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.

Laughing Ducks and the Languedoc

It’s one of those days. I’ve been on the go since 6 this morning – the Thursday French lesson for four hours at Teenage Daughters school, making lunch for everyone - builders, kids, BF, me - clearing up, driving all over the Languedoc to find the colour, digging the garden to get it ready to sow for grass, making the supper, dealing with difficult renting issues in England, at both our holiday cottage in Cornwall, and our flat-which-should-be-sold by now, sympathising with Teenage Daughter who has problems at school because some kids are being horrible to the English kids, washing up the supper, tidying up, going to buy a bottle of wine because BF (I hate drinking, he says) has just scarfed the end of the rose. Apart from the sunshine, it’s not a day I have enjoyed much and then to put the final finish to it, BF and I have a row and go to bed, and then I can’t sleep because the small amount of not very good white wine I have drunk is galloshing around, and I wish I hadn't drunk it.Next morning at 7.30 am, there are five men at the gite, it’s bright sunshine, and I make them all tea and coffee. The girls go off to school. We look again at the colour on the restaurant and the Lurcher tips some pigment in the mixer and off we go. 'It’s very difficult to get the colour right like this' says our Macedonian , shaking his head sadly, 'very difficult'. But we mix up two batches, and surprizingly, first time it looks great. I am elated. It will go well! It's all going to work! Then we put the coloured render on the wall, and it still looks great. Then the render is smoothed out and as it is smoothed, it goes muddy and grey, right before our eyes. That’s horrible says BF. The Lurcher and I try various mixes, various colours. Whatever we do, it still looks horrible. Then we realise that the reason it's going from soft peachy yellow to horrible is because the tiny black stones in the sand, which no one had noticed before, come to the front when the mixture is smoothed onto the wall, turning the colour to a murky muddy dirty yellow. "You should have got the paint, Tonne Pierre" says the Lurcher "thats what you want", then "you don’t know what you want". "I do know what I want" I say, (near tears), "I want that colour over there. – I’ve always wanted that colour over there". I point at the restaurant opposite, as I did when we first agreed the job . BF doesn't say anything, just comes up and stands behind me, towering over us both 'Well you won’t get it like this" says the Lurcher, and calls the boys off and takes them all home so he doesn’t need to pay them, promising to be back shortly. It's not yet 10 oclock. 'We need white sand, without bits in it,' say BF and our Macedonian, before they go back to the rest of the work on the gite - sanding beams, finishing walls. So I career off in a hot car again, the dog at my side, in search of some sand which doesn’t have little black bits in, and predictably enough the Lurcher doesn't come back, probably going to the pub, which I reflect, grumpily, is where I'd like to be. The sand turns out to be six miles up the road, so it's only seven return journeys with a trailer to get what we need, to replace the sand with gritty bits in that we've already dumped in a pile in the yard. Then all we’ve got to do is sieve the three tones of white sand by hand to get the grit out so that we finally end up with the fine white we really need, which BF does, as the lads lean on spades and watch. Then it's only another hot week of full on work for the whole team to put it on, and then it's done. And our gite is transformed. It's a pale lovely yellow, slowly coming alive in front of us. At the end of the week we give the lads beer and wine, and we raise a glass as the sun glints on the canal, and the boats glide by in the soft South of France early evening light, and we look at our peachy colour which isn’t really the same as the restaurant opposite but pretty nice anyway, and for a moment we think we know why we are here, and it’s all worthwhile.

July 08

(1594 words)

Apart from the chap who said he was a builder but turned out to be a con man, we like all our builders. There’s the woodman and the Macedonian, and Craig, in love with a dark eyed part Spanish part French woman. There’s Pierced Jimmy, descended from the Cathares, and a silent Frenchman whose wife brings him on a scooter and stays all day, watching and waiting.

Then there’s Lurch, who we've trusted with the final rendering of the gite we’re much too lovingly restoring.

