The Parachute Opens

The day following the storm dawned clear and very still.

It was an unusual stillness, as if the whole landscape was under sedation, sleeping off the cuts and bruises inflicted by the big windy bully the day before. There was a sense of everything holding its breath and being scared to make the slightest movement, for fear of attracting the angry attention of the sleeping wind, and provoking another onslaught of gale and destruction.

The llamas were out of their shelters, grazing greedily on the unexpected booty of broken leafy branches which the wind had kindly picked from the tops of tall trees and laid about the fields like hors d’oeuvres at a forage buffet. And the tractors and JCBs were out of their sheds hoisting and munching fallen trees that the wind had tumbled into roads and rivers across its weather-beaten domain.

At 3.30pm, when my sister and her husband had arrived for their second spell of much-appreciated llama-duty, we once again headed north on the seemingly interminable drive to the wilds of the Allier, where we would be signing the Compromis de Vente on the House of Our Dreams the next day.

The first part of our journey took us across some of a favourite bits of the Aude and Herault countryside, while it was still light enough for us to appreciate the scenery and reminisce about how we had fallen in love with this part of France a decade ago. Looking back, it was strange to see how much our dreams have changed in that time. When we first started looking for a holiday house to buy, we were convinced that we wanted to live in a village with some shops, and a busy street market, and a bar where we could spend the hot, sunny days sitting with a cold beer or a glass of the local wine, watching the world go by. We had even come pretty close to buying a small village house on a main street, where lorries and holiday-makers’ cars thundered past in a constant stream of vehicular stimulation.

We thought of all the houses we had coveted and not been able to afford, and the one we had decided to go for, but disappointingly lost,  pipped at the post by other purchasers who had got their offer just before us. We thought about the soft pink yellow of the landscape and the rock and the soil and the houses, and the smell of wild thyme and rosemary, and the blue, blue skies, and the green, green pines and vines. We thought about the looming mountains, fading into purple distances in a hundred hues of overlapping lilac grey. We thought about cicadas chirrupping their summer-holiday riff in the balmy evenings, and the low sun setting all the stones aglow in shifting orange pinks. And we thought how completely odd it was that we were now heading away from this erstwhile Land of Dreams to buy a house in an area that we have only visited once, for three days about six weeks ago, when the fog was so dense that we could barely see the road in front of us, let alone the low, rolling landscape surrounding us on all sides with field upon field of frosty wet green brown.

The next day, we decided to check out this New World into which we had somewhat randomly stumbled, after the Shah of Chance had taken our lives and hopes, shaken them in his clenched fist of Happenstance, and cast us merrily into the uncertain lap of Opportunity. What brought us here was another, very different Dream. A dream of calm and solitude, surrounded by our family of animals, and of land to be worked and nurtured, where we can live in harmony with nature, in tune with the seasons, and in peace with ourselves. A place where we can Be. It is less of a dream about what, and more of a dream about how.

But we will still need to shop occasionally and venture outside of our small kingdom for other practical and pleasurable reasons.

So we spent the day quartering the area, checking out the location of the nearest supermarkets, admiring the architecture of the largest towns, and meandering alongside heron-suffused river banks, gradually spiralling inwards towards the village nearest to the house,
and then to the lanes around the little area known as Blanchetière, which is the address of Our House-to-be.

By 4.00pm, when we were due at the house to view it once more before going to the Notaire at Moulins to sign the Compromis, we were cold, tired and both still suffering from caffeine-withdrawal headaches. So we were quite relieved when we arrived at the house and were greeted by the estate agent explaining that, because the vendors had no transport, he was planning to do all the formalities and signing of the paperwork here at the house and then take it to the Notaire himself for finalising. After exchanging a few French pleasantries with the young couple who own the house, we were left to our own devices with our camera and tape measure, while the agent got himself organised for the tedious bureacratic task ahead of him.

During the trip up the motorway, as we had contemplated our imminent second visit to the house, I had commented on the fact that we would almost certainly find the house to be smaller, nastier and needing more work than we had remembered. I’ve viewed enough houses in my time to know how it works, and, sure enough, this visit was no exception. The rooms that had seemed simple, rustic and tidily furnished, now appeared shabby, unkempt and dilapidated. The kitchen area was much smaller than we had remembered, and the wiring more dodgy-looking. And despite the fact that the wood stove had been burning for hours (we had seen the smoke coming from the chimney on our numerous drive-bys earlier in the day), the house was cold.

Expecting that the paperwork should not take too long (after all, this was an informal meeting, with no Notaire present to be officiously pedantic about every clause), we agreed that we would complete the signing of the Compromis before going outside in our wellingtons to look at the garden, outbuildings and – most importantly – the land, so that the agent would not have to wait around.

BIG mistake. The agent had only one copy of the draft, (and had to borrow my ‘You-feel-calmer-when-you-walk-a-llama’ pen, because he didn’t have one) and insisted on reading aloud every single word of the ten page document. Luckily, Simon was sitting next to him, and could follow the text over his shoulder, which meant that he could be reasonably certain he wasn’t missing anything of significance. I, on the other hand, found it almost impossible to maintain attention to the task. I listened to the names and occupations of the the young couple sat opposite me. She was ‘an artist’ – no surprise there. He was, supposedly, an electrician. I glanced at the strange and wonderful wiring system that adorned the room and was less than convinced. The agent’s French was fast, stumbly and largely incomprehensible to me. I was cold, tired, hungry and my head hurt. And I really wanted to be outside looking at the garden. I tried to remain alert. I tried to appear interested. But my eyes kept wandering to the window at the back of the room, as I tried inconspicuously to get a glimpse of the view over the field in the failing light. And each time I looked at the window, the owner of the house, who unnervingly has eyes that point in different directions, so you can never be quite sure what he is looking at, or whether you have established contact with his focussing eye, would turn suddenly to follow the direction of my gaze, as if thinking I must have seen something unusual or remarkable in some way.

