tractor (TSS), the load of ducts was duly hitched to the back and they set off down the slope. Each time the tractor needed to change direction, J-M would leap into action, wrenching a crowbar into the steering mechanism, et voila! All good, so far. Until the slope got the better of the tractor, its wheels locked up, and the whole shebang started sliding downhill towards the neighbour's wall. Luckily, said neighbour's driveway opens up at a certain point and the runaway tractor slid to a stop just in time, without doing any damage to person or property... Now the truck had to come down the slope, drag the tractor + load back up the hill, and then the two vehicles began the descent again, this time the truck controlling the rate, if not the direction, of the tractor's descent.
You wouldn't read about it.
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