The Lurcher has a dark haired woman tattooed above his wrist. "she told me that she always wanted to be on my arm, so that night I got a tattoo, and now she is", he's already knocked through the windows on our gite, and now we're finishing the outside. At last. We’re more than three months behind now, one of them due to waiting for the permission to do the work, one due to the con man and one of them partly due to Lurch. Because although he works hard long days in the scorching summer heat, regularly putting in weekends, he then blows his brownie points by not turning up for days on end. We know now that if he's not here, red eyed and shaking, at eight in the morning, he won't be coming. But he does a great job, and we like him, and now that he’s actually started the render he has a team working with him and so he’s here on the button every day.

Lurch and I are having lots of discussions about colour. We’ve already had lots of discussions about colour. It’s important, because, obviously, it’s on the front of the building. Apart from whether we like it, we’re bang in the middle of the village, by the famous bridge, so the marie have to like it too.

So Lurch and I have talked over what we want, for three months now. Right at the beginning, we showed him the restaurant opposite and said, we want it to be like that. It has to be like this because the Architects at Batiments de France and the Marie have told us (or not actually told us, but not actually told us that we can’t, which is the way it works in France) it is the colour they want. Lurch has told me, reassured me, again and again, that it’s no problem, that he has done it lots of times before and he wil give me exactly the colour and texture as the restaurant opposite.

So, it’s all fine until the day before work begins, when I say, as arranged, shall we go and pick up the colour? Lurch looks startled, then worried and shaky, takes a long drag on his roll up, and says 'I’ve got cement drying, and I can’t'. It's the hottest day of the year so far. Cement won't so much dry fast as incinerate.

'OK', I say, taking a deep, already slightly bothered, breath, 'I'll go, what should I get, how much should I get?" . I know now never to expect anything to be simple in France, if you do, you’re in for a tough time. Lurch looks worried and shaky all over again, and explains a bit. My heart sinks. I know that I will go to the builders merchants he suggests, and I will ask them, in (very) bad French for what I think we want, and they probably won’t understand me, and even if they do, if they don’t have what we need, I will be stuffed, because they will give me directions,very helpfully but very fast, to where I need to go, which I won’t be able to understand. especially given that I probably wouldn't have understood even in English because directions just aren't my strong point.

In the end we decide that Pierced Jimmy should come with me, and we trek off with the dog in the blistering heat, windows down, fans blasting. We drive down loping roads to the first merchants. They don’t have it, and they direct us to the next one, another 10 km away. There, we buy several plastic bottles of powdered colour, none of them quite right, but the sales person explains that we need ‘une melange’ - a mix of all of it to get what we want - so we're hopeful it’ll be fine.

When we get back, I explain that although none of the colours are actually right, the colour is to be a melange. 'That’s rubbish' says BF, straight at my exhausted face, 'where have you been, how can we possibly get the right colour from that?' 'Well we’ll just have to see', I say, 'we’ll know when the team arrive tomorrow and they put it on a whole face of the house, then we’ll know if it’s right or not'.

Of course any fool can see that we should do a patch test first, and I suggest it to Lurch but he says no, we can’t do that, it will all be fine, that’s what I use. Ok I say, being any old fool.

Feb 08

So, to get an income we have to finish the gite and to do that, we must apply to our Marie (the local major),  to get 

permission for the work.  In most areas this takes a month, but this is the Canal du Midi - basically  one long conservation 

area, so here it'sa minimum of three. Having no idea how to apply, I go to the local tourist office for advice. There the M & Ms, 

the bilingual and mutli lingual tourist  officers advise me. 'You must first go and see the architects, Batiment de France 

in Carcasonne', they tell me, 'Discuss with  him your plans, and then put in your preable (permission document)". That way I   

will know what I can do straightaway and won’t waste precious months asking for something I can't do, and then having to 

start  all over again . 

