Monday 8 October 2012

June 2008. Day One (3)


Mid day: Sara had said that there was a place just down the road where we could eat, so off we traipse. The place is empty. We could see no menu. I fumble in my head for some school girl French. I think the man says that it is too early for lunch, I think he says that he can do ‘petite dejeuner’. What us four fetch up with is four coffees, a strip of baguette each accompanied by a lump of butter and a bit of jam. Ah well, the coffee was hot.  

On the way back we think it would be a good idea to have a look at the River Adour which is on one of our boundaries. Man oh man but it is looking angry. Full of mud, very active, decidedly unfriendly, and frightening. It is in a fierce rage, this river, this is what I think. In time I shall grow to love the moods of the Adour. It is a busy river, and has work to do. Sometimes it is extremely busy, sometimes it slows down but still maintains its pace. I like that it is so alive. But that love of the river is in the future. For now, this day, this long day, this first day, I feel in fear of this river. It is not a day for paddling one’s feet in it. 




Mid afternoon, and Gary & Co have finally unloaded everything, the strimmer having finally been found, it being one of the last items to be unpacked.  Lester is pleased. More manly to use a machine to cut the grass rather than using dressmaking scissors. 




 A phone call to the UK confirms that our house in the UK has undergone completion and is now in the hands of its new owners. Feel relieved that the transaction has gone through successfully. Feel relieved that we have got here. Feel relieved that we are unpacked despite not knowing where Gary has put everything. In fact he has stashed the most important boxes in the worst place, which is the cobweb hell of the Hut, this I know but refuse to think about. 



Have managed to find the food supplies, and a barbeque is made out of bits of wood lying about the place. In the middle of the Courtyard we have our first meal here. 

Late afternoon: wave Gary & Co off finally, after he had fiddled about with his sat nav for what seemed like ages. Feel relieved that he is on his way, but abandoned at the same time. For a while we feel like two orphans. 

Not wanting to sleep in the campervan tonight, we set about pitching our tent. It is quite spacious. At least we can stretch out even if it is on the ground. We are tired, and flop down. We feel excited, though, and pleased to be here. 

Darkness falls. The thin walls of the tent make us feel very vulnerable. A flashlight being shone onto the tent from someone outside makes us feel even more so. We huddle under the duvet, me and Lester, waiting for the person with the flashlight to do dreadful things to us. Nothing happens. Except sleep. Bools and me snore, Lester gently zizzes, all three together in one heap in a tent in the middle of the Gascony countryside of SW France. We have used this tent and campervan before, but for holidays, after which we have returned to the same lives that we had before the hols. This time there is no return, no going back. This is not a two week holiday and then back to normality.

I can’t find anything, but tomorrow is another day. And the absolute joy that completion has gone through and that the house is UK is no longer ours, that we have got out of the UK, and that we are bold enough to have done so even if we are now living in a courtyard of a ruined house in a foreign country.

And so we sleep on.........

2 comments:

Diane said...

What a great feeling that is knowing the house back in the UK has been sold. This was our biggest worry and as always of course it took much longer than we had hoped.
Our first night we slept on a blow up mattress on the kitchen floor. We have never been so cold in out lives, cuddling up did nothing for us other than make our teeth chatter louder. Some idiot had also fixed up an extractor fan that kept starting up and sounded like a Boeing coming in to land or take off on top of us. Not a night to be remembered!!
I think a tent would not have been a lot better as we picked the coldest night in 2006 to arrive!
Enjoying your story Diane

Vera said...

Diane, We were supposed to be coming here Christmas 2007. Thank goodness we didn't because our house sale in the UK fell through, and it was the first time in living memory that this area had a deep fall of snow. By the time we did get here it was early summer, so we had time to prepare for the winter. Ah memories! It is good to look back on them!