And then we hit a hitch. The process of the selling of a house with a septic tank apparently requires the owner to explain to the purchaser where the tank is located, and to certify that he has done the regular maintenance tasks that are necessary. We asked where the tank was. The owners shrugged. They have lived in the house for two years, but had no knowledge of the whereabouts or state of repair of the fosse septique. Although they had understood that everything worked fine when they bought the house from the children of the previous owners, they had never had cause to find out, because, in order to live an eco-friendly life with a composting toilet and recycling ‘grey’ water from the washbasin and so on, they had disconnected the internal plumbing from the outflow pipes to the tank and sealed them up.

We took a break while the agent hastily consulted the Notaire by phone. This was highly irregular. We couldn’t all sign a document saying we’d done something we hadn’t done. The agent talked on the phone at length. Simon listened. I stroked the cat and fidgeted. The owner tried to put a too-large log into his too-small wood-burning stove. His partner proffered unhelpful advice. “Pousse” she exclaimed in artistic exasperation, as smoke billowed into the room and shards of burning wood fell on the sleeping cat. Suddenly aware that we were sitting in the near dark, the owner switched on a light that cast a slightly brighter dullness over the unfolding events.

The agent returned to the table. Everyone’s attention returned to the tedious task in hand. The agent began to try to alter the wording about the septic tank. Simon and the artist pointed out that, if taken literally, the current wording still described the situation. They had indeed given us all their  information about the septic tank, and we were happy to say we had received all the information they had about it (which was none, but still all). The slightly uncomfortable-about-this-all agent bowed to pressure. The reading-out-loud resumed. I struggled with a Tourette-like compulsion to keep looking at the window to see if it would make the strange-eyed guy turn round again. I picked up the unmistakeable and yet utterly incomprehensible utterance of Numbers in French. The talk had turned to money. We were discussing the penalty clause of 10k euros should either side renege on the deal.

At long, long last we reached the actual signing part of the process. Taking turns with the calmer-llama pen, we each signed every page of every part of the Compromis, and just to add to the interminable surreality of the moment, Simon and I also signed every page of every subsection of every section of the ‘expertises’ , writing on each that we had ‘pris connaissance’ of the contents of the reports. Thus we confirmed that we knew that the wiring was old and not-to-current-standards, and that various aspects of it might be dangerous; that we knew the house was hopelessly energy inefficient; that we knew that the roof of one of the outbuildings contained asbestos; and that the internal paintwork of the house contained lead (which we agreed to ensure would not be eaten by children). We confirmed that we understood all this, and that we didn’t give a damn – we still intended to buy the house anyway.

I scribbled a final illegible signature to the last page, and triumphantly tossed the finished-with pen on to the table. We all clapped with relief, like Ryanair passengers at the completion of a rocky, but ultimately safe landing. With a last reminder of our rights with regard to the 7-day cooling-off period, the agent bade his hand-shaking farewells and left Simon and I to make our twilight tour of the land.

In the rapidly diminishing light and increasing damp cold, we walked the boundary of the 2.2 hectares, followed much of the way by two hopeful horses and a donkey. We realised with some disappointment that the land was in worse condition than we had appreciated, (much of it had been hidden by a light covering of snow on our last visit), and would need A Lot Of Work to turn it back into good pasture. We discovered that the stream was in full winter flow, and realised we may have to do something about improving the drainage on the very wet field near the western boundary. We discovered that all but one of the owner’s chickens had been killed by a fox, and our vision of our happy hens free-ranging around the idyllic farmyard went up in a puff of feathery smoke. And as we stood cloudily contemplating the work that the land and its fencing would require, it all suddenly seemed so much bigger than we had remembered.

And so did the trees. I had remembered that there were a lot of them around the boundaries and dotted about the land – after all, it was largely the call of the trees that had convinced me that this was the house for us. You have to have trees, if there is to be any chance of fairies living at the bottom of your garden. But looking at them now, we were newly impressed by the scale of them. Like the oak trees in Markeaton Park, you only realise just how big they are when you stand underneath one and stare up into the topmost branches – when you really look at them. It will be good to make our home in the midst of these wonderful, ancient, living things.

As the last rays of cold winter light disappeared over the black tree-stippled horizon, we exchanged phone numbers and a few more halting bits of conversation with the strange-eyed owner. We discovered that they were not moving to another house, but were buying a ‘roulotte’ (a horse-drawn caravan) to go travelling – they knew not where. We discovered that one of their three cats was pregnant, and got the strong impression that the cats may very well still be there when we move in.

And finally, we waved a temporary goodbye to the house that will soon be our home, and drove silently back to the hotel, where we fell into a headachey torpor of overwhelm, and decided to dine on crisps, clementines and a couple of warm bottles of alcohol-free beer, instead of venturing our for the celebratory dinner that we had promised ourselves.

And we agreed not to talk about it until the following day, when a good night’s sleep, a few hours of subconscious mental processing, and the fact that we would be heading home to our waiting animals would have lifted our spirits, and raised the phoenix of our Dream out of the ashes of the reality-check we had just endured.

The free-falling is over. And the parachute has opened with one hell of a jerk.