How to rebuild a house in six months,

Everytime I buy a house and do it up I say that I will never renovate again. Never again will I go through the scary money drain, the endless dirt and dust, the moving of all my worldly belongings, the complaints of my kids, the waiting for builders to turn up. So what was I thinking of when I bought a large French derelict house on the side of a canal? In fact two - one large, one small. Last year, the gite was renovated with my boyfriend and it was a tricky year. BF did loads of fantastic work and so did I and now it's lovely, but we fell out over lots of things, like who had the best idea for anything, and how we wanted to live - him favouring long periods of not speaking to me, me favouring something a little more fun and relaxed - and then we fell out properly. Way before then teenage daughter decided enough was enough and went back to live with her Dad in England. There were lots of tears, mostly, it seemd, mine, and still I didn't get a horse, or sepend more time with the kids, or get less stressed - all the reasons for being here in the first place.

On the other hand living off my savings whilst renovating a house in the sunshine of the South of France was better than going out to work for a living, although there were a couple of inherent problems. One was that there was no money coming in like there is when you go out to work for a living, and two, that when you invest lots of time and money renovating a house to rent you run the risk of not getting your money back if you can't, after all, rent it and then you are forced to sell, in which case, hopefully, you get your money, and maybe all your hard work back, but then you don't have a home.

All the time we were renovating what is now our gite, I didn't know what the answer to these questions (would it rent, would it sell, if so for how much?) would be. In times of wealth and prosperity when you are single with no kids the whole risk thing may not so terrifying, because you can sell, you hope, at a profit and then have loads of money and so you just go and buy another house, or a round the world plane ticket. But when it's credit crunch, the house market has collapsed everywhere and you are single and with kids who need, ideally to be in one place for a while so that they can go to school and stuff, it's hard to be quite so lighthearted about moving around a lot and losing all your money, your hard work and investment and possibly not having much money to feed and house them with.

And then there is the whole process of renovating. When I did works to my last home, whilst I lived in it with the kids I swore I would never do it again. Now I am just about to start works on the big derelict, and I am already swaying between optimism and hope and sheer terror at the amount of money involved, the decisions I'll need to make while builders stand around, tapping their feet, costing money, with a 'I knew she hadn't thought this through' type of sigh, and the fact that we will be covered in dust from dawn til dusk, and will I go bankrupt?

So this is an account of renovating a house, from the roof downwards, turning it from a grim sad place through which the wind blows and the rain leaks down two floors, and which drops endless dust, and which gives us electric shocks in the shower (this house is telling us to move out and mend it), into a home of beauty and joy.

And the reason I am writing this account is to tell everyone else how not to do it, and to remind myself why I always say I'll never do it again - and hopefully perhaps why I always do.

How to have summer fun

So far summer has panned out slightly less well than expected. Take this morning for instance. It's windy, bits of cloudy, the tail end of a storm blowing out. All this in mid July. Small has had the biggest horrible fluey-cold, and now I have it, my voice husky, my throat sore, my nose rough-red. It had me checking for swine flu, but it's not, although my nose looks pretty swine ish. BF and I have fallen out enough, this time, for him to have left, for respite with friends. And this is a relief, as it happens, from what was going on before.

The gallery is ticking over but the village is agreed that this year there are just not the visitors. Meanwhile another shop has opened and 17 other holiday rental flats are being renovated, with large pool, up the road. So the place will either get much busier - good for us all - or no busier, with business stretched out between us.

Barney still has a bad leg from the dreaded grass seed, although he effects not to notice it, just plays with his latest favourite stone, digging up as much of the gravelled courtyard as he can. We still have two kittens - the boy, renamed Jasper, and sweet little Easter Cat, and their Mum.

Also we've added two teenagers - Teenage Daughter is back with her friend, and it's lovely to have them here, although they don't think so, because there is not enough to do (bar swimming in the pool/the river/cycling/hanging out/taking the bus to Narbonne, generally getting off their backsides and getting OUT THERE!), so they are forced to lounge around all day watching films, never lifting a finger, periodically raiding the fridge, Teenage Daughter complaining about lack of decent food/large town/anything really.

Meanwhile I'm languishing a bit, running the gallery where I can - yesterday I was open all afternoon and sold one postcard.

Spending - 30 euros at the supermarket

Income - 2 euros

Still no horse

The woodman has been living here four years. When people come to stay, he tells us, it's like this - a weekend is mates staying, a week is a holiday and two weeks is taking the piss.

When you live in the South of France people do come to stay with you, and why not - mates and sunshine, what could be better - and they're invariably generous and lovely and although it's hard work trying to keep fledgling business going as well as being sociable as the sun shines and the wine flows and your guests are intent on being on holiday, on balance it's good to have them around.