You need an appointment with the architect, says one M, (five and a half fluent languages), 

and rings the chief architect for me. Ah, but you can’t see him for six months she says, when she comes off the phone. She 

shrugs,   then seeing my look of dismay says 'I’ll try someone else'. This time at the end of her call she's got an 

appointment for me to  see an architect in Carcasonne next week. 'He' s used to dealing with foreigners', she says, 'and he’ll 

speak English'.

All week I write down everything we want to ask the architect, and learn it  In French, just in case, practising my spiel to 

anyone who will listen, including the dog, and collect  photographs and pictures of what we want to do, so we can do a show 

and tell. The following week, on the day of our appointment, which happens to be my Birthday, and a no-school Wednesday, 

BF, Little  Daughter and I head to Carcasonne,  driving past the fairytale castle and getting hopelessly lost before

finally trudging the last bit in the cold wind until we find the modern, not very architectally stunning offices on the side

of a grey river. 

What we most want  is permission for a pretty balcony, and to leave our little gite unrendered, to show off it’s 

pretty stone walls. If he won’t let us have a balcony, says BF, I’ll just haul him over the desk. I can’t be doing with all this 

permissions nonsense.

We are shown through to a tiny office, where a small elegantly neat man with a  pointy grey beard, our architect de Batiment, 

joins  us. As I try to stop LD  grabbing the hole punch and the stapler I ask the architect if he speaks English? Anglais? he 

answers,  Non. Great, I think. Taking a deep breath, and trying not to look panicked, I take the stapler away from LD  and go

through what we want, starting with the balcony on the first floor, so that our guests can sit and watch the canal. 

A pretty one, like this, we say, showing him the pictures we have collected of typical French local balconies. Un Balcon? Says 

the architect, looking at us, not even glancing at the photos,  'Oui', we answer, hopefully smiling. 'Non', he says. 'Ce n’est pas 

possible'. We pause. I don't look at BF, who is busy relieving Little Daughter of more stationary. Ah, Ok. We would like to 

finish the outside in its original stone rather than render.  Is this possible? 'Non', he says.' Ce n’est pas possible'. It crosses my 

mind that he is having a joke on us, forgetting that the French don’t really do jokes, but he looks very serious, and when I ask 

him again, just to check,  he says non again, just the same, no smile, no joke. 

Finally we have a breakthrough. Can we put in some windows? 'Its possible', he says, like this, and expertly draws

windows, one above the other, the top ones smaller than the bottom. We can have more windows as long as they were 

‘equilibre’ – bigger on the lower floors, smaller as they go up, with their centre lines running the same from top to

bottom. How long will it take for permission to come through, we ask. 'Troi mois', he answers. Can we speed it up at all I say? 

'non', he says, 'trois mois'.

We haven't got much that we wanted, but it's still my birthday when we leave so we go to the fairytale castle and sit in a chintzy 

restaurant full of Americans and Germans where we have a very bad cassoulet and a very good glass of rose, and

then walk about a bit in the howling chill wind under the grey sky, looking a the batiments until finally we get too cold and 

head for home.

Now we can get on and write our preable, a detailed document with photographs and and drawings and plans in a special 

format. Once we've done that we only have to copy all of it seven times in colour, and hand it to the marie and hope that we 

can start building in three months. We try to be cheerful. But as we drive back through bleak windswept vineyards I'm thinking 

oh my god, we can’t do what we want to do, what have we done? Then I think I’ve left England, I’ve spent all this money and 

got this huge mortgage, and I still haven’t got a horse, which is all I really want in the first place.

When we get back, wheezy Jean from next door has left a plant  on our doorstep, and the light has started to shimmer 

on the canal as a watery sun makes it’s way through the opening clouds, and the geese are honking. And suddenly the 

sense of possibility returns, the hope that we can create a good life here, that the children will get an education away from the 

endless celebrity culture swamping Britain, and as the wind finally drops and the evening sun comes

through a bit more there is the thought of the days of sunshine, even in January when the air is warm, and everyone lunches 

outside and SD  bombs off round the village on her bike in a way she never could in England in our busy

town, and suddenly, shivering, on our step overlooking one of the best views on the Midi, I know why we are here.

