French Times

The move went smoothly and we settled into our ten-year renovation, building and decorating project under the supervision of my lovely wife, who I have to admit, looks very fetching in a swimsuit, hardhat and Wellington boots.

The first and I guess most important project was installing a swimming pool. This took priority over just about everything else including a new kitchen, a new bathroom and building a loft type room in the roof. "Being without a pool during the summer would be a nightmare" thus spoke the brood.

That said we did have a slight problem with the loo, a small but perpetual leak, which had to be mopped up every couple of days. I phoned Lyvian the main plumber we work with, only to be told it would be at least three months before he could fix it as we had given him so much work with our clients houses he didn?t have time to sort us out, now that?s gratitude for you.

A couple of weeks later he came over to examine our new abode with a critical plumber?s eye, checking out the horrible pink bathroom with a half sunken bath (its still pink and still half sunk), the oil boiler, which he sarcastically said some outsider had installed and that anyone from outside a twenty kilometre radius shouldn?t be trusted especially a plumber, then he fixed the loo, took him about two minutes!

A month or so into our new residence we had a group of the kids' friends over for lunch and got chatting about the town. As many of you will know the film Charlotte Gray was actually filmed in the town of Saint Antonin Noble Val.

They sat there and regaled us with stories of the filming, Cate Blanchett, the huge crew and German tanks swanning about the town and how much they all got paid to be in the movie. We all sat and watched the film on DVD that afternoon with me on the pause button every time somebody spotted themselves playing their theatrical role.

"She got more than me because she had two parts"

"His costume was warmer than mine"

"That's Monsieur Axa" in other words Alain, the town's insurance agent, "he got paid the most because he had a speaking part"

"The guy in the back of the car dressed as a Nazi is the man that cuts your hair" and yes the chap in the peaked cap and long leather coat was in fact Claude, the owner of one of the local hairdressers.

"The waitress in the bar was our head mistress at primary school"

And so it went on, with multiple interruptions, gales of laughter and me working my fingers to the bone stopping and starting the DVD

At the end they all insisted on watching one of the DVD extras, which is a tour of Saint Antonin Noble Val, shot by the producer and crew at the end of filming the main movie.

It did however get me thinking and the next Saturday I was sitting in the local bar waiting to watch the rugby on the big screen television when Gerome, the owner, came over to have a chat. I told him about the lunch with the children and he went out to his office and came back with two huge photo albums, filled with pictures of the film sets, the stars, the tanks and his mothers hat shop next door that had been converted into a restaurant.

Within a couple of minutes I had been joined by six or seven other locals who told me how upsetting the filming had been for some of the older residents, seeing the storm troopers marching over the bridge, the tanks parked in the centre of our medieval town and the inhabitants all dressed as they would have been back in 1944.

He then shocked me by saying that the first house we owned here in Saint Antonin had been the headquarters of the Gestapo for over three years and the family that had owned it were restricted to one bedroom with bathroom and occasional use of the kitchen. Truth perhaps is stranger than fiction.

Now cappuccino is not your normal French cup of coffee here in town and the producers of the film bought a machine for Gerome to ensure cast and crew got their regular hit of caffeine. He said that every hour or so he would take multiple cups of cappuccino to various places in and around the town to feed "le boche".

So if you ever come to our little town be sure to have a cappuccino at the ?Bar des Halles?, I can assure you if its good enough for Cate Blanchett..

By the time the rugby started on the television there were probably fifteen people all discussing the film, what happened in the town during the war, La Resistance, how much money they had made, and how pretty Cate Blanchett was.

We were not residents when they made the movie, but we were when it launched having its premier in our little cinema in town, and all households were given free tickets to see our town on celluloid, I can assure you it was very odd, with everybody whispering "look theres so and so" and "there's the Mairie", and "she looks fatter on screen"

Anyway back to the swimming pool.

www.saintantoninnobleval.com

We tried everything to sort the mess out, bribery, begging, bitching and barter, nothing worked.

I have never actually understood whom the estate agent works for in France other than himself. I know that the Notaire works for both parties, and from his barbed comments, at least I knew whose side he was on; ours, thank god!!

He was brilliant, he phoned us every time some bit of paper arrived, every time he had a conversation with the agent or buyers, every time he had heard a rumour, every time he had a good liquid lunch and wanted to reassure us that he was doing everything possible with the power invested in him by La République Française. Our agent on the other hand avoided us, our friends and the Saint Antonin rugby team like the plague.

About the second week of our enforced cardboard city environment, the heavens opened and downloaded huge great two euro sized raindrops for three hours solid and promptly flooded the cellar. We were out at midnight in pyjamas sweeping the rainwater out trying to protect the family’s cherished possessions from the wrath of Neptune.

The next day the sun shone brightly so we took everything even slightly damp outside to get a suntan. Cars were stopping thinking they had found a “vide grenier” or garage sale. We stood guard as our chattels warmed themselves through and managed to flog a couple of fire guards, an old armoire, two bedside tables and a couple of broken lamps to passing trade.

It was as you can imagine a very difficult and stressful time for all of us. We still had holidaymakers in some of our holiday homes and owners out for the end of the season, and our customer service was a little below par, well to be honest almost none existent.

“What do you mean sir the house doesn’t have an avocado peeler? Use a knife!”.

“No, there is nothing we can do about the frog in your swimming pool, that’s why we leave you a net.”

“Of course you won’t die if you get a mosquito bite…. well at least I don’t think you will.”

“How am I supposed to know who won the big netball final in Huddersfield?”

To anybody, friend, holidaymaker or property owner I offended during those weeks I apologise unreservedly.

It also had its wonderful moments.

I couldn’t walk passed a bar in Saint Antonin Noble Val without some local French friend offering to buy me a Ricard or Pastis to get over my troubles. We were invited out to people’s homes on a regular basis for lunch, apéros, dinner and on one occasion breakfast.

If one of our artisans drove passed they would stop in the middle of the road and after the normal shout of “Oh you are still camping there are you”, would offer us any help they could, including having a quiet word in a dark alley with our agent.

I think a lot of our friends thought we were destitute, and would come in and wander around the house making that “tsk…tsk” sound the French are very good at.

Colette, our middle aged divorced neighbour came around one morning to have a peek at our rather desolate interior. Although her motive was to check we were still sane, I have a sneaking suspicion it was also to ensure she had prior knowledge of when the rugby team would be returning. She walked into one of our bathrooms and saw the fitments were still on the walls. All I heard was a very bad French swear word and my name being hollered.

“Richard” she screamed in her south western French/Occitan dialect, “you are not leaving these for your xxxxxxxx (another very bad south western French swearword) buyers are you?”

“Well”, I said humbly “we had agreed we would leave them”.

A diatribe of invective, questioning my manhood, my intelligence, my Frenchness, and my British spine, followed this last utterance. I didn’t come out of it very well at all…… In fact I could tell she was not at all impressed with any of my body parts.

“Call yourself a man, take it all” she shrieked, “leave nothing behind, do you know what a light bulb costs these days?”

So when the time came we did!!

And the time, it did come.

Eight weeks into the siege, our Notaire phoned me early one Monday morning (10am) to tell me that normally he doesn’t work on Mondays, his health and his wife’s were fine, what wonderful weather we were enjoying, what a fantastic meal he had at the Mairie on Saturday night, and just as he is about to hang up he mutters that he has heard a rumour that our buyers may, possibly, perhaps, probably be in a position to sign soon.

Apparently he had received a very important English legal document in the morning post from our buyer’s mortgage company and basically the man from Del Monte, he say “Yes!!”

www.saintantoninnobleval.com