So why do they feel the need to criticise? These are the most popular: it's too hot/it's too windy/it's too cold/too many mosquitos. How do you cope with no one to talk to? (Still trying to get my head round this - I'm living in the most social place I have ever lived, where all the time people stop and talk, and I know lawyers, musicians, teachers, artists who show Internationally, carpenters and craftsmen, PR people, restaurateurs, all of whom drop anything to help and lend me their cars when mine goes wrong - a far cry from life in the city as I remember it), How do you manage without culture? (see last). I mean, do I fly back to England and say, why, how do you cope with the cooped in greyness, the fact that no one is friendly, that everything must be done at top speed and even best friends have no time for each other - and the cold? How do you cope with endless talk of money and house prices and security? How do you cope? No, I don't say any of this - and this is why. It's because there's good and bad in everywhere we live, and I am just trying like the next person to enjoy my life in a place I like, and, also, most of all, it's dead rude. So please, guests, come and stay and enjoy our place but keep your criticisms where they should be kept - to yourself.

How to win at a Vide Grenier - buying and selling

Small always makes a load of cash at the vides, and now we're getting better at it too - both buying and selling. Here are some top do's and don'ts for successful vide training.



Selling Tips



1. Do book your pitch ahead of time

2. Do get up really early (everyone else will start at 4.30 am) if you want a particular spot - or if you live in the village set up a table the night before. Just booking the place isn't enough - it's being there first that counts in the end.

3. Do put a price on everything - people are more likely to come up to you if they can see something they like in the right price range

4. Do be prepared to bargain

5. Do make the most of any theme you have - if it's gardening tools group them all together, if it's clothes lay them out according to size and style, men, women and children



1. Don't price to high - people at Vides are generally looking for a bargain

2. Equally, don't price too low - most people will bargain with you

3. Don't let your stall get untidy - keep assessing what it looks like to your buyers - if it's scruffy and all over the place people are less inclined to stop and look

4. Don't leave your stall for hours on end - if you're not there people can't buy

5. Don't take it too seriously - aside from all the commercial possibilities it's a great day out!



Buying tips



1. Do follow the early and late rule - early on you'll get the best pick of what's on offer, but at the end of the day people will be selling off even more cheaply so they don't have to pack everything away.

2. Do be prepared to bargain - it's always good humoured, and it's always worth it

3. Do arrive at a Vide armed with lots of small change and cash - there'll be lots on offer for a euro, and no one takes cards

4. Do make a day out of it at the bigger Vide Greniers - take a picnic, or take advantage of the food on offer

5. Do take a bag to carry your stuff - I've seen people with wheeley bags!

Empty your Attic!

It's Vide Grenier day. At 4.30 am cars and vans pull up outside the house and start setting out tables. BF wakes me up and says better get out there and grab your space, I've already sent a few packing. Small Daughter and I stumble sleepy eyed into the chilly darkness and start our own stall, hugging mugs of chocolate and coffee.

Starting in the spring, there's at least one Vide Grenier every weekend in the surrounding villages, and today it's our turn. Literally, 'Vide Grenier' means 'empty loft', and it's a bit like a car boot sale. We're excited because Small is selling lots of old clothes and toys, and she loves selling. I'm selling homemade lavender bags, and bits of fabric, and anything else I can find, but my stock is limited because I'm a hoarder and I usually buy at these markets - large green bottles, jugs and shapely brown carafes, antique French linen sheets, candle stick lamps, plates, a travel cot for the gite, a good quality coffee maker. Sometimes you get lucky and buy great stuff at bargain basement prices, sometimes you accidently buy junk, and other times you just marvel at the stuff people try to sell, and the chap who turns up at every vide trying to sell an old wire table - very pretty - at a mamothly huge (for here) price of 400 euros. But this weekend it's our turn, and as we get everything out, (Small has this all planned, it's a military operation) stamping our feet, we feel like proper market traders in our woolly hats, jackets and hefty boots.

Our boat friends come over and set up their stall next to ours and we make signs, hang things up, make more coffee. Gradually it gets light and people start arriving, This Vide is huge - running a mile each way on both sides of the canal, and we have high hopes. But Small quickly gets bored and wanders off giggling in French with her mates, boat friend has hangover and disappears to look round, and I am left sitting on the cold wall, smiling at the world going by, but selling nothing. Gradually though, as I sit there, the sun comes up and it gets warmer and warmer until it's t shirt and dress weather, and then all of a sudden, at lunchtime, it's boiling. We sustain ourselves with glasses of chilled rose (well, someone has to do it), and then in the afternoon the market really hots up, for Small at least, and things start selling. Suddenly she's sold her huge toy oven (thank goodness - a space in our junk room), and then there's no stopping her. While all the other stall holders complain, Small racks up a good 60 euros, I get 17 euros (but spend 30) and boat friend gets 40. Too big say the French traders, tout le monde est ici, too many people, too many stalls, shrugging grumpy gallic shoulders.