Jan 08.

‘I just want to be normal’, wails Little Daughter, hanging onto me as I grip the jerking 

wheel of the Espace, ‘its too difficult Mummy, I want to be able to talk to my friends. 

Why are we here?’

We’re driving through windswept Languedoc vineyards under a harsh grey sky on the

way to school. When you read about families taking the plunge and moving to 

France, you tend not to hear about the endless cold, the uncomfortable, unrenovated

and unheated houses, how the children miss talking to their mates in a language they

actually understand, and how learning French does not, in fact, happen overnight, or

even in a few months. 

Winter in the South of France has taken us all by surprise, and small daughters not the only one

who’s fed up. BF has taken to silently wandering around with a

sledgehammer, hammering down walls in what will be our upstairs, and Teenage

Daughter locks herself in her room whenever she’s not at school, emerging

occasionally to eat, or to shout at someone (no change there then). And bedtime is

early. Very early. Teenage daughters school starts at 8, so we’re all up when it’s still dark, and

after a day fixing up the gite in the howling winds we’re ready for bed by nine. Apart

from fatigue, bed is the warmest place. Our house is very cold - the 1970s tiles that

line its floors are built for the super hot summers, and there is no proper heating, no

fire, no burner. The French must be a hardy lot is all I can think when I step shivering

into our freezing unheated bathroom each morning.  

December probably wasn’t the best time to move to this pretty medieval village billed

as the ‘jewel in the crown’ of the Canal du Midi. Before we bought it, our house had

been in the same family for the last one hundred years, and decorated to look like a

tacky nightclub in the last twenty. We have a big project ahead of us and a lot of

adjusting to do. A big house, a small house, a big scruffy garden, and a courtyard

overlooking the canal. It’s a dream lifestyle change and a fantastic renovation

opportunity, or to use BFs phrase, it’s a derelict - actually two derelicts.

 

The small house will become a gite and the plan is to do that up first so we can rent it,

to get some cash. This means living in the big house as it is, complete with no heating,

not enough bedrooms, green velvet walls, carpet on the ceiling. Picture a beautiful

classic French house with all it’s original features and then picture a nineteen eighties

conversion with all the features ripped out, and that’s us. We’re the house they crop

out in the thousands of photos, which are taken here every year. On top of that BF

and I sleep in the front room, as for reasons I can’t quite remember we didn’t factor in

the current lack of bedrooms when we bought it, and we gave Teenage Daughter the best and

biggest, because she is the teenager, instead of insisting the kids share. Yes, you can

question the logic. So Little Daughter also has her own room, but at least we get the

telly, and the view.

All our stuff is still in England, along with all our cash, which is actually not cash at

all, but bricks and mortar in the flat we didn’t sell before we left, which was a minute

or two before the biggest property crash in the last twenty years. We moved for

warmth, and an easier style of living, a way to be closer as a family, especially for me,

because I was a busy television producer, giving an exhausting hundred and ten 

percent in all the wrong directions, and I never got to see my kids. I was so exhausted

that  when me and kids went camping, I ended up in hospital with severe pneumonia. 

So I decided to call my hectic-have-it-all-life a day. I stopped buying, stopped

working and looked for something new, and now here we are in the South of 

France. And it’s bloody hard work; all in a language I can’t yet get to grips with,

despite my years of learning it, and its cold, and the kids hate it.

So right now, although I don’t tell her, I think Little Daughter has a point and I’m not sure why 

we made the move, or what in hells name I’m doing driving an ailing Espace (believe

them when they say that Espaces go wrong a lot) across a pitted vineyard road, living

off loads of borrowed money, and freezing cold.