The day was brighter than the previous one, but as I drove to Frasquenet, I noted that the landscape still looked remarkably desolate, compared to the way it had looked in the summer. I was relieved to find that the smell had not returned to the house, but I opened the shutters and windows anyway to let the building breath. An hour later I visited one of the two general stores, in the village, where I purchased a plastic bucket, a sponge and a roll of bin liners. It was not long before the bin liners were full of stripped wallpaper.
Later in Frasquenet, with the first job done, I sat down and wrote out my shopping list, two double beds, one double bunk bed, three chests of drawers, one wardrobe, one kitchen table with six chairs, two sofas, one stepladder, paint to seal damp walls, paintbrush and various light fittings.
I locked up the house and drove to Narbonne, where I quickly discovered that the two hour midday siesta applied in winter as well as summer. Unable to make my purchases until the shops re opened at two o’clock, I settled instead for a piece of buttered baguette filled with mountain ham and a cup of coffee, at a cafe in Narbonne’s main square.
I purchased a local paper and looked for adverts for second hand furniture shops. By six o’clock that evening I was driving back to Agde, having delivered the stepladder, paintbrush and some very expensive lead based paint to the house in Frasquenet.
The living room before we took possession
I had been disappointed to find, that unlike England, in Narbonne, there was not a plethora of Edwardian furniture to be had for a song. The few shops I had found displaying the words “brocante” either had massive, very old and hence expensive items of furniture, more suited to the chateau of my dreams, than to our little terraced village house, or that the furniture was cheap, damaged and made of chipboard and hence did not suit the atmosphere I wanted to create.
Later that evening I discussed the problem with Dick. He had decided to buy most of what he needed, second hand at auctions in England and ship it. Since both Jane and I had full time jobs, I felt we would not have the time to search for suitable items, so I started to contemplate buying new furniture made of pine. Although I would have preferred older furniture, pine in my experience darkens quite rapidly and looks quite rustic after not too many years.
A little after 8pm, Dick declared the decorating of his house complete and hence he and Mike would accompany me to Frasquenet the following day. We found a restaurant, where we celebrated their achievements. Dick and Mike treated themselves to the seventy five franc menu, while I who had lashed out so much money that day on two pots of anti damp paint, traded down from the previous evening, to a one hundred franc menu.
Later we toured the bars of Agde, drinking beers with pastis chasers. Clearly we must have had quite a few of these, because in one bar we tried to improve our French, by engaging three girls in conversation. This seemed to go well until they enquired about our respective ages. We obviously didn’t lie enough, because after a few mutterings of “trop vieux” to each other, they politely made their excuses and left.
We cheered ourselves up with a few more beers. Although as married men we had not been chatting them up with seductive intentions, it was a bit of a blow to find that we had aged so quickly, so we continued cheering ourselves up with some glasses of brandy.
That night, before settling into my sleeping bag, I made sure the window shutters were closed and securely fastened. After an initial period of deep sleep, I seemed to be having a restless night. Although, everything was quiet and I saw no orange flashing lights, I lay awake waiting for them.
Dick and Mike snored on. Eventually I decided to get up and make myself a cup of coffee. I switched on the kitchen light and put the kettle on. As I poured the boiling water into my cup, I glanced at my watch, it was 11am. The shutters had been more effective at keeping the world out, than I could ever have imagined.
We had overslept in a big way and eventually left for Frasquenet, four hours later than we had originally intended. After a quick tour of the house and village, we drove to the route de Perpignan, on the outskirts of Narbonne, to look over the several furniture shops, which lined the road.
Prices of new pine furniture were undoubtedly more expensive than in England, but this had to be weighed against the cost of transportation, should I buy furniture at home. I concluded that buying in Narbonne would just work out to be the slightly cheaper and more convenient option.
During our short visit to the house, Mike’s request for a cup of tea, had resulted in a kettle, mugs, tea bags, coffee and sugar being added to the shopping list. We quickly discovered that electric kettles were non existent, so I settled for one of the enamelled kettles that you boil by putting it on the stove. Even these were scarce and I wondered how French people normally went about boiling water to make their coffee. I noted that electric toasters were also non existent, but I figured that was logical since they probably don’t work too well on baguettes.
That evening to celebrate our last meal together, we all went for a 60 franc menu, back in Agde. The restaurant we had chosen had only one menu and it sounded like unbelievably good value for money, which it turned out to be.
We started with “soup de poisson”. This was served with toasted slices of French bread onto which we spread rouille, a garlic flavoured mayonnaise. This course was followed by a coarse “pate de compaigne”, which in turn was followed by a choice of steak or sole. We all went for the sole, which was small but good and had a slight aniseed flavour. We then had the cheese board and desert and were impressed that the rose wine we had drunk had been included in the price. The surroundings were basic, with bench style seating at long shared tables, but the value for money was superb.
The next morning, I bade my farewells to Dick and Mike before making my way back to Frasquenet. On my own I kept the feelings of solitude at bay by immersing myself in work on the house and acquiring the furniture on my shopping list. The expensive grey lead paint, which I had bought to help keep the damp at bay was applied. Despite keeping the windows open, the house reeked of lead and solvent, and my arms ached from brush painting the thick viscous liquid onto the living room walls.
Having read on the tin that the paint would take 24 to 48 hours to dry I had the perfect excuse to turn my attentions to the task of furnishing the house. It took a little persuasion to convince the furniture vendors of Narbonne to deliver within 48 hours and to provide at least one bed that very day. However this was eventually achieved for all the items on my initial furniture shopping list.
I was slightly worried as to how I would get the bedroom furniture, in particular the wardrobe up the narrow winding staircase to the upper floor. In the event this was obviously a common requirement, since by the time the delivery driver made me aware of his presence, the beds and wardrobe were already on the roof of his van, in the narrow street at the front of the house. From here he simply passed them to me through an upstairs bedroom window.
That night I slept in my sleeping bag in the front bedroom on one of the new beds. I didn’t remove the polythene from the mattress figuring that it should stay in place until the decorating was finished later in the year. Since the weather was cool and I was exhausted at the end of each day, I had no trouble sleeping, despite the strange slippery sensation caused by the polythene beneath me.
I lived on a diet of instant coffee, baguette, butter and ham, treating myself to a 7 franc bottle of red “Vin de Frasquenet” at the end of each day’s work. I celebrated the loneliest new years eve of my life, with a bottle of white sparkling crémant de Limoux, which I had found in one of the village’s two general grocery shops.
During my short stay at the house, I paid a numerous visits to the village shops, where I found everybody to be friendly and inquisitive. It became quickly clear that twenty years with virtually no practice, had taken it’s toll on my ability to understand and speak French. However despite the limitations everyone I came across was very helpful. By the time I left to return via Montpellier to England, I was already excited at the prospect of returning in the spring to continue the decorating and enhancing my language skills.
One thing I was concerned about was that the previous owner had hacked a rudimentary window near the barn door to let air and light into the building. My worry was that if the remaining stone work were to crumble, then much of the back wall might come crashing down. I called Dick who recommended a builder he know from the UK who was doing work in the area. Dick had already engaged him to build a rood terrace in his house in Agde. I duly called and explained what I wanted done, got a quote and agreed to it.
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