At the end of the day it's bargain time, as everyone sells off really cheaply rather than pack stuff back in their cars, and then gradually, at about 6.30 the place clears out and calms down until all that is left are the chalk marks on the roads marking out the pitches, and some people having aperetifs at the restaurant opposite.

BF and the Gendarmerie

Bf arrives home shaken and stirred, the car rattling as he pulls up. I need a hug he says, and hugs me. Oh my god, I think, must be bad. It turns out that BF has had an accident dans la voiture.He's pulled out, slightly and slowly, easing out, straight into a car driven fast by a stunning woman. To make matters worse, he's done it in front of a car full of three policemen who quickly make it clear that not only is it all his fault,but that he is obviously an oik who who has driven on purpose into the car of a beautiful, probably helpless, woman.

When they find that, inexplicably, we have the wrong insurance document on the screen of the car they ask if he is also a homeless oik (do you live on a boat, a bateau, on the canal, they ask) after they have finished ignoring him entirely whilst they check the well being of the lovely girl, casting more malevant looks in his direction as they do.

Things get worse when her friend turns up to help speak English, and it turns out she is more beautiful and more perfectly breasted even than car crash girl. All police eyes swivel to her as she swings out of her car, leaning on the bonnet to help them check their notes.

All of this gives us the opportunity to realise that we have neglected to make sure that the right papers are in the car. For some reason the insurance that appears on the little green document is out of date, the carte gris isn't in the glove compartment, and BF hasn't got his little bit of paper with the insurance numbers on - a bit of paper he has carried virtually every day until now. I feel a bit panicked and drama-queeny, as if we are lurching from crisis to crisis, as if it is all slightly out of control, all slightly on the edge of my lack of understanding of France and the language.

Are we insured then? (yes, according to the broker), does the car need it's French MOT? We check, going through everything feverishly - no it doesn't. All is in order, but just not in the car when BF needed it. Are you employed? the gendarmes ask, writing him every kind of ticket and fine you can think of. The copper barely comes up to his chest, and BF mainly wants to deck him, but instead practises his French instead, to no avail and no sympathy. So we've ended the day considerably lighter in the pocket, BF couldn't even get the things he was out driving for, as it's a monday, so (obviously) everythings shut, and we haven't had any fun.

At the moment it feels as if that is the life en France - the sun isn't shining, it's all grey cloud and cold drizzle, a bit like England in fact. I've had enough of France I say. Where do you want to go then, asks BF, England will do, I say, and mean it. As long as I have a horse.

May 09

I'm in England now, so that Small can see her Father, and I can see the Teenager. That's the thing about living in France, for me, having to come back to England a lot. When I do I'm not sure who I am anymore, and where I actually live, and where I like best. And also, the day before I fly, BF and I generally fall out, badly, at midnight so there's an added frission of stress and upset and a vague depressing feeling of having been here before, and not in a good way.

In England, unlike chilly France, the sky is blue, and so at first I'm jolly glad to be here away from the cold and rain, and endless domestic chores of France. Here I'm just an almost single bod gadding about, ping ponging between different sets of friends, a bit of a nomad with a bag over my shoulder.

At the Ex's house to pick up the Teenager so that I can be a Macdonalds Mum for the afternoon (actually slightly more sophisticated now - a shopping Mum), I see my ex sister and brother in law. It's the first time I've seen them in 7 years, before then it was nearly twenty years of hanging out together. They're lovely as always, and we're all pleased to see each other, but it's uncomfortable exchanging news in front of the ex, and so we all stand awkwardly around on the sunny pavement. The kids just look on,Small looking glum because 1. she is missing me and seeing me reminds her or (possibly more likely) 2. she is having a ball in England with her Dad and second family, and doesn't want to be reminded that she's torn between two homes and two countries - a feeling she only gets when she comes back to England. In France she's a little French girl happily charging round on her bike and riding horses and generally being fine and a bit French.

Away from my ex family and my ex life, no one in England seems that cheerful, and no wonder. The endless drone of financial ruin is everywhere and getting on everyones nerves, and it feels as if everyone is under the cosh in some way, standing on the edge of a precipace not knowing if they're going to fall, or be pushed or walk away unscathed. Meanwhile the wretched media, having battered everyone into the ground with tales of woe and disater and hardship is now saying it all might get better - too little, too late.

I feel like I need another adventure, and I still haven't got a horse, so part of me wants to sell up in France and buy a farm in England. Not my most practical thought, and since I haven't actually won the lottery and still have no desire to sign up for TV work again, I'll probably have to give up on the thought before it takes root.

What do I miss? My old life, the fact that friends and family are a drive away, the English countryside, warm houses, knowing my way around. Being able to chat without feeling like an idiot who will never get the hang of a new language.

After five days Small and I get back on a plane, early in the morning, Small in tears as she says goodbye to her Dad. I didn't get long enough she sobs, I miss my Dad, as the plane lifts and soars through a clear bright blue emptiness. I feel wretched, the cause of all the anguish.Nor did I, I think, not time enough or